Jordan Young, Renee Baribeau; A Look into Behavioral Healthcare Conferences in 2022 and Beyond

Discover U Podcast: A Look into Behavioral Healthcare Conferences in 2022 and Beyond with Jordan Young and Renee Baribeau
Host, JD Kalmenson interviews Jordan Young and Renee Baribeau about the new Conference they are launching this April 2022 called “Emerging Themes in Behavioral Health.”

Learn More about the Conference:
https://app.ce-go.com/emerging-themes-in-behavioral-health-2022

 An exciting new West Coast Behavioral Health Conference is coming to Los Angeles this April April 28th- 29th! Emerging Themes in Behavioral Health offers a stellar line up of clinicians and researchers sharing the most current, cutting-edge knowledge on pressing issues in mental health. A world class panel on Treatment Resistant Depression will share their knowledge about promising new technologies like TMS, and alternative treatment options like Ketamine, Psilocybin and Cannabis. Keep up to date on the latest thinking in treating topics like eating disorders, non-traditional relationships, and suicide prevention.

Jordan: In 2010, Jordan’s personal recovery and desire to help others pushed him away from corporate B2B sales and towards behavioral healthcare. He began his career in an admissions role at the corporate headquarters of one of the industry’s most respected companies. In that role, he worked with over 4,000 patients and their families to coordinate treatment with hundreds of treatment centers around the country and facilitate intervention services.

Renee: Renee Baribeau is a Hay House author, podcaster, teacher, speaker, and executive who has a strong background in marketing in the behavioral health industry for over 10 years. In her current role at Montare Behavioral Health, she oversees the marketing department and is a key partner in developing strategic initiatives to continually expand outreach to potential partners, clinicians, alumni, and prospective clients. In addition to managing her creative team, Renee oversees communication between clinical staff, the business development team, and the founders. She is the originator of the first major West Coast Behavioral Health Conference, Emerging Themes in Behavioral Health, happening this April at UCLA.

Host Kalmenson is the CEO/Founder of Renewal Health Group, a family of addiction treatment centers, and Montare Behavioral Health, a comprehensive brand of mental health treatment facilities in Southern California.
Learn More about Montare Behavioral Health:
https://montarebehavioralhealth.com/about/digital-library/
Kalmenson is a Yale Chabad Scholar, a skilled facilitator, teacher, counselor, and speaker, who has provided chaplain services to prisons, local groups and remote villages throughout the world. His diverse experience as a rabbi, chaplain, and CEO has inspired his passion and deep understanding of the necessity for effective mental health treatment and long-term sobriety.

Tags:
#behavioralhealth, #behavioralhealthconferences, # continuingeducation, #emergingthemes, #emergingthemesbehavioralhealth, #liveconferences, #UCLAconference, #CEcredits, #newmodalities, #healingtrends

Follow JD at JDKalmenson.com

Transcript

JD Kalmenson:

Welcome to another episode of Discover U, our podcast exploring innovative and effective solutions to issues in mental and behavioral health. I'm JD Kalmenson, CEO of Montare Behavioral Health, a family of dynamic and comprehensive treatment centers in Southern California.

I'm excited to introduce you to our two incredible guests today, Jordan Young and Renee Baribeau, who are organizing the first major West Coast Behavioral Health Conference this April, 2022 at UCLA. Here's a little bit of background on them both.

In 2010, Jordan's Youngs personal recovery and desire to help others pushed him away from corporate business to business sales and towards behavioral healthcare. He began his career in an admissions role at the corporate headquarters of one of the industry's most respected companies. In that role, he worked with over 4,000 patients and their families to coordinate treatment with hundreds of treatment centers around the country and facilitate intervention services. Jordan's aspirations to make a bigger impact on behavioral healthcare led to the creation of Jordan and Associates Consulting in 2018, whose purpose is to leverage the experience, education and thousands of connections made in the industry to help treatment centers overcome obstacles blocking their path to success.

