2027 Pediatric Behavioral Health Summit

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overview

Post-pandemic pediatric mental health data tells a story that should alarm every leader in this field. Antidepressant prescriptions for girls ages 6-12 jumped 137% after 2020. Depression diagnoses among adolescent females spiked. Yet this surge reflects something more than pandemic trauma, it exposed systems that were already broken.

New research adds another dimension: unpredictable home environments—inconsistent routines, changing caregivers, uncertainty about what comes next—drive mental health crisis just as powerfully as abuse or neglect. Yet most screening tools miss it entirely. The promising part? This one’s actionable. Families can create consistency. Routines matter. But treatment systems remain structured around specialists most kids can’t reach.

Racial and ethnic disparities in care access haven’t budged despite telehealth expansion. Rural kids wait months for specialists who may not exist. Workforce burnout continues decimating programs. Insurance denials block treatment at higher rates than any other healthcare sector.

This summit moves past problem-cataloging toward what actually works. You’ll hear from researchers reshaping our understanding of childhood adversity. You’ll meet program leaders who’ve figured out workforce retention and sustainable funding when others are collapsing. You’ll work with peers tackling identical challenges. The conversations center on what’s proven and what’s actionable, not what should work in theory but what delivers results for actual kids in actual communities.

Agenda

Day One – Monday, March 15, 2027

7:15am – 8:00am
Conference Registration & Networking Breakfast

8:00am – 8:15am
Chairperson's Opening Remarks

8:15am – 9:00am
Bridging Primary Prevention and Risk Management for Youth Across the Continuum of Care
Substance use disorder is a pediatric-onset disease, with nine in 10 adults with SUDs having initiated their use before age 18, a fact that underscores the need for primary prevention and early intervention. Employing a public health approach to addiction also requires removing traditional siloed thinking about individual substances and pushing back against the assumption that adolescent substance use is inevitable. This session will take a fresh look at nationally representative data on youth substance use behaviors that show for adolescents, all substance use is closely connected, and that more than ever, young people are choosing not to use substances. Rather than the traditional "either/or" approach to primary prevention and risk management, both are needed to effectively engage young people in their own self-care, including those in and seeking recovery, and to combat the ongoing national overdose crisis.

Join a dynamic conversation about the need for a clear public health standard of substance non-use for youth under 21 that is aligned with the recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics in its policy on screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT), and that does not stigmatize, but instead embraces, young people who need support for substance use problems. This session will challenge providers across the continuum of care to identify ways to actively incorporate health-focused prevention messages in their practice. Together, by preventing or delaying the onset of substance use and helping young people access the information and resources needed to make wise choices for their future health and well-being, ultimately, we can reduce the prevalence of substance use disorder.

Caroline DuPont, MD
Vice President
Institute for Behavior and Health

9:00am – 9:45am
Cross-System Collaboration: Breaking Silos That Block Care
School-based behavioral health systems require seamless coordination across schools, families, behavioral health providers, universities and state agencies. Yet siloed practices, unclear roles and competing priorities frequently fragment care coordination and limit access to services. Drawing from Project AWARE, a SAMHSA-funded initiative strengthening school-based behavioral health systems in Mississippi, this session explores the barriers that prevent effective cross-system collaboration and evidence-based strategies to overcome them. Participants will learn from frontline experience and aggregated findings from project directors and principal investigators working to integrate behavioral health into schools. The session addresses role clarity, workforce development, prevention and early intervention coordination and partnership-building approaches that help systems work together rather than in isolation. Attendees will gain practical frameworks for identifying collaboration barriers within their own settings and building bridges across organizational boundaries to better serve children's mental health.

