Along with leading our organization, Dave Pilon, Ph.D., is one of our lead trainers. His work blends his talents as designer of our MHA Village, founding director of our training division, and developer of our "quality of life" outcomes system and MORS (Milestones of Recovery Scale). He helps increase the capacity of organizations to measure their effectiveness and helps policy makers gauge the system-wide results of programs.

Dr. Pilon's outcomes studies focus on "quality of life" areas such as living, work, education, finance and social goals, the areas that often form the core of an individual's role in the community. He developed a computerized system to collect, analyze and report real-time data.

Dr. Pilon conducted an evaluation, commissioned by California's Mental Health Department, for the AB 34 programs, which serve individuals with mental illness who are homeless and/or at risk of jail. His study covered 5,000 individuals served by 55 programs in 34 California counties. Since 1996, he also has measured results of 15 local programs for the Los Angeles County Mental Health Department. He was selected by our state to design research and evaluation in the area of employment for people with mental illness.

Dr. Pilon was honored as 2004 Researcher of the Year by the United States Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association.

Paul Barry, M.Ed., specializes in innovations and issues about employment for people with mental illness. Over the past two dozen years, he has created programs that help people with disabilities integrate into their communities and develop identities as workers. He established the Village's employment services, which have received acclaim for providing "some of the best employment outcomes" for people with mental illness.

As employment has become an increasingly integral part of mental health recovery, Mr. Barry is often requested as a trainer and consultant to organizations. In California, he is a specialist for the Departments of Mental Health and Rehabilitation's training program. Along with instructing in the MHA Village's "menu approach" to job development, coaching and retention, he is part of the Departments'/Riverside Community College's Employment Partnership Training Series, specializing in "employment supports." He has consulted with systems in New York, Colorado, Alaska and for the five SAMHSA-funded states.

In 1999, Mr. Barry received a first place Eli Lilly Reintegration Award for designing effective services and training others in his field of expertise.

The MHA Village's founding psychiatrist and medical director, Mark Ragins, M.D., has had a leading role in developing our philosophy, treatment strategy and service culture. As a "psychosocial psychiatrist" who believes in recovery, collaboration –among staff and between staff and consumers – and hope, Dr. Ragins is sought after as a speaker. He has become a prolific lecturer, speaking to consumers, community, family and professional groups.

Dr. Ragins is an expert on the role of a psychiatrist in a recovery program. He designed and trains in the Village's "collaborative psychiatry" approach to providing treatment, built on the belief that people with mental illness will accept help more readily if they are treated as equal and active partners in finding solutions to their needs. He developed, with our CEO, the MORS (Milestones of Recovery Scale).

For his own trainings and the MHA Village's web site, Dr. Ragins has written essays such as "Training Psychosocial Rehabilitation Psychiatrists" and "Medication Collaboration Strategies." In his training, the "Four Stages of Recovery," he identifies four concepts – hope, empowerment, self-responsibility and a meaningful role in life – that form a framework for helping individuals achieve their goals. His book, "A Road to Recovery," grew out of a decade of writings and workshops.

Dr. Ragins' latest honor is the John Beard Award, given for lifetime achievement by the United States Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association, in 2011.

Through research and evaluation projects and conference presentations, Gustavo Loera, Ed.D., shares the results of MHA's work to create a workforce development pipeline and other education projects to guide underrepresented students toward careers in mental health and other human services.

Mr. Loera joined MHA in 1997 and directed MHA's involvement as sponsor of Human Services Academies at two high schools. Currently, his work focuses on research to measure the effectiveness of the pipeline's educational model, identify themes that increase student motivation, and track student progress through the pipeline and into mental health and human services work.