Welcome To
OUr Virtual COnference
We are excited that you decided to attend this year’s Breaking Barriers conference. We have a great line up of speakers who will be presenting on a variety of topics related to mental health. Whether you are a mental health professional, consumer, or family member or friend supporting someone else, there will be insights for you to gain and share.
What to Expect
This year’s conference will feature David Sheff. David Sheff is the author of Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction, a number-one New York Times bestseller. The book was based on his article, “My Addicted Son,” which appeared in the New York Times Magazine and won a special award from the American Psychological Association for “outstanding contribution to the understanding of addiction.” It was published in a dozen languages and named the year’s Best Nonfiction Book by Entertainment Weekly. In 2009, David was named to the Time 100, Time Magazine’s list of the World’s Most Influential People. “Beautiful Boy” was adapted as a film by Amazon Studios and Plan B Entertainment and starring Steve Carell and Timothee Chalamet.
David followed Beautiful Boy with Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Edning America’s Greatest Tragedy, also New York Times bestseller. Clean was the result of the years David spent investigating the disease of addiction and America’s drug problem, which he sees as the greatest public health challenge of our time.
He is also the author of HIGH: Everything You Want To Know About Drugs, for young adults written with Nic Sheff. The Partnership for Drug-free Kids honored him with a Special Tribute Award “in recognition of his voice and leadership for families who are struggling with addiction.” He was also received media awards from the College of Problems on Drug Dependence (CPDD), American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP), and American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) “to recognize his compelling portrayal of addiction and its personal effects on families and society as a whole.” In December 2019, David became the first recipient of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry Arts and Literature Award.
David’s other books include Game Over, China Dawn, and All We Are Saying, based on David’s famous interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. He also wrote The Buddhist on Death Row: How One Man Found Light in the Darkest Place, about which the Dalai Lama said “This book shows vividly how, even in the face of the greatest adversity, compassion and a warm-hearted concern for others bring peace and inner strength.” He is currently working on the definitive biography of Yoko Ono which will show her place in history and her profound influence on art, music, feminism and activism. The book will be published by Simon & Schuster with publication set for Spring 2024.
David recently launched the Beautiful Boy Fund, devoted to making quality, evidence-based treatment available to people who need it and identifying and supporting research to further the field of addiction medicine. He lives with his family in Northern California.
In addition to the session with Mr. Sheff, the conference will include sessions on Harm Reduction Therapy, a panel discussion with youth, a presentation by Remix Racing, as well as other sessions related to substance abuse and co-ocurring disorders.
Key Takeaways
Why You Should Attend
- To learn about emerging issues in mental health
- To connect with other consumers, family members and professionals
- To network with like-minding individuals
- Gain a fresh perspective
- Be inspired
- Renew your hope for the future
Conference Schedule
Frances Joe
Topic
Harm Reduction Therapy
Topic
Learning to Unlearn: the role of psychedelic-assisted therapy in serious mental illness featuring substance use disorders, PTSD, and Depression.
Moderator
Shannon Singleton-Banks
Topic
Youth and Substance Use
Topic
MHSF – Recovery, Harm Reduction and Peer Support
Topic
Remix Racing
Kathy Davies Huber
Kathryn has held leadership roles in nonprofit human services agencies since 1987. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Massachusetts Boston.
David Sheff
Bestselling Author & Advocate on US Drug Crisis, Prevention & Treatment of Addiction
David Sheff is the author of Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction, a number-one New York Times bestseller. The book was based on his article, “My Addicted Son,” which appeared in the New York Times Magazine and won a special award from the American Psychological Association for “outstanding contribution to the understanding of addiction.” It was published in a dozen languages and named the year’s Best Nonfiction Book by Entertainment Weekly. In 2009, David was named to the Time 100, Time Magazine’s list of the World’s Most Influential People. “Beautiful Boy” was adapted as a film by Amazon Studios and Plan B Entertainment and starring Steve Carell and Timothee Chalamet.
David followed Beautiful Boy with Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America’s Greatest Tragedy, also New York Times bestseller. Clean was the result of the years David spent investigating the disease of addiction and America’s drug problem, which he sees as the greatest public health challenge of our time. He is also the author of HIGH: Everything You Want To Know About Drugs, for young adults written with Nic Sheff. The Partnership for Drug-free Kids honored him with a Special Tribute Award “in recognition of his voice and leadership for families who are struggling with addiction.” He was also received media awards from the College of Problems on Drug Dependence (CPDD), American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP), and American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) “to recognize his compelling portrayal of addiction and its personal effects on families and society as a whole.” In December 2019, David became the first recipient of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry Arts and Literature Award.
David’s other books include Game Over, China Dawn, and All We Are Saying, based on David’s famous interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. He also wrote The Buddhist on Death Row: How One Man Found Light in the Darkest Place, about which the Dalai Lama said “This book shows vividly how, even in the face of the greatest adversity, compassion and a warm-hearted concern for others bring peace and inner strength.” He is currently working on the definitive biography of Yoko Ono which will show her place in history and her profound influence on art, music, feminism and activism. The book will be published by Simon & Schuster with publication set for Spring 2024.
