HEALTH EQUITY IMPACT PROGRAM: 988: Opportunity for Equitable Behavioral Health Access?

Brandon J. Johnson, M.H.S., MCHES is a tireless advocate for positive mental health and suicide prevention services for youth and adults across the country. Brandon earned a Bachelor of Science Degree from Morgan State University in 2008 and a Master of Health Science Degree from Johns Hopkins University in 2012. In 2020, Brandon earned the Master Certified Health Education Specialist (MCHES) credential from the National Commission for Health Education Credentialing. Currently, he serves as a Public Health Advisor at the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in the Suicide Prevention Branch at the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS). In this role, Brandon serves as a Government Project Officer (GPO) for various suicide prevention grant programs that respectively target youth, adults, and health care systems. Brandon is the Program Lead of the Garrett Lee Smith State/Tribal Suicide Prevention Program which provides grants for states, tribes, and territories to reduce suicides among youth and young adults between the ages of 10-24.  Brandon is also the GPO for the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) which provides suicide-specific materials, webinars, and training to organizations and communities all over the country working to prevent suicides. Brandon serves as the subject matter expert in suicide among Black people and has led numerous projects to develop resources and materials to specifically prevent suicide among African-American youth. Brandon was the SAMHSA representative on the HHS Report to Congress on African American Youth Suicide, released to the public in March 2020. Another highlight of Brandon’s career is his current role as the Lead of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention’s Faith Communities Task Force. The group works with faith communities all over the nation to equip them with tools and resources to combat the often-stigmatized issue of suicide. Previously, Brandon served as the Director of Suicide and Violence Prevention for the State of Maryland where he worked in communities throughout the state to help develop strategies to end violence in various forms, such as community violence and human trafficking.

Nishi Rawat, MD, MBA, is a critical care physician and health leader working at the intersection of medicine, public health, and technology. As Chief Clinical Innovation Officer at Bamboo Health, Rawat’s focus is on developing innovative solutions and products that improve whole person care by bridging healthcare silos and reducing fragmentation across the healthcare industry that will improve patient outcomes and reduce costs across the healthcare industry. Dr. Rawat began her healthcare career as an emergency medicine and critical care physician, faculty member, and researcher at Johns Hopkins. Clinically, she experienced the frustration of locating definitive care for patients with behavioral health conditions, which led to the development in 2015 of OpenBeds, a software platform to expedite access to care, now a solution at Bamboo Health. As of 2022, the OpenBeds system serves 15 states to improve access to behavioral health and crisis care.  Rawat completed her residency and fellowships at Johns Hopkins and Harvard, M.D at Queen's, B.Sc. from McGill, and MBA from Georgetown. 

Madhuri Jha, MPH, LCSW (she/hers) is a clinical social work and public health professional with experience providing leadership, training, consultation and direct clinical practice to programs focused on health equity, behavioral health systems strengthening, trauma and resiliency, mental health epidemiology and community capacity building. She currently serves as the Director of the Kennedy-Satcher Center for Mental Health Equity, an entity of the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at the Morehouse School of Medicine, where her work focuses on leading national discourse, programming and research about embedding equity into policies and services that reach people living with behavioral health concerns. Ms. Jha is also a practicing psychotherapist in private practice with specific expertise in trauma and stressor-related disorders, psychosis, acute symptom management, cognitive behavioral therapy, and risk assessment and de-escalation. She joined Morehouse School of Medicine after over a decade of service in New York City and Washington, DC. Prior to her current role, she was the Director of a New York City mobile behavioral health unit, in addition to being a professor of mental health policy at New York University. She has worked locally, nationally and internationally as a manager to donor-funded health programs reaching vulnerable and high-risk communities. Her work history spans a diverse breadth of on the ground experience in inpatient, outpatient, school-based, community-based and mobile psychiatric treatment settings. Ms. Jha completed both a Master of Public Health (MPH) and a Master of Social Work (MSW) from New York University, and received her Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in International Affairs from George Washington University, where she was also a Division 1 NCAA athlete. She is a 2022 National Minority Quality Forum 40 Under 40 Leader in Minority Health Awardee.