Joan Moir Dodge, PhD

Joan Dodge, Ph.D., is a Senior Policy Associate at the National Technical Assistance Center for Children's Mental Health (NTAC) at Georgetown University’s Center for Child and Human Development. Dr. Dodge (Joan) has been working with other faculty on a number of new efforts at NTAC that includes the following: 1) an initiative that addresses statewide system of care expansion, 2) an adaptation for the US of the Australian Youth Manual for Mental Health First Aid, and 3) an innovative training pilot for states and communities in collaboration with Wraparound Milwaukee and to be held at the Wingspread Center in Wisconsin.  These new initiatives which are now in the planning stages now will be implemented in the Fall of 2011.

Over the last 10 years, Joan has had the responsibility at Georgetown TA Center for implementing a series of national Policy Academies for selected states, tribes, and territories that were interested in designing a major child mental health policy initiative. The purpose of Academies is to create policies that sustain jurisdictions’ system of care efforts for children, youth, and young adults and their families.  She has assisted with various partners in the development of a number of policy academies over the years including the Transition National Policy Academy on youth/young adults with mental health needs who are moving into adulthood, a Family Policy Academy, a Tribal Policy Summit to address youth suicide within Indian Country and a Policy Summit addressing issues of disparities.

In addition to her role in fostering policy and system of care development, Joan provides staff support and guidance to the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD) Children’s Workgroup on Leadership and Workforce. This Workgroup has recently sponsored an environmental scan of children’s directors related to workforce issues within the public sector since workforce is an emerging crisis within the children’s behavioral health field.

Before coming to the National Technical Assistance Center, Joan worked at the community level--first with a child welfare agency, For Love of Children (FLOC) in the District of Columbia, and then for a local suburban county in Maryland around cross-agency children’s systems.