David recently launched the Beautiful Boy Fund, devoted to making quality, evidence-based treatment available to people who need it and identifying and supporting research to further the field of addiction medicine. He lives with his family in Northern California.
L. Alison McInnes, MD, MS
VP, Scientific Affairs, Osmind
Dr. Alison McInnes is Vice President, Scientific Affairs at Osmind. She is a nationally recognized expert in psychiatry and mood and anxiety disorders, having specialized in treating refractory disease for over a decade. She is additionally an expert in ketamine treatment and psychedelic medicine.
She founded and served as Medical Director for Kaiser Permanente’s ketamine infusion therapy program for a number of years. She was previously an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Mount Sinai School of Medicine for 8 years where she ran a lab in psychiatric genetics, and was also an adjunct clinical professor at UCSF.
Dr. McInnes is regularly invited to speak at national and international conferences and is asked to consult for biopharmaceutical companies working at the cutting edge of neuropsychiatry. She is a member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and has authored two important papers describing outcomes of ketamine infusion therapy in the largest real-world data sets examined to date. Other research projects include adherence and response prediction to ketamine and related compounds in collaboration with the Osmind data scientist team. She is a member of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Society of Ketamine Physicians, Psychotherapists and Practitioners (ASKP3). In her current clinical practice, she focuses on treatment-resistant mood disorders and complex cases.
Dr. McInnes received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Stanford University and her MD from Columbia University.
She completed residency at UCSF and research at the VA Research Fellowship and Howard Hughes Physician Research Fellowship in Psychiatric Genetics at UCSF.
Jimmy Qian, MS
Co-founder and President, Osmind
Jimmy Qian is co-founder and President at Osmind. A public benefit corporation, Osmind embodies both Jimmy’s passion for building mission-driven healthcare organizations and his interest in combining digital technology with computation to solve pressing problems in biomedicine. Jimmy has founded/led/scaled multiple nonprofit organizations, all of which are successful and growing, spanning life sciences research, community healthcare, and health tech.
In addition to his experience as an operator, Jimmy publishes research in digital health, mental health, and health policy. Throughout his previous research experience at Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania, he has received research scholarships and has been honored for work applying mathematics and computation to study biological complexity and cancer tumor evolution.
Jimmy has been named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, among other awards and fellowships. He is on leave from the MD program at Stanford University School of Medicine. He graduated summa cum laude with Masters and Bachelors degrees in Biophysics, Biochemistry, and Chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a Vagelos Scholar and received multiple awards.
JEREMY TAUBMAN, LCSW, CAS
Founder & CEO, The Remix Racing Project
Jeremy is the Founder and CEO of The Remix Racing Project, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing stigma by raising mental health and addiction awareness. He is also an addiction medicine specialist and the Director of the Behavioral Health Center, Outpatient Services department at John Muir Health, a major health care system in Concord, California.
Jeremy has been a continuing education instructor for the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), the California Association of Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Counselors (CAADAC), and Pacific Clinics Training Institute (PCTI), and has authored several CE courses for NASW. He has served on the faculty of the University of the Pacific in the School of Health Sciences as an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Social Work Program and was a psychoeducation instructor for The New Bridge Foundation, a residential treatment program in Berkeley, California.
Throughout his career, Jeremy has been a champion in the fight against stigma and a powerful advocate for underserved and marginalized people surviving mental illness and addictions. He is a featured content expert in a stigma reduction video series and has been awarded several federally and privately funded grants used to develop stigma reduction campaigns, enhance mental health and addiction awareness, and expand treatment resources.
PETER MURPHY
Mental Health Association of San Francisco, Outreach Manager
Peter is a native San Franciscan who has extensive lived experience as a consumer of mental health services. Peter has been an active member of the 12-step recovery movement for the past 25 years and has worked at MHASF since 2015, first as a coordinator and counselor on the Peer Run Warm Line for nearly four years. Peter is currently the Outreach Manager at MHASF and has established important relationships with a network of community-based organizations throughout the Bay Area and around California.
Maurice Byrd
LMFT, Harm Reduction Therapy Center
Maurice Byrd has worked as a harm reductionist since 2004. He is the Director of Training and Business Operations, provides therapy, is a clinical supervisor, and has collaborated in the development and implementations of community programs for people experiencing chronic mental health disorders, substance use disorders, and experiencing homelessness. During his career, he has worked with adults and adolescents. He has provided mental health services in middle schools, high schools, in private practice settings, in the San Francisco Jail system, in San Quentin prison, in homeless drop-in centers, at needle exchanges, and on the sidewalk with people experiencing homelessness. He specializes in teaching about facilitating groups. He also led a Harm Reduction Marijuana Group for young adults that he facilitated for 8 years. He has been trained in MDMA for PTSD with MAPS and Ketamine assisted therapy. He has also provided individual and group KAT therapy. He trains, teaches, supervises, and consults with both clinical and non-clinical staff at several non-profit agencies around the country, primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area, and specializes in teaching harm reduction groups and the fundamentals of Harm Reduction Psychotherapy, counseling, and peer support. He has taught in the MFT program at Holy Names University in Oakland, CA focusing on Substance Use interventions and Community Mental Health. He is a published author, cowriting the chapter Dealing with Drug Use After Prison: Harm Reduction Therapy in the book Decarcerating America.
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