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The focus of the Public Education Committee (PEC) is to improve and expand public education and outreach about anxiety, depression, and co-occurring disorders through website content, webinars, blog posts, social media outreach, and other collaborative educational projects.
We are always looking for new and innovative ways to disseminate high quality information to mental health consumers. Our committee values fresh ideas and trying out new communication strategies.
If you are interested in learning more about this committee and how you can be involved, please contact ADAA. Read the ADAA Committee Guidelines.
Co-Chairs
- Debra Kissen, PhD, MHSA, Light on Anxiety Treatment Center of Chicago
- Neal Sideman, Paniccure.com
Board Liaison
- Ken Goodman, LCSW, Private Practice, Los Angeles, CA
Committee Members
- Richa Bhatia, MD, Santa Rosa Community Health, California
- Olivia E. Bogucki, PhD, Mayo Clinic
- Jackie Bullis, PhD, McLean Hospital
- Suma Chand, MPhil, PhD, Saint Louis University
- Ken Goodman, LCSW, Anxiety Treatment of the Valley, ADAA Board Member
- Lara Effland, LICSW, Eating Recovery Center and Insight Behavioral Health Centers
- Paul Greene, PhD, Manhattan Center for CBT
- Aarti Gupta, PhD, TherapyNest
- Mbemba Jabbi, University of Texas at Austin
- Eli Lebowitz, PhD, Yale University Child Study Center
- Karen Martinez, MSc, MD, University of Puerto Rico
- Kathariya Mokrue, PhD, York College - CUNY
- Catherine Pittman, PhD, Saint Mary's College
- David H. Rosmarin, PhD, ABPP, Center of Anxiety
- Lynne Siqueland, PhD, Children's and Adult Center for OCD & Anxiety
- Andrea Umbach, PsyD, Southeast Psych
- Melanie Van Dyke, PhD, University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy
2021 Annual Report
The PEC continues to be energetic, dynamic and creative. We currently have 22 active members.
We hold a Zoom meeting every 2 months. Meetings are an opportunity for members to:
- Suggest topics for webinars and blogs
- Volunteer to help create content for ADAA.org
- Suggest new projects
- Set the direction for our committee
Our main projects:
- Public education webinars Also available on ADAA's YouTube channel
- Blog Posts
- “Ask an ADAA Therapist” feature
- Twitter chats
In addition, PEC members are available to respond to requests from the ADAA staff liaisons on various tasks, including:
- Responding to inquiries from media representatives
- Providing information to members of the public
- Reviewing portions of the ADAA website
Public Education Webinar Series:
View a list of the18 webinars the committee completed in 2021.
Blog Articles for the Public:
In 2021, PEC members contributed 9 blog articles. We plan on substantially increasing these for 2022. ADAA published a total of 53 blog articles in 2021.
The ADAA staff liaisons have concluded that short webinars and short videos increase engagement with our audience. As a result, we are currently exploring and experimenting with short, interview-style videos and shorter webinars. One idea we are currently trying is to present a webinar topic as 2 or 3 short videos, instead of one long video.
In 2022, we also plan to explore very short video content for Instagram and TikTok. Our objective for these platforms is to engage our audience and encourage viewers to invest time in exploring resources on the ADAA website.
We welcome ideas, suggestions and feedback.
