{"id":234073,"date":"2025-08-21T12:39:50","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T16:39:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=234073"},"modified":"2025-09-04T15:55:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T19:55:13","slug":"building-a-world-where-young-people-thrive-ssws-innovations-institute-hosts-2025-training-institutes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2025\/08\/building-a-world-where-young-people-thrive-ssws-innovations-institute-hosts-2025-training-institutes\/","title":{"rendered":"Building A World Where Young People Thrive: SSW\u2019s Innovations Institute Hosts 2025 Training Institutes"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 1,100 people from across the U.S. gathered in July at the 2025 Training Institutes:<\/em> Building A World Where Young People Thrive<\/em> conference organized by the UConn School of Social Work\u2019s Innovations Institute<\/a>. The conference attracted practitioners, policymakers, researchers and evaluators, administrators and managers, peer support partners, Medicaid specialists, managed care experts, family and youth leaders, and educators in health and human services\u2014all working to improve outcomes for children, youth, young adults, and their families.<\/p>\n

\"2025<\/a>
More than 1,100 experts and leaders on improving outcomes for youth attended the 2025 Training Institutes in July. The event took place at the Gaylord Resort & Conference Center in Maryland.\u00a0<\/span>(Howard Korn\/UConn Photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With over 160 innovative, in-depth workshops, conference presenters addressed workforce development, systems design and financing, data-driven strategic planning, effective system design, evidence-based services, and quality improvement for child\/youth and family services including mental health, substance use, public health, juvenile justice, child welfare, education, early childhood, and transition age services. Plenary presentations included Belong & Thrive<\/em> with Vivek Murthy<\/a>, MD, 19th and 21st Surgeon General\u00a0of\u00a0the\u00a0United\u00a0States with Christine Crawford<\/a>, MD, assistant medical director of NAMI, Isabel Ohakamma<\/a> of NAMI NextGen and Kim Ford<\/a>, CEO of Girl Scouts Greater Washington; Connect & Thrive <\/em>with Jeanette Betancourt<\/a>, Ph.D., senior vice president of U.S. Social Impact at Sesame Workshop; and Innovate & Thrive<\/em> Kana Enomoto<\/a>, director of Brain Health at the McKinsey Health Institute with Hafeezah Muhammad<\/a>, CEO and Founder of\u00a0Backpack Healthcare;\u00a0Amy Nitza<\/a>, Ph.D., director of the Global Center for AI in Mental Health, University of Albany; and Kamillah Wood<\/a>, MD, MPH Clinical Specialist, Health Optimization,\u00a0Google Health. Together, all the plenary speakers addressed the importance of innovating to support the workforce around belonging and wellbeing, fostering resilience, and artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

The conference builds on the School of Social Work\u2019s mission to invest in robust research, innovative teaching methodologies, and community engagement, to empower the next generation of leaders and make a tangible difference in the lives of those we serve. This conference represents a vital opportunity to share knowledge, forge new partnerships, and collectively advance our understanding of how best to support youth and their families in an ever-evolving world.<\/p>\n

\"2025<\/a>
The Innovate & Thrive panel on AI included, at left, Hafeezah Muhammad, Amy Nitza, Kamillah Wood, and Kana Enomoto. (Howard Korn\/UConn Photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

First established in 1986 by the SAMHSA-funded National Technical Assistance Center for Children\u2019s Mental Health at Georgetown University, the Training Institutes were born out of a growing national conversation among those working to advance children\u2019s mental health and systems of care for children, youth, and young adults. The concept of a system of care was developed and first published in 1984; to then disseminate the concept, to familiarize the field with it, and to provide in-depth training on it, the Training Institutes was born. The conference was transitioned to Innovations Institute in 2018 and is now well-established as the nation\u2019s leading conference on children\u2019s systems.<\/p>\n

While other conferences address mental health and effective public systems for the whole population, the UConn Training Institutes remains the nation\u2019s only conference focused on the needs of children, youth, young adults, and their families.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The UConn School of Social Work\u2019s Innovations Institute offered more than 160 workshops focusing on ways to improve outcomes for children, young adults, and families<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":201,"featured_media":234076,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2476,1870],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2514],"class_list":["post-234073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-innovations-institute","category-ssw"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 06:31:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/201"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234073"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":234938,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234073\/revisions\/234938"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/234076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234073"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=234073"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=234073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}