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SPRC Suicide Prevention Regional Planning Conference- Regions 1 & 2

June 6 - 8, 2005
Meriden, Connecticut

Speaker Biographies

(In Alphabetical Order)

Lidia Bernik, MHS
Lidia Bernik serves as Program Coordinator at the Suicide Prevention Action Network (SPAN USA). She has a Masters in Health Science in Mental Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a B.S. in Human Service Studies from Cornell University. During the summers of 1998 and 1999, she interned at the Westchester Division of New York Weill Cornell's Department of Psychiatry in the Adult Day Treatment Program. Prior to earning her master's degree, she worked as a corporate paralegal in New York City. She is a suicide survivor, having lost her sister in the year 2000. She was born and raised in New York City and is fluent in both Spanish and French.

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Jennifer Costa
Jennifer Costa is the Executive Director of The Samaritans, Inc., a suicide prevention agency based in Keene, NH. Ms. Costa has been with The Samaritans, Inc. since March of 2000 and has served as the Executive Director since September of 2001. She holds a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology and an Associates Degree in Chemical Dependency from Keene State College. Ms. Costa is also trained in Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM): Group Crisis Intervention. She has worked in the crisis field since 1997 in the areas of domestic violence, sexual assault and suicide prevention. Her areas of expertise include: advocacy, volunteer management, grant writing, fundraising, community education and general program administration. Ms. Costa currently serves on numerous local, statewide and national committees, including: Community Health Education Collaborative, Monadnock Talks, Hillsborough Social Services Network, Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities, Cheshire County Domestic Violence Community Council, NH Youth Suicide Prevention Assembly and The Samaritans USA, Inc.

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Elaine de Mello, LICSW
Elaine de Mello, LICSW, has worked in the mental health field since 1978, with experience in inpatient and community based mental health programs. She also worked for seven years as a guidance counselor. Elaine is licensed as a clinical social worker and certified as a school social worker and a guidance counselor in the state of NH. Currently Elaine conducts and coordinates mental health education programs for NAMI NH. Focus areas include stigma, promoting recovery from mental illness, and suicide prevention. She has been actively developing community based training for the Frameworks Suicide Prevention program through NAMI NH. In addition to her work at NAMI NH, Elaine also serves on an emergency services response team and as adjunct faculty at Plymouth State University.

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Roberta Hurtig, MA
Roberta Hurtig is the Executive Director of The Samaritans of Greater Boston, the first Samaritan branch established in the United States in 1974. Certified by AAS since 1982, The Samaritan locations in Boston and Framingham answer over 87,000 calls a year on its crisis telephone lines. The Samaritans also offer community education and outreach and facilitated support groups for survivors of suicide. Ms. Hurtig received her Bachelor of Arts in Speech and Master of Arts in Communication Theory from California State University, Long Beach. Ms. Hurtig has spent much of her professional career managing service centers in major US corporations and has been a community volunteer for over twenty years. She joined The Samaritans of Greater Boston as Executive Director in May 2002. She also serves as co-chair of the Massachusetts Coalition for Suicide Prevention, is an Advisory Board member for the Massachusetts National Violent Death Reporting System and is a Board member of the Boston Partnership for Older Adults, serving as co-chair of its Mental and Cognitive Health Work Team.

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Doug Jacobs, MD
Douglas G. Jacobs, MD, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School is a nationally recognized expert on suicide and depression. He has edited three textbooks and numerous papers on suicide, the most recent textbook being the "Harvard Medical School Guide to Suicide Assessment and Intervention." He served as the Chairperson for the American Psychiatric Association's Workgroup on Suicide Practice Guidelines, which were published in 2003. Additionally, Dr. Jacobs established a unique organization devoted to mental health education and screening - Screening for Mental Health, Inc. In 2004, he received the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society's Outstanding Psychiatrist Award for Advancement of the Profession. Dr. Jacobs is recognized nationally as a leader in the mental health field, particularly for his founding of National Depression Screening Day and its sister programs, and his leadership in the area of suicide assessment and intervention. Screening for Mental Health's SOS Signs of Suicide Program for Secondary Schools is the first suicide prevention program to be selected by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) of the US Department of Health and Human Services for its Registry of Effective Programs. For ten years (1975 - 1985) Dr. Jacobs was a full-time member of The Cambridge Hospital and its first Director of the Psychiatric Emergency Service. He began its Continuing Education Division and directed the first suicide symposium in 1981. He would like to acknowledge his mentor in the field of suicide, Dr. John Mack, who had his untimely death this past fall. The legacy of Dr. Mack's work continues on in this symposium today and much of Dr. Jacobs' work. Dr. Jacobs received his undergraduate degree from Trinity College in Hartford, CT in 1967. He received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine in 1971, and did his post-graduate clinical training at Harvard Medical School where he completed a three-year residency (1972-75) in adult psychiatry at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center. He maintains an active clinical practice in Wellesley and Newton, Massachusetts. He serves as a consultant in medical legal matters and has testified before Congress and the FDA as part of that consultation.

