Dissertation Examines the Experience of Children’s Mental Health Leaders During Times of Constraint

Dr. Jody Levison-Johnson is a licensed clinical social worker with nearly 30 years of experience in the field of human services. She is a recent PhD in Leadership and Change graduate and currently serves as the President and CEO of the Council on Accreditation, an international nonprofit accrediting body for human and social service organizations and public sector systems. Dr. Levison-Johnson has just published her dissertation entitled, The Experience of Children’s Mental Health Leaders During Times of Constraint: A Narrative Study. This narrative study describes the experience of leaders in children’s mental health administration and how they define, interpret, and perceive their current environments; the constraining factors that impact them, such as decline, instability, risk, politics, policy, and random events; and the strategies they engage in to achieve their goals. The piece paints a rich picture of the complexity of leading change in public sector environments where there is dynamic interplay across people, politics, and policy and offer new insights into effecting change in complex systems.