Jordan's core values are shaped by his relationship with God, his family, and his recovery. He's an avid sports fan and the only job that can pull him away from behavioral healthcare is when the Tennessee Titans call to name him their head coach. 

Renee Baribeau is an author, podcaster, teacher, speaker and executive who has a strong background in marketing in the behavioral health industry for over 10 years. In her current role, at Montare Behavioral Health, she oversees the marketing department, and as a key partner in developing strategic initiatives to continually expand, outreach to potential partners, clinicians, alumni and prospective clients. In addition to managing her creative team, Renee oversees communication between clinical staff, the business development team and the founders. She's the originator of the first major West Coast behavioral health conference, Emerging Themes in Behavioral Health happening this April at UCLA. Prior to this role, Renee worked as director of business development and alumni director for Michael's House.

While there she founded the Finding Freedom Symposium, a behavioral health conference for the LGBTQ community, now in its eighth year. Renee is a Nautilus Gold award winning Hay House author for her book, Winds of Spirit, ancient wisdom tools for navigating relationships, health, and the divine. 

Welcome Jordan and Renee. So happy to have you with us today. I'm eager to speak with you guys about the role and importance of behavioral health care conferences. You're both working on one now. The upcoming emerging themes in behavioral healthcare at UCLA. Emerging modalities are a particular interest to me. Our philosophy at Montare is to innovate and to fully customize treatment for every individual who comes through our doors. Our entire team makes it a priority to keep up to date on the latest cutting-edge modalities of treatment available. Understanding how they synchronize with each other and can complement or enhance traditional treatment, is an incredible priority in our staff trainings.

When we talk about customized treatment, for example, we don't just want to take the modalities that we are traditionally supplying and accommodating and say, how can we customize this to your story and your narrative? That'd be similar to a tailor who claims to make custom made suits and all he's doing is really taking one fabric and sizing up that fabric for your size. But what we really want to do is to say, "We have more than one fabric. We're not bound to any specific genre style, but with your specific needs and your specific underlying conditions, we want to find whatever is available out there." Evidence-based treatment, emerging themes of modalities and see how can that best serve your needs. So opportunities to learn more about cutting edge treatment are always compelling. In today's day and age, where access to education is available at our fingertips at all times, why are live conferences relevant for the evolution of behavioral healthcare? 

Renee Baribeau: 

Well, I'll start with that one. And there is something that happens when people come together, not to mention that there's more intimacy, there's more connection, there's more empathy, there's more of ability to make sure that you have people's attention. When we're we're Zooming and stuff, you might be texting as well. But when you're sitting in a live audience, it's a little harder to not be paying attention, but there's something even more magical that happens when people gather and it's called effervescence. It's like the fizz in a bottle of sparkling water that comes together when people join together. Remember that old wedding song when two or more are gathered, they're love? You're both spiritual guys. Well, that's the same thing that happens when people get together. We might come in with one emerging idea, but by the power of the group and the energy of what's created, you kind of take home a more full bag. You take home more at wisdom, you take home more knowledge and you certainly take home a more enriched experience than you would on any Zoom call.

JD Kalmenson: 

I love that. That's very, very true. I have always found when I would want to study in college and pull an all nighter, that when coffee would wear off, just having a conversation with another human being and exchanging energy, was a boost, it was uplifting. Jordan, what are your thoughts?

Jordan Young: 

Yeah. So first of all, thank you for having me on here. I appreciate this opportunity. I'll agree with what Renee had to say. Additionally, I just know for me personally, I'm a better learner in person. I enjoy podcasts and video learning and Zoom and all the things that technology allows us to do today. But I'm personally going to learn much better when I'm in person, when I'm there in the audience. I'm going to be able to ask questions of not only the presenter, but also ask questions of people that are in the audience with me.

My peers that are there and if there's something that I wasn't catching during the session, I can come to Renee and say, "Hey, Renee, that last session on EMDR, what did you get out of that? He said this, or she said this, but I didn't really get that." And get someone else's opinion. I don't want to call it group think, but I feel like the expertise of the audience and my peers that are there with me, just help me to understand things that maybe I didn't grasp, or they have a different perspective than I had on something.

