Summary:

Responsible for the administration, direction and expansion of the Social and Behavioral health portfolio, which includes the support of state health officials and their agencies on opioid overdose prevention, suicide prevention, the prevention of adverse childhood experiences and other areas related to social and/or behavioral health. Oversees relevant policy and programmatic activities between ASTHO and the CDC, DHHS, and others.

Principal Functions:

• Leading public health transformation within the Social and Behavioral Health Portfolio
• Facilitating communication to assure members’ needs are fulfilled which may require frequent contact with individual members, the Executive Committee and/or policy committees.
• Anticipating changing policy and program issues and conveying their potential impact to ASTHO senior management which includes maintaining routine situational awareness of emerging issues and/or trends of relevance and importance to the member base.
• Overseeing the monitoring and analysis of relevant national and state legislative and regulatory issues.
• Formulating, oversee or draft, and reviewing national public health policy related to programmatic areas including the critical and thorough analysis of federal/national policies, plans, and procedures; publications; and issues briefs prepared by other entities on topics relevant and of importance to our member base.
• Proactively build, cultivate trust, and strengthen stakeholder relationships to promote health equity work within the social and behavioral health portfolio to support membership and ASTHO as an organization.
• Guides team in conceptualizing the addition of health equity, diversity, and inclusion as it relates to the program portfolio and providing capacity building and technical assistance.
• Expanding the project portfolio in behavioral health and its interconnection with public health.
• Assuring the development and fostering of collaborative working relationships between the Social and Behavioral Health Team with other projects, Vice Presidents/Chiefs, and other staff at ASTHO.
• Conceptualizing, developing and implementing collaborative projects with other programmatic and policy areas within ASTHO.
• Provides executive level leadership and coordination with staff who support the Community Health and Prevention Policy Committee (including subcommittees)
• Developing and fostering collaborative working relationships with federal HHS agencies and representatives from other national organizations.
• Synthesizing complex concepts and/or issues concisely into key messages and actionable steps.
• Conceptualizing and integrating, as appropriate, population health and innovative approaches into ASTHO cooperative agreement proposals.
• Overseeing, mentoring, and supporting direct reports in the fulfillment of their positions including, but not limited to:
  1. management of existing projects within their portfolio
  2. development of new project initiatives in anticipation or response to member needs or related to policy committee priority areas, and
  3. development and completion of materials meeting ASTHO review and quality requirements.
  4. team development, leadership, organizational culture, and ASTHO values
• Assuming overall responsibility and accountability for final products developed within the area, including timeliness, accuracy and adherence to the document review procedures.
• Participating in Social and Behavioral Health’s staff recruitment and staff development activities.
• Facilitating and functioning effectively in a team environment across ASTHO.
• Handling competing demands and managing change constructively in a rapidly changing and challenging environment.
• Acting as a conduit to program staff with regard to Policy and Program operating procedures as well as ASTHO management and administrative procedures, ensuring staff compliance.

Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in public health, health sciences, social sciences, or behavioral science.

• A minimum of 8 years of experience at a leadership level in public and/or behavioral health level. This must include state or federal policy development and system transformation for relevant programmatic areas.
• Proven experience with strategic planning programming, and project and resource management.
• Relevant association experience.
• Supervisory and team leadership experience.

• Experience with relevant policy and programmatic issues from a state and federal perspective.
• Skilled team leader with the ability to build collaborations.
• Ability to anticipate states’ emerging issues and proactively implement policy and programmatic solutions.
• Ability to integrate related policy and programmatic issues across categorically funded programs.
• Ability to develop and lead diverse staff teams.
• Outstanding interpersonal, written, and oral skills.
• Ability to develop accountability measures to analyze progress, evaluate outcomes, illustrate impact, and sustain success.
• Ability to work skillfully with large networks and disparate groups.