October 2025 Executive Director Mental Health Academy
Includes Multiple Live Events. The next is on 10/23/2025 at 12:00 PM (EDT)
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NCA Learning: NCA Training Refund Policy
Join your CAC Executive Director (ED) colleagues for this exciting training opportunity. CAC EDs lead the charge for positioning CACs to meet NCA’s Mental Health Accreditation Standards. Many ED’s do not have a mental health background which can create challenges. NCA is excited to announce this training opportunity for EDs to learn about developing and sustaining high quality mental health programs at your CACs.
About The Project
A total of 50 Executive Directors from CACs will be accepted into this training. Not only will you learn about mental health, but you will also be able to help shape future iterations of the training through feedback to the trainers. In 2021, NCA convened a Mental Health Standard Revision Committee of 20 individuals from Regional CACs, CACs, and subject-matter experts to make recommendations for the new Mental Health standard that went into effect in January 2023 to support the expanded NCA mission of healing for all children seen at CACs. This training will support CAC Executive Directors in the successful implementation of the 2023 NCA Mental Health standard.
The training will be delivered in three-3 hour live interactive webinars. There will be approximately 1-2 hours of outside work to prepare for the next webinar. It is important that you complete the work between webinars to be an effective participant with your colleagues during the interactive portion of the webinars.
Training dates:
Three – 3 hour live interactive webinars to be held the following dates from 12:00-3:00PM EST.
- October 23, 2025
- October 30, 2025
- November 20, 2025
What You’ll Learn
Through this training, EDs will learn:
• NCA’s 2023 Mental Health Accreditation Standard and strategies for successful implementation at your CAC.
• Mental Health Roadmap to meeting the Accreditation Standard and providing quality mental health services for children and families served.
• Evidence-Based Treatments (EBTs) recognized by NCA and training requirements.
• Conducting a community-based mental health gap analysis to determine areas of concern in your CAC’s mental health response and what EBT is needed to add to your community/CAC’s menu of services.
• The importance of collecting and documenting of accurate data and how that data can be used to inform service delivery and to seek funding for mental health services.
• The MDT’s role in mental health service delivery.
• The role of the Victim Advocate in engaging children and families in care.
• Mental health collaborations to increase the number of linkage agreements.
• The importance of collaboration between VAs and MH providers in the delivery of mental health services.
• Opportunities to collaborate with other EDs from CACs across the country and to learn about strategies that other CACs are using to successfully meet the NCA MH Accreditation Standard
If you would like a hard copy of the workbook, please send Jami, jbolton@nca-online.org, your shipping address no later than Friday October 4th
Executive Director Project Requirements
This project is designed for Executive Directors at CAC who are interested in furthering their knowledge about the NCA Mental Health Accreditation Standard, evidence-based practices and planning and sustaining high quality mental health programs. Executive Directors are defined as having a leadership role including responsibility for the outcome of services to children and families served by the CAC. This professional possesses the administrative responsibility within the organization with authority to make systematic changes (policies, procedures, budgeting). NOTE: Senior Leaders who possess the administrative responsibility within the CAC with authority to make system changes (policies, procedures, budgeting) are welcome to register.
Complete Pre-Work:
• The CAC Directors Mental Health Guide as pre-work: https://www.nctsn.org/resource... The information in this guide will provide a foundation for this training and can serve as a resource to reinforce learning and the implementation of learning.
• There will be additional resources provided to support learning as well as the implementation of that learning within your CAC and MDT.
Additional Training Requirements:
• Complete tasks between webinars to prepare yourself for the next training.
• Complete training surveys to contribute to strengthening future ED training.
Attendance and interactive participation are necessary to the success of your learning and to support other participants as they seek to learn from each other.
The trainers will be available to answer any questions you might have via email both before and during the training.
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Michelle Miller
Director, NCA Institute for Better Mental Health Outcomes
National Children's Alliance
Michelle Miller, PhD, LCSW, LCPC, is the Director of NCA’s Institute for Better Mental Health Outcomes. In addition to her 8 years at NCA, she nearly 3 decades of experience working in the child welfare field and over 20 years’ experience as a mental health provider. Dr. Miller spent 15 years as the founding director of NCA’s first accredited CAC in Montana and was the founding board chair for the Montana State Chapter of NCA. Michelle has over 20 years’ experience providing training and supervision to mental health practitioners. Since joining the NCA team in 2016, Michelle has worked with the Yale Child Study Center on the implementation of Child and Family Traumatic Stress Intervention in CACs. Michelle also works with Baylor University on training clinicians in evidenced-based assessment. Michelle worked with the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center as a co-developer of a curriculum for victim advocates on engaging families in mental health care and provides national trainings on the topic. Michelle is the co-developer of a training curriculum for CAC executive directors on mental health. Michelle is the co-author of a chapter on Evidence-Based Mental Health Services for Child Victims of Maltreatment in the book Child Sexual Abuse: Practical Approaches to Prevention and Intervention that will be published by the Child Welfare League of America in April 2023.
Libby Ralston
Director Emeritus
Dee Norton Child Advocacy Center
M. Elizabeth “Libby” Ralston, Ph.D. was the founding director of the Dee Norton Child Advocacy Center, an accredited Children’s Advocacy Center located in Charleston, SC until 2012 and now serves as the Director Emeritus. Dr. Ralston served on the National Children’s Alliance (NCA) Board of Directors, on the NCA mental health standard revision committee, the NCA Mental Health Implementation committee and participated in the partnership between NCA and NCTSN to develop the CAC Director’s Guide to Mental Health services. Libby currently serves as a training and curriculum development consultant on the NIMH Family Navigator (E3) grant, a partnership between NCA and the University of Oklahoma. In addition, she is a faculty member of Project BEST, is on the South Carolina Foster Care Health Advisory Committee and is the Chair of the South Carolina Children’s Justice Act Task Force.
lralston0391@gmail.com