JD Kalmenson: 

That's awesome. That's awesome. It's just a different spice. So we're talking about this incredible conference, Emerging Themes in Behavioral Health. Tell us enough. Give us a quick overview about the conference and in what ways does this conference differ from past conferences that you've hosted?

Renee Baribeau: 

I'll jump in again, I guess it's ladies before gents in this conversation. Since the parody act, there was a great deal of emphasis placed on addiction. In fact, they said 24 million people in the country where addicted and only, what, 4 or 3% of them were getting help. What happened was, the swing went so far to the addiction side that they weren't looking at the 60% of the underlying co-occurring disorders that was going on with people. And so we were missing the boat. We went all to the addiction side and that side of the boat was getting a little heavy. Meanwhile, one out of every five people in this country are walking around with some kind of anxiety or depression, some kind of mental health disorder and the focus was over there on the addicts.

So we're trying to balance the boat here, to figure out like, yeah, 60% of most addicts have behavioral health issues but what about the other or all of the rest of those people who might not be addicts? So now the pendulum is swinging back to the other side and we're looking for new solutions for one out of five. Suicide's the second leading cause of death in the country. And eating disorders is a second leading cause of death, besides for car accidents and children. There's something out of balance here and we want to put some attention onto that.

JD Kalmenson: 

Powerful. And that's sad but true.

Jordan Young:

I'll just jump in, if that's okay.

JD Kalmenson:

Sure.

Jordan Young:

Yeah. I agree. I agree with Renee there. But one of the things that is refreshing to me is that this is a different type of conference than what I've been involved with in the past. Previously, I was a part of leading a national conference series. Very big national conferences across the country, massively attended lots of exhibitors, but they were conferences for marketing. They were not the marketing industry, they're behavioral healthcare. But the reason that people went to our events, it was not solely for the education. Although we did have good speakers and I'm not diminishing that, but the primary reason that people went was for the business development and marketing opportunities.

This conference, on the other hand, people are going to be going for the clinical experts that we have. And we're focusing on a different type of demographic. That's who the conference is geared towards. We have some excellent, excellent content. Renee, you've done an amazing job with the content and it is going to be focused more on mental health, as opposed to just solely addiction. While we will have things addressing co-occurring disorders and dealing with addiction, this is going to be more of a mental health focus conference. So it's a little different than what I've done in the past. So I'm excited about that.

JD Kalmenson:

That's awesome. Jordan, my understanding is that your consulting company, Jordan and Associates Consulting assist treatment centers with talent recruitment and providing key staff to treatment facilities. With the great resignation that we're experiencing nationally right now, how do we keep up with the demand to find competent and compassionate staff that we're looking for? 

Jordan Young: 

Yeah. So the great resignation, that's something that I... I was actually looking for content for social media posts? And I read about that and said, "Oh, okay, well, that actually makes sense." We're actually seeing a lot that, I'm hearing a lot about it, that's a great name for it. What we're seeing, just a little bit of background, a lot of employees and people in the work staff that are reevaluating their current employer or their employment opportunities. With so many people having been laid off, they're reevaluating what's important to them because at this point, it seems like the employees kind of have the upper hand. So getting back to your question, a lot of organizations are having a difficult time with hiring because of that, because employees are able to state that they want to work remote. They want to work from home.

They hold the cards because there is such high demand for employees right now. And they're able to bring that to negotiating table oftentimes. In terms of retaining employees, I'm contacted very frequently by employees looking for new opportunities. And the biggest reason that people reach out to me, it's not money, it's primarily culture. They're in a culture that they don't want to be a part of. They're in a culture where it's like... Especially in business development positions, because that's primarily what I focus on, is that what they're looked at is a number. And you have to hit this number, this is your activity and this is your production. And all you're looked at is a number and people are not satisfied with that. People are not satisfied with that, it creeps into, not just their enjoyment in the position, but it creeps into their personal life. It impacts that as well. So you're seeing that with these-

JD Kalmenson:

Couldn't agree more.