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Richard McKeon, PhD, MPH
Richard McKeon received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Arizona, and a Master's of Public Health in Health Administration from Columbia University. He has spent most of his career working in community mental health, including 11 years as director of a psychiatric emergency service and four years as Associate Administrator/Clinical Director of a hospital based community mental health center in Newton, New Jersey. He established the first evidence based treatment program for chronically suicidal borderline patients in the state of New Jersey utilizing Marsha Linehan's Dialectical Behavior Therapy. In 2001, he relocated to Washington D.C. and worked as a Congressional Fellow for United States Senator Paul Wellstone, covering health and mental health policy issues. He spent five years on the Board of the American Association of Suicidology as Clinical Division Director and has also served on the Board of the Division of Clinical Psychology of the American Psychological Association. He currently serves as a special advisor on suicide prevention at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

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Joan Mikula
Joan Mikula has been Assistant Commissioner for Child/Adolescent Services at the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health since 1985. She came to the public sector with experience in mental health, education, juvenile justice and child welfare. Ms. Mikula has been a strong proponent of responsibly managing and creatively providing care for children and their families in Massachusetts communities.

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LaVonne Ortega, MD, MPH
LaVonne Greenaway Ortega, MD, MPH, provides technical assistance to coalitions and individuals at the state, territorial and local community level in Public Health Regions 4 & 6, and has a special interest in issues relating to survivors of suicide attempts, self-harm, and faith-based prevention initiatives. Dr. Ortega is working with The Link's National Resource Center for Suicide Prevention and Aftercare to coordinate a workgroup to assist in the development of a competency-based curriculum for clergy responding to suicide. Prior to joining SPRC, Dr. Ortega worked as a Project Coordinator for the Injury Surveillance Program at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, where she oversaw the implementation of the Massachusetts Violent Death Reporting System. She recently co-authored "Homicide and Suicide Rates for 2003, as Reported by the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) - Six U.S. States," which appeared in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).

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Jerry Reed, MSW
Mr. Reed serves as Executive Director of the Suicide Prevention Action Network USA, Inc. Prior to assuming this position, Jerry served as an independent consultant working on health care, mental health, geriatric and suicide prevention issues. He most recently worked with the Center for Mental Health Services on a variety of initiatives in support of the National Suicide Prevention Strategy and also served as project liaison with the three-year Hotline Linkage and Evaluation Project (HELP) and the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC). He received an MSW degree with an emphasis in Aging Administration from the University of Maryland at Baltimore in 1982. He spent 15 years as a career civil servant working in both Europe and the United States as a civilian with the Department of the Army developing, implementing and managing a variety of quality of life programs including substance abuse prevention and treatment, family advocacy, child and youth development programs, social services and the range of morale, welfare and recreation programs. Selected as a Congressional Fellow in 1996, he worked in the Office of Senator Harry Reid (NV) serving as senior advisor on health care, mental health, suicide prevention and aging issues. Upon completion of the fellowship he accepted a full time position with the U.S. Senate and completed his assignment in 1999 as Deputy Chief of Staff for Senator Reid. Jerry is currently working on a doctoral degree in Health Related Sciences with an emphasis on Gerontology at the Virginia Commonwealth University.

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Alan Ross
Alan Ross, a nationally recognized educator and suicide prevention advocate, has been the executive director of the Samaritans of New York for almost 15 years, a period of time when their 24-hour suicide prevention hotline responded to over 500,000 calls from people in crisis. Beginning as a crisis hotline volunteer, Ross went on to develop their public education program which has trained over 25,000 students, teachers, guidance counselors, social workers, police officers, therapists, doctors and others for: NYPD, EMS, NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, NYC Board of Education, U.S. Coast Guard, Riker's Island Correctional Facility, NYC AIDS Task Force, GMHC, Safe Horizons, NYU, New School, St. Vincent's Rape Crisis Center, Salvation Army, Girl Scouts of America and others. His work has been reported in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Newsday and Daily News and in Cosmopolitan, Oprah and New York Magazine and The New York Health Sciences Journal. He has appeared on Good Morning America, PBS, Nightline, CNN and MTV. Ross is the representative of the 10 U.S. Samaritans branches on the National Council for Suicide Prevention, is a member of the New York State Suicide Prevention Coalition and consults with and supports the work of countless non-profit, government and other agencies.

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Ramya Sundararaman, MD, MPH
Ramya Sundararaman is a public health physician. She is currently the Coordinator of Prevention Support Services at the national Suicide Prevention Resource Center. She works with all states in Public Health Regions 3, 7, 8, and 9 and also specializes in suicide prevention among first responders, program evaluation and epidemiology. Ramya chairs the Massachusetts Coalition for Suicide Prevention, the group that developed the Massachusetts Strategic Plan for Suicide Prevention. Prior to joining SPRC, Ramya managed the Suicide Prevention Program for Massachusetts. Ramya has presented on different suicide prevention and epidemiology issues at many national and state level conferences.

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