Erica Cattenhead, MHA
Project Director, Advancing Wellness and Resiliency in Education (AWARE)
Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior/Center for the Advancement of Youth (CAY)
University of Mississippi Medical Center

9:45am – 10:15am
Networking & Refreshments Break

10:15am – 11:00am
Rising Diagnoses of ADHD and Autism: Clinical Implications and Practice Response
The prevalence of ADHD and autism spectrum disorder diagnoses has risen dramatically, creating clinical and operational challenges for pediatric providers. This session examines what's driving these trends, explores clinical implications for screening and treatment, and discusses how the Child Psychiatry Advocacy Network (CPAN) addresses access to psychiatric care. Participants will gain context for managing increased diagnostic demand while maintaining clinical accuracy and resource allocation across pediatric behavioral health settings.

Steven R. Pliszka, MD
Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Joe R and Theresa Long Lozano School of Medicine
UT Health San Antonio

11:00am – 11:45am
Parenting, Recovery, and the Child's Environment: Understanding Parental Substance Use Disorder Through a Family Lens
Parental substance use disorder can significantly shape a child’s environment, relationships, routines, and sense of stability. While pediatric behavioral health and adult SUD treatment often serve different members of the same family, understanding what happens within the parent’s treatment and recovery process can provide important context for understanding the child’s experience. This session explores parental SUD and recovery through a family lens, including how changes in caregiving, routines, family roles, and relationships may affect children—and how stability can be intentionally rebuilt during recovery. Drawing from frontline experience working with parents in SUD treatment and a practical parenting curriculum developed for this population, presenters will share what recovery can look like within the larger family system. By bringing together perspectives from adult addiction treatment and pediatric behavioral health, the session will highlight opportunities to better understand family strengths, recognize recovery as a family process, and consider how greater consistency, predictability, and connection can support children and families.

Rachel Sasseville, LICSW, LADC-I
Executive Director of Clinical Development & Training
Spectrum Health Systems

Jennifer Zachary
Massachusetts State Director for Correctional Treatment Services
Spectrum Health Systems

11:45am – 12:30pm
Building Sustainable Youth Recovery Programs: From Vision to Impact
Starting a youth recovery program requires clarity about mission, trauma-informed design, accountability infrastructure, staff development and engagement with policy systems. Drawing from Serenity Mesa's experience, this session explores what it takes to build programs where young people heal and develop inner strength. Participants will learn how to establish trauma-informed foundations, structure operations around accountability, develop staff capacity to understand evolving substance use patterns, create safe healing cultures and build relationships with government entities for advocacy. Attendees will gain strategic frameworks and practical insights into building recovery programs that transform young people's lives.

David Burke
Founder and COO
Serenity Mesa Youth Recovery Center

Jennifer Burke
Founder and CEO
Serenity Mesa Youth Recovery Center

12:30pm – 1:30pm
Networking Lunch

1:30pm – 2:15pm
The Case for Radical Pragmatism: How to Lead When Resources Will Never Be Enough
Every leader faces the same impossible math: demand exceeds capacity, funding is perpetually insufficient and burnout is decimating the workforce. Leaders who've built sustainable impact accept scarcity as permanent reality and learn what's actually possible within genuine constraints. This session explores how to deprioritize strategically, build programs that improve incrementally, and lead when resources never match needs. Dr. Reynolds draws from nearly four decades building innovative health and human services programs and his personal journey as a two-time cancer survivor and Ironman triathlete—experiences that taught him perseverance and clarity of purpose matter far more than perfect conditions. Attendees will gain practical frameworks for sustainable leadership and renewed conviction about what's possible within the constraints they face.

Jeffrey L. Reynolds, PhD
President/CEO
Family & Children’s Association (FCA)

2:15pm – 3:15pm
Panel: Panel: Whose Job Is It? Getting Families, Clinicians and Systems on the Same Page
A child moves between school counselors, primary care, behavioral health, substance use treatment and sometimes child welfare, and each system tends to act as if it's the only one in the room. Parents are often treated as an afterthought rather than a partner, even though outcomes shift when families are engaged from the first visit. This panel brings together leaders working different corners of the same problem to discuss what real coordination looks like in practice, not in theory: where responsibility should sit when systems disagree, how to bring parents into treatment planning without tokenizing their input and which "collaboration" efforts actually work versus which are just another meeting on the calendar.