Jordan Young:

... smaller facilities that are being gobbled up by the big organizations and it also digests their culture.

JD Kalmenson: 

Yeah. That makes so much sense. I mean, what COVID did for so many is that it gave us an incredible degree of time with ourselves. And when you spend time with yourself, you become more sensitized to your needs, to your feelings, to your wants. And all of a sudden, the notion of a career, not just being a job of being a calling and me putting myself in an environment that in a culture that is aligned with my integrity and my values, these are things that came to the forefront and you're seeing this spill over and manifest into how people are looking for jobs. And it's not just pragmatic, utilitarian benefit, it's really, how do I want to be spending my time? This might have been actually one of the hidden benefits of the pandemic, getting in touch with this sort of deeper strain of meaning, purpose driven, sort of life experience.

I want to jump into something else and that has to do with the conference again. Almost anything positive in life requires maintenance. Relationships, your house, your car, your body, it all requires maintenance. Now, thank goodness we have continuing education for clinicians and doctors to stay abreast of what's new. You obviously wouldn't want your surgeon to be using technology from five years ago. Can you give us a brief overview of continuing education in the world of therapy, in the world of treatment, how does it work and why is it necessary? And is it robust enough to keep providers up to date on the latest, most effective interventions? 

Renee Baribeau: 

Well, that one falls back to me. I'm more of the agenda planner. But one of the things that I had noticed was that, I speak at conferences, and so when I was at the East Coast, Cape Cod Symposium a few years ago, speaking, the room was filled with 100 clinicians, doctors, clinicians. On the East Coast, there tended to be more of a focus on the education while on the West Coast, we are focused on, let's have the meeting of all the marketers. But what's happened over the last couple years, again, this is a COVID push thing where everyone then went to Zoom, online and they were getting CEs for these courses. And they didn't even have to change from their pajamas.

But the standards hadn't changed, the APA was still requiring, I believe it's 20 continuing education hours every two years for clinicians. The C cap was filled, their starts even higher for the... It's really amazing, the people who are at the lower end of the pay spectrum, they have more CE requirements than the people who have their doctorates, I think there's this 32 or something like that, if I remember correctly. But the licensing boards are requiring these kinds of educational experiences, why? Because we're in a fast-changing world. Whereas with the pendulum swung from addiction, back to mental health, well, there's all of these new treatments coming out. We have Dr. Zisook, who's going to be speaking about psilocybin. We have Dr. Fong, they're bringing cannabis into treatment. All of these different modalities were not on the horizon five years ago, or maybe 10 years ago, but what's happening is that some of the other modalities where there was a lot of somatics that just got booted out from the APA, and they're not giving CEs for them. It's a battle.

I think the same kind of infighting that's going on in the rest of the world, is going on in the treatment, what works, what doesn't work. And to me, it's when you come to a conference like we're having at Emerging Themes, that you start to find out what's working, what's not working, what's new, what's innovative and what can I do to be a more service to my patients. 

JD Kalmenson:

Beautiful.

Jordan Young:

Yeah. And I'll just jump in on Renee's point right there. As we're seeing these new and emerging therapy approaches appear, as time goes on, they're being tested more. And so we're seeing what's working, we're getting data, hopefully we're getting data. Hopefully treatment centers and clinicians are verifying outcomes and they're seeing what's working in their patients and what is not working. So I think that sharing these and sharing what we've learned from these different therapy approaches, I think that's really important. But another thing that I feel is really important is, for information that we've already heard 10, 15, 20 times before, I think it's great to hear these things again. I think that refreshers are great. 

JD Kalmenson: 

Makes so much sense.

