Health research executive Ceci Connolly (left) moderates National Press club event with Patrick Kennedy (center) and Dr. David Satcher (right). (Photo by Ronald Roach)
Kennedy, former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher and other officials announced Tuesday that the new center has been established as part of the Satcher Health Leadership Institute, which is housed at the Atlanta-based Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM). In addition, during the announcement event, The Kennedy Forum and MSM officials released new public opinion research on mental health to mark the new center’s first State of the Union in Mental Health and Addiction presentation.
“It’s very much fitting for us to stand here with … The Kennedy Forum, sharing the excitement of joining forces, to announce the creation of the Kennedy Center for Mental Health Policy and Research at Morehouse School of Medicine,” said Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice, president and dean of MSM.
“This collaborative partnership will increase the visibility of mental health policy issues and solutions by engaging the public and policymakers, and what we describe at the Morehouse School of Medicine … as the community,” Wright told audience members during the announcement event at the National Press Club in Washington.
The Kennedy Center for Mental Health Policy and Research is being established with a $5 million endowment funded equally by The Kennedy Forum and an MSM grant from the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Glenda Wrenn, director of the Division of Behavioral Health at MSM, and Dr. Harry J. Heiman, director of the Division of Health Policy at the Satcher Health Leadership Institute (SHLI), will lead the new center.
The partnership with The Kennedy Forum “is very significant for us because we’ve been doing work in this space a long time. … What this opportunity affords us is to bring in our research” and best practices in mental health care, and scale it nationally, Rice told Diverse.
Satcher explained the new center has evolved in part from the relationship he developed with Kennedy when the Satcher-led U.S. Surgeon General’s office during the Clinton administration issued the first-ever national mental health report. “Patrick [Kennedy] was a leader in Congress and we developed a great working relationship. It means a lot to me to be able to join him in this partnership,” said Satcher, who is now director of SHLI.
