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NEW! SEE ATTACHED SEMINAR PROGRAM OVERVIEW
Earn up to 8.25 CE hrs

���������� Note: ���������� enthusiastically congratulates former Fountain House CEO Dr. Ashwin Vasan on his first day as ���������� City’s Commissioner of Health and Mental Hygiene and also Mayor Eric Adams for making an excellent choice here. Dr. Vasan has been a longtime proponent of recovery and rehabilitation centered approaches who helped to make Fountain House a national force and influence.

According to a statement from the Fountain House board, “Dr. Vasan joined Fountain House in 2019 with a diagnosis and a vision. The diagnosis was that mental health is an under-resourced and underinvested social justice issue, particularly for the 14 million people in America living with serious mental illness. The vision was to ensure mental health is public health – and, accordingly, ensure the full rights and civic inclusion of those living with it. With the coronavirus pandemic leading to a   mental health epidemic, we are enthusiastic that he will be able to advance that perspective from this critical public health perch – in addition to helping ���������� City continue to navigate through the ongoing pandemic challenges which are all too apparent at the current moment. During his tenure as President and CEO, Dr. Vasan expanded Fountain House – a 73-year-old direct service organization that has inspired 200 local models around the country – into a national nonprofit. Dr. Vasan recruited a stellar executive team to implement a strategic planning effort to structurally remake how mental health is resourced and funded at the federal, state, and local levels, including expanding resources for community-based mental health. Rooted in the rights and dignity of Fountain House members living with serious mental illness, the plan includes building a movement across the country of those with lived experience who are driving change, and a robust research and race equity agenda.”

         ���������� is very pleased to feature Dr. Vasan as a keynote at our April 26th Executive Seminar. See attached for more details.

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Ashwin Vasan Takes Over As NYC’s Health Commissioner
City and State March 16, 2022

Incoming NYC Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan. Saskia Kahn
As of Tuesday, ���������� City has a new health commissioner. Dr. Ashwin Vasan, a mental health nonprofit leader, took over from Dr. Dave Chokshi, who  as he guided millions through the treacherous waters of vaccines, testing and new COVID-19 variants