Western States Decision Support Group

Dennis Mohatt

Vice President, Behavioral Health Program and Co-director, Mental Health Technology Transfer Center

303.541.0256dmohatt@wiche.edu

Dennis Mohatt is vice president for behavioral health at WICHE, leading since 2001 its behavioral health program and its Center for Rural Mental Health Research. He has over 30 years of public mental health service. His work has included direct clinical care, clinical supervision, and CEO tenure in a rural CMHC serving Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Additionally, he led a HRSA-funded effort in the early 1990s to successfully integrate mental health and primary care in multiple rural family practice settings. During the late 1990s, he was deputy director for the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, also serving as the state’s commissioner of mental health. He has served as a member of the National Rural Health Advisory Committee, and led national efforts relating to rural mental health including a role as chief consultant to the president’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. He is actively engaged in efforts focused on improving services to Veterans, Guard, and Reserve and their families; rural mental health policy; workforce development, and increasing adoption of integrated approaches to behavioral and primary care practice. His graduate training, supported by a NIMH Fellowship, focused on rural community-clinical psychology. 

Thomas Barrett

Senior Consultant, Behavioral Health Program

303.541.0311mentalhealthmail@wiche.edu

Tom Barrett has been doing human services program evaluation for most of his forty-year professional career.  He was the first program evaluator for Bethesda Community Mental Health Center in Denver.  He also supervised state-wide program evaluation services when he was the Mental Health Director for the state of Colorado.  He conducted international mental health program evaluation activities when he was senior medical office for the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. Dr. Barrett co-authored “Human Services Program Evaluation: How to Improve Your Accountability and Program Effectiveness” which summarizes a variety of program evaluation techniques including cost benefit analysis. He was also co-director of the Colorado Legislative Task Force on people with mental illness in jails and prisons. This task force was responsible for developing legislation to address the serious problem of people with mental illness in Colorado Correctional Facilities. Dr. Barrett authored an article (with R. Slaughter and C. Jarrett) on “People with Mental Illness in Jails and Prisons – Colorado’s Model for Changing the System”, Spectrum: The Journal of State Government, Fall 2004.

Dr. Barrett has been the program evaluation consultant for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless (CCH) for two federal grants (Renaissance Services Enhancement Team and the Dual Disorder Outreach Team).  He is currently the independent assessor for the Kresge Program Related Investment for the CCH. One of the requirements of the Kresge Program Related Investment is an independent assessment of the social outcomes that CCH is achieving.  The social outcomes include both residential stability improvement outcomes and system cost reduction outcomes.  The system cost reduction outcomes include: reduction in detox use, reduction in emergency use, reduction in hospitalization and reduction in emergency shelter use.  As the independent assessor, Dr. Barrett is responsible for verifying the accuracy of the data collection and analysis completed by CCH. In addition, Dr. Barrett has been the program evaluation consultant for a cost benefit study on the Dual Disorder Outreach Team (DDOT) at CCH.  This evaluation is examining the cost of publicly funded services such as shelter costs, hospital costs, detox facility expenses, jail expenses, and prison expenses. These cost savings are then compared with the cost of providing program services to determine if there has been a cost savings.   Dr. Barrett also serves as an adjunct professor at the DU’s Graduate School of Professional Psychology (GSPP), an accredited program that has offered a Doctor of Psychology degree since 1976. GSPP faculty have been awarded a number of grants over the past few years, providing students with excellent opportunities to develop their research and evaluation skills under the supervision of experienced faculty members. Program evaluation projects are particularly germane to the students’ development as practitioner-scholars: the emphasis on identifying, operationalizing, and supporting clients’ short- and long-term goals; developing practical, relevant outcomes; and appropriately conveying findings and recommendations helps students master sustainable skills that will serve them well throughout their careers.