ACMHA Announces Distinguished Service Awards

Albuquerque, NM, March 13, 2006 – The American College of Mental Health Administration (ACMHA), an independent professional membership organization of mental health administrators from a broad variety of professional disciplines, announced today the recipients of its 2006 Saul Feldman Award for Lifetime Achievement, Barton Distinguished Fellow Award, and ACMHA Award for Distinguished Service. Awardees are honored by the Board of Directors during the ACMHA Santa Fe Summit on Behavioral Health convened each March in Santa Fe, NM.

Mr. John A. Morris, Jr., MSW, was honored with the Saul Feldman Award for Lifetime Achievement. The award, the highest given by the College, honors an individual whose achievements, contributions, and administrative leadership in organizations or in policy formation have significantly advanced the mental health field.

Morris’ colleagues, in nominating him for the award, noted “John has been a thoughtful leader and innovator at both the local and national level. He… has exemplified throughout his career the importance of consensus building and collaboration. As a pragmatic idealist, he has repeatedly demonstrated his devotion to the development of a solid empirical base for the organization of service delivery system and treatment methodology.”

“John is a gifted professional in the full sense of that word – skilled in organizational planning and management, written and oral communication, political savvy in governmental affairs, as well as public and private bureaucracies. He is a consummate visionary in his professional practice and has always integrated his values in both his public and private life.”

Mr. Morris is Professor and Director of Health Policy Studies, Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Science, University of South Carolina School of Medicine. He also serves as Vice Chair of the Annapolis Coalition, an independent non-profit organization whose mission is to build a national consensus on the nature of the behavioral health workforce crisis and to promote improvements in the quality and relevance of education and training. Additionally, Morris serves as senior policy consultant for Comprehensive NeuroScience, Inc. and is the director of the Human Services Practice of the Technical Assistance Collaborative. Morris is also on the Board of Directors of the National Mental Health Association and is a member of the Advisory Council to the Georgetown University National Technical Assistance for Children’s Mental Health. He is the immediate past-president of the South Carolina Action Council for Cross Cultural Mental Health and Human Services and is a member of the Mental Health Policy Research Network of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Mr. Morris is a past president of the American College of Mental Health Administration.

The Barton Distinguished Fellow Award honors Mr. Bruce Bronzan and Mr. Afshin Khosravi, founders, Trilogy Integrated Resources. Trilogy Integrated Resources LLC is a company dedicated to improving information and communication in the health and social service fields at the community level by establishing one-stop information places centered on highly interactive, community-based web sites. These virtual communities are designed to arm consumers and their families with access to comprehensive information, advocacy and other resources to empower them to make the best, most informed decisions possible regarding needed care in their lives and to enable the service delivery community to better deal with the problems of fragmentation through the use of extremely effective tools.

Mr. Bronzan founded and directed a substance abuse treatment program and served as a county supervisor for eight years. He was a member of the California State Legislature, and chairman of the Health Committee, for 10 years. He served as associate dean of the Medical School at the University of California San Francisco and was a senior vice president of Birch and Davis Health Management Corp. prior to becoming founder and president of Trilogy.

Mr. Khosravi, founder and chief executive officer, had a distinguished career in international business, focusing on high technology, computer and Internet technologies, and information system integration, before he founded his own company, Local Communities Network. He specialized in the development of highly innovative and interactive web sites and virtual online communities for business as well as community-based organizations serving the poor and disadvantaged. This included the donation of hundreds of web sites to nonprofit organizations.

ACMHA has been privileged to be one of the nonprofit organizations whose web site was designed and is maintained by Trilogy Integrated Resources.

The College has also chosen to honor Ronald Manderschied, PhD, with the ACMHA Award for Distinguished Service. Manderschied currently serves as Director of Mental Health and Substance Use Programs for Constella Group, NC. He recently retired from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) where he most recently served as chief of the Survey and Analysis Branch within the Center for Mental Health Services.
Dr. Manderscheid’s career has spanned a broad range of activities. He served as chief of mental health services research, mental health statistics, and evaluation research programs at the National Institute of Mental Health. He later became the chief of mental health statistics and IT at the Center for Mental Health Services within SAMHSA. He also served as a senior policy advisor on health care reform in the office of the Health and Human Services (HHS) Assistant Secretary for Health.

He is particularly noted for his work with the consumer and family communities and for introducing consumer participation in federal work groups and consumer assessments of mental health care. Such assessments are now commonplace in the field. Dr. Manderschied was critical to the involvement and support of consumers and families within the College, assuring their participation at the Santa Fe Summit through support from SAMHSA. “Without his dedication to ACMHA and consumer involvement, stated ACMHA Board President Sandra L. Forquer, PhD, “the College would be less successful in its goal to transform the field of behavioral healthcare and the services provided to individuals, families, and communities.” Dr. Manderschied has provided national leadership in advancing the role of information technology as a key element in the transformation of mental health delivery and its systems of care.

The American College of Mental Health Administration was founded in 1979 to advance the field of mental health and substance abuse administration and to promote the continuing education of clinical professionals in the areas of administration and policy. In 1996, ACMHA's the College voted to serve as a neutral forum for development of consensus on challenging issues facing the behavioral health field. More information about ACMHA is available at www.acmha.org.

Press Contact:
Kris Ericson, PhD, Executive Director
American College of Mental Health Administration
7804 Loma del Norte Rd NE
Albuquerque, NM 87109
505-822-5038
executive.director@acmha.org