Following a morning round of learning sessions, the 2025 NACCHO360 conference concluded with the plenary “Mission Possible: Population Mental Health: A Public Health Imperative in Response to the National Mental Health Challenge.”

Chris Aldridge, Senior Advisor, Public Health Programs at NACCHO, spoke to the role of local health department in addressing the United States’ behavioral health crisis, sharing data from NACCHO’s 2022 National Profile of Local Health Departments. He spoke of the importance of working with partners, the need to integrate behavioral health into the overall health of the community, and imperative to center equity in everything we do. 

Jonathan Adler, Chief Medical Officer and Co-Editor in Chief at CredibleMind, talked about the need to cost effectively scale early intervention for optimal impact. He noted the challenges that both our systems and workforce face and highlighted two ways to address this: organizational transformation and individual transformation.

Deryk Van Brunt, CEO at CredibleMind, spoke of the need to bring a public health lens to behavioral health and the need to move from a reactive system of care to a population-based behavioral health system of care. He highlighted the positive impact of early intervention, noting opportunities to scale these types of interventions and integrate them into the community.

Veronica Kelley, Director at Orange County Health Care Agency, spoke to leveraging the strengths of local behavioral health departments to impact health and aligning them with public health models. She called on attendees to share their own stories as a way to decrease stigma; follow the science; be critical of the narrative; leverage knowledge, expertise, and resources; honor lived experience; and never let a “good” crisis go to waste. She issued a call to action for participants: “When you leave here, don’t go back to work as usual. We have to work together...We have to lift up the voice of the diverse communities we serve and we have to advance equity to advance service.”

NACCHO CEO Lori Tremmel Freeman, concluded the conference with an invitation to the 2026 NACCHO360 conference in Louisville, Kentucky, July 14-17.

Click here to see photos from the day.