Renee Baribeau:

Can I just pop in with something? Because the APA is requiring for all of the CEs, getting into the CEs is going to be like a two-week procedure to make sure that everyone has given proper learning objectives and that all of the studies that they're citing, are peer reviewed within the last five years. The old, the 10, 20 years ago data does not appease them any longer, they want the newer data, the newer studies, which for the things like TMS, which Dr. Sparago will be about in the treatment resistant depression, that's a newer modality. And it's taken, I don't know, since I've been in the treatment industry about eight years to really start to get the data. 

JD Kalmenson: 

That makes so much sense. I noticed in the upcoming conference, the phrases of emerging and evidence based to describe the treatment modalities, that attendees will receive education on. And this has to do with what you were just referencing, Renee. Can you talk about why you feel it's important for clinical educational events to include these types of sessions on their conference agendas? 

Renee Baribeau: 

Well, I believe that you need a forum to test your education. You need to come together with other educated, other clinicians, to find out what's working and what's not working. And in my own book, Winds of Spirit, I had to really go back and find the nature-based path inward, because I kept getting, "Well, Renee, you can't bring this in, it's not evidence based." It's like a tricky, fine dance between how do we get the evidence base? Like for your theory as well with your model and how do we move forward to get the evidence and present good clinical data to do it? 

JD Kalmenson: 

Yeah. That makes sense. 

JD Kalmenson:

The next question I have for you guys is really something that we're all dealing with time, the times that we live in, how have conferences changed since COVID, do you foresee large conferences in the future of thousands of people in person, or do you think that COVID has forever impacted the way conferences will ever be? 

Jordan Young: 

I'll jump in on that one first.

I think that what we're seeing right now is people want to get back to live. People want to get back in person. I know not everyone. I know that some people are going to stay at arms distance, if they have a really long arm, maybe, some people will do that. But I know a lot of people want to get back to in-person. Me personally, I'm dying to get back to in-person. The reason that I haven't been yet is because I have two little bitty babies, putting two up there, and it's just difficult to get out of the house. But I know a lot of people want to be back live and in-person. I think COVID, I think that there are some positives from it. I think the online learning, I think that's great. I do. I think that it's great.

And I think that we're going to see online events continue. I think that obviously they're going to diminish from what they were in 2020 and the majority of the year, last year. But I think we're also going to see more hybrid events as well with the combination of online and in-person. But I don't feel like online will replace in-person. I think in-person will come back and it may be ebbs and flows where conference attendance is 85 or 90% of what it was pre COVID. But then we get another strand or whatever, and it goes back to 50 or 40%. So I think that we just have to be... I think, as a society for people that want to go to in-person events, they have to be prepared for that, "Okay, this is a great time to go now and let's go." But there may be times coming up in the future where travel is going to be more restrictive, or right in-person gatherings are going to be more restrictive.

But for those of us that are comfortable being in an event in person, yeah, now is the time to go. And I think that we'll see that in our attendance numbers this year at this conference and then hopefully for all other conferences, for the remainder of the year. 

JD Kalmenson: 

I love that. And looking forward.

Renee Baribeau:

I can tell by our own personal registration for this conference, so far it's all clinical. Whereas an event that Jordan and I used to run, we'd have all the marketing people and then they'd bring a couple of people with them. This is reversed. If I go through the registration now, it's clinical registration, clinical registration, clinical registration. And that's a sign of the clinicians who were the, I think they were in the more fearful category, are coming back out. And I just did the Finding Freedom Symposium in Palm Desert, and we designed it to be 125, 140 people, and we were sold out. The ring was packed. 

JD Kalmenson: 

Wow. And talking about the clinicians being the prime target for this conference, say you're a clinician, you've got a private practice, why should you take two days away from your work, away from your family, to attend this in-person conference? 

Jordan Young: 

I'll hop in. There's a lot of different reasons, I think. I'll just take a few of them and leave some for you, Renee. One I think is self-care. I think that's something that we as professionals, especially in the industry of, we'll say healers, healing others, that oftentimes from taking care of others, we neglect ourselves. And while this is not a vacation, I'm in no way saying this is a vacation because I worked for prior conferences that I hosted. Some were advertised as vacations and it used to drive me nuts. And I would say, "No, this is not a vacation. It is a resort. It's a great hotel. It's a great venue. You can have fun, but this is not a vacation." 

