Just Announced! Featured Speakers at the 2015 ANNUAL CONFERENCE IN NEWPORT BEACH AUGUST 21 & 22 will include:

Sam Cochran
Sam Cochran was the coordinator of the Memphis Police Services Crisis Intervention Team (CIT). He retired from the Memphis police department after over 30 years of service and now provides consultation to CIT programs throughout the nation. He holds a Master’s degree in Political Science from the University of Southern Mississippi. In addition to his nationally recognized work with the CIT program, Major Cochran was a coordinator for the Hostage Negotiation Team and the Critical Incident Services (CIS) for the Memphis Police Department. During his time as a law enforcement officer, Major Cochran (ret.) served in uniform patrol, the investigative division and was been an instructor at the training academy.

Andrew Sperling, JD
Andrew Sperling is the Director of Federal Legislative Advocacy for NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. In this position, he leads NAMI’s legislative advocacy initiatives in Congress and before federal agencies. Mr. Sperling works on issues affecting the mental health community with a focus on improving the lives of people with severe mental illnesses.

William Beardslee, MD
William R. Beardslee, MD, is Director of the Baer Prevention Initiatives, Chairman Emeritus of the Department of Psychiatry at Children’s Hospital Boston, and Gardner Monks Professor of Child Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He developed a preventive intervention for families facing depression, Family Talk that received very high rankings in the National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices and has been used widely in this country and abroad. His work has been adapted for use with single parent African American families, Latino families, and for use in Head Start. He directs the Boston site of a four-site study examining a cognitive-behavioral preventive intervention for youth at risk for depression which has demonstrated actual prevention of episodes of major depression at both a nine month and 33 month follow-up and recently served on two Institute of Medicine committees, one of which dealt with the prevention of mental illness in children, youth and families and the other with parental depression.

More speakers to be announced soon!