Panelists:
Erica Cattenhead, MHA
Project Director, Advancing Wellness and Resiliency in Education (AWARE)
Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior/Center for the Advancement of Youth (CAY)
University of Mississippi Medical Center

Mason S. Turner, MD, DFASAM
Senior Medical Director, Enterprise, Behavioral Health Clinical Program
Intermountain Health

3:15pm – 3:45pm
Networking & Refreshments Break

3:45pm – 4:30pm
Substance Use in Youth When Mental Health and Trauma are the Root
Youth rarely use substances only because they enjoy the effects. Trauma, depression, anxiety and other mental health concerns can make functioning seemingly impossible for adolescents. Substances temporarily quiet minds and numb pain but can have devastating consequences. In spite of the connection between use of substances and mental health, substance use specialists and mental health clinicians typically operate in silos and rarely collaborate. This session cuts through the nonsense of disjointed care. What does integrated assessment look like? How do you treat trauma and substance use simultaneously rather than pretending they're sequential? Topics to be discussed will include:

Comprehensive assessment identifying underlying mental health and trauma
Sequencing treatment when multiple conditions demand attention
Family education helping parents see the full picture
Trauma-focused intervention within substance use treatment

Mason S. Turner, MD, DFASAM
Senior Medical Director, Enterprise, Behavioral Health Clinical Program
Intermountain Health

4:30pm – 5:15pm
Caring for the Dyad: Bringing Pediatrics into Maternal Substance Use Treatment and Recovery
Substance use disorder is a complex disease that affects mother and infant together, and care works best when it does too. This session makes the case that the conversation must start prior to delivery, and that pediatric providers belong in the maternal treatment and recovery pathway from the start. The presentation covers mother-infant dyadic care from pregnancy through the postpartum period and into childhood. Attendees will leave with practical ideas for strengthening coordination between pediatric, maternal health and treatment partners.

Catherine "Kate" Dobler
State Opioid Treatment Authority (SOTA)
Women's Services Network Coordinator (WSN-C)
Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System

5:15pm
End of Day One

Day Two – Tuesday, March 16, 2027

7:15am – 8:00am
Networking Breakfast

8:00am – 8:15am
Chairperson's Recap

8:15am – 9:00am
Reaching Rural Kids: When There's No Specialist for 200 Miles
Rural adolescents wait months or years for child psychiatrists who may not exist in their region. Pediatricians become de facto behavioral health providers despite lacking training. School counselors are overwhelmed. Families drive hours for appointments, often to emergency departments as last resort. This isn't sustainable and frankly it's not necessary. Training rural pediatricians to handle common behavioral health conditions significantly increases capacity without relying on specialist shortage solutions. Telepsychiatry connects isolated kids to distant specialists when local expertise doesn't exist. Creating peer support networks and community-based programs works when professional clinical care is impossible. This session focuses on models actually effective in rural context, not urban programs downsized but rural-specific solutions addressing different infrastructure, economics and available resources.

Lisa Hunter Romanelli, PhD
Chief Executive Officer
The Reach Institute

9:00am – 9:45am
Parents as Partners Not Obstacles
Child mental health outcomes improve dramatically with parent involvement yet many programs exclude or tolerate parents rather than engaging them meaningfully. Parents become angry when shut out of treatment planning. They don't reinforce therapeutic approaches at home when they don't understand them. Youth lose benefits when families don't support recovery. This session explores engaging parents genuinely from first contact through discharge, addressing parent shame and grief when children struggle, and creating environments where families feel welcomed rather than blamed. Learn how psychoeducation helps parents understand their child's actual condition and their critical role in recovery. Examine how to address situations where parental mental health or family dynamics require attention as part of treatment.