JD Kalmenson:

I mean the word vacation, if you think about it, comes from the word vacate. There's nothing empty about this. This is a very packed, condensed itinerary.

Jordan Young:

But what it is, I think it's an opportunity to educate yourselves, to invest in yourself, invest in your own education, but you're able to do it at a great venue. It's a great event, you're able to take some time. If you're a private practice therapist, it's not like you're seeing a caseload. It's not like you're seeing six or eight individuals per day. You're going to go to sessions. You're going to get your continuing education. But also, in addition to those things, it's a great opportunity for you to build your business. You're going to meet people there who will be referral sources to you. So while you may not see those 10 clients that you're going to see in those two days, you could pick up two or three or six new clients who ultimately that could be far more business over the course of the next 2, 6, 9 months, then you would've lost in those two days, where you were taking time to invest in your education, do a little bit of, I don't want to say pampering yourself, relaxing, taking a little time for yourself.

JD Kalmenson: 

Yeah. Abraham Lincoln and famously said that, "Give me six hours to chop a tree, I'll spend the first two sharpening my axe." And we all have to sharpen our axes. Even if it temporarily takes us away from the chopping.

Renee Baribeau: 

I'd just like to pipe in on this one to say, where else are you going to be in a room with Dr. Fong, Dr. Zisook, Dr. Leuchter, Dr. Sparago, our own Dr. Shaywitz, and then New York Times bestselling author, Katherine Woodward Thomas. I mean, you could go around collecting them, but here you're going to have lunch or you're going to have that interact and that effervescent, that sparkle that happens when you're in the presence of genius.

JD Kalmenson: 

Love it. Love it. Thank you so much for your time and all this really helpful information. And for anybody that's interested in more information, how can they find out more about this? What details can you provide that they would need? 

Renee Baribeau:

Well, you can go to the website, it's emergingthemesinbehavioralhealth.com. You can certainly look below in the comments and there will be a link to email me if you're interested in sponsoring and showcasing your business, or if you're interested in attending, for sure, just go to the Emergent Themes and Behavioral Health. We also have Instagram account and a Facebook account or go over to montarebehavioralhealth.com and you'll find out more about the conference with links there.

Jordan Young: 

One more thing, Renee.

Renee Baribeau:

Yes.

Jordan Young:

In addition to attending and sponsoring, there is another chance for people to get involved. So we do have an interactive session, I think on Friday, the second day, where...

Renee Baribeau:

Thursday.

Jordan Young:

Just kidding. Thursday, the first day, where, we'll say you can pitch your emerging therapy approach, or if you have something innovative related to mental health, whether it's treatment therapy, marketing related, where you will get a chance to present that in front of the audience for a period of 10 to 15 minutes. So we have links where you will submit a form and you can be involved at the conference by presenting as well.

JD Kalmenson:

That sounds really exciting.

Jordan Young:

We're both really excited about it.

JD Kalmenson

Wow. Wow.

Renee Baribeau:

The Shark Tank of Emerging Themes.

JD Kalmenson:

Love it. The Shark Tank of mental health. 

Thank you so much Jordan and Renee for joining us today on the Discover U podcast, it was so great to hear about your perspectives on conferences in general, the importance of continuing education, and specifically to learn about the incredible upcoming conference that you guys are working on. I'm looking forward to attending, and I hope that some of you listening will come as well. Thank you for joining us today, all our listeners on this episode of Discover U. We hope you enjoyed it and learned something too. At Montare, we want you to know that you're not alone on your journey. To find out more about our innovative treatment programs, you can find as at montarebehavioralhealth.com and you can listen to our Discover U podcast on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Wishing all of you vibrant health and a safe and fulfilling day. See you next time.