Mayank Gupta, MD, CPE, DFAPA, DFAACAP
Chief Medical Officer
Family Psychological Associates

9:45am – 10:15am
Networking & Refreshments Break

10:15am – 11:00am
Beyond the Identified Patient: Treating Adolescent Addiction and Mental Health Within the Family Ecosystem
Adolescent addiction and mental health challenges rarely develop—or recover—in isolation. This presentation will examine behavioral health through the lens of the entire family ecosystem, exploring how family dynamics, communication patterns, trauma, boundaries, parental and sibling roles, and both healthy and unhealthy coping responses can influence an adolescent’s risk, treatment engagement, and long-term recovery. Particular attention will be given to the rapidly changing substance-use environment facing young people, including high-potency THC and easily concealed cannabis vape products, kratom and emerging kratom-derived products, counterfeit pills, fentanyl exposure, and other readily accessible psychoactive substances. Drawing from decades of clinical and organizational experience in addiction and behavioral healthcare, the session will discuss moving beyond an episodic model that treats only the identified patient toward an integrated, family-centered approach that recognizes addiction and serious behavioral health conditions as chronic, complex illnesses. Participants will leave with practical considerations for engaging families as active partners in prevention, early intervention, treatment, recovery, and long-term behavioral health.

George Massengill
President
Reach Impact Institute

11:00am – 11:45am
The Mask They Can't See: A Bereaved Parent's View of Autism and Suicide Risk
Autistic distress rarely presents the way screening tools expect. Flat affect reads as stability. A rehearsed "I'm fine" reads as insight. Shutdown and rigidity get charted as behavior rather than crisis. The teens most skilled at masking are the ones most likely to be cleared. Meanwhile autism services and behavioral health hold the same child and seldom speak to each other. This session offers a bereaved parent's perspective on recognizing crisis earlier and creating the safe, non-clinical places where neurodivergent teens can find support. No one should have to disappear to belong.

Samara Tricarico
Co-Founder and Executive Director
Endurant Movement

11:45am – 12:30pm
Evidence-Based Care at Scale: It's Not About the Clinicians, It's About the Systems
High-performing programs don't depend on heroic clinicians overcoming broken systems. They build systems where evidence-based care becomes the default. Every child gets evidence-based assessment. Treatments follow established protocols. Progress is measured continuously. This session examines the infrastructure needed for this to work.

Aaron Krasner, MD
Founder and Medical Director, The Krasner Institute
Yale School of Medicine

12:30pm
Conference Concludes

Workshop - Tuesday, March 16, 2027

12:45pm – 2:45pm
Workshop:
Beyond Heroics: Good Clinicians Need Good Systems
Behavioral health organizations are facing a difficult workforce reality. Clinicians want to feel that they can do great work, but when complicated workflows, conflicting expectations, administrative burden, and systems that create unintended barriers consistently interfere with patient care, staff are more likely to disengage, burn out, or leave. These same barriers can also contribute to missed opportunities for client engagement, inconsistent treatment implementation, documentation challenges, and poorer patient outcomes.

High-quality care should not depend on clinicians repeatedly compensating for system gaps through personal heroics. This interactive workshop focuses on practical, low-cost ways leaders can build systems that enable clinicians to provide high-quality care and improve patient outcomes in real-world conditions, not just when staffing is optimal, resources are plentiful, and everything goes according to plan. Participants will leave with a practical framework for identifying system barriers, prioritizing improvement opportunities, and implementing realistic changes that strengthen workforce sustainability while improving the consistency, quality, and outcomes of care for children, youth, and families.

The goal is to move beyond "we know it's not ideal, just do your best" and instead create processes, expectations, supervision, and supports that make high-quality care achievable on the hard days, in the difficult cases, and in the day-to-day reality of pediatric behavioral health.

Andrea Lustfield, MA, LPC-S
Founder & Clinical Behavioral Health Consultant
Fearless Journey Counseling & Consulting, PLLC

Who Should Attend

From Schools/Universities/Mental Health Facilities/Community Health Centers/Recovery Centers/Law Enforcement/Social Media/Hospitals/Health Systems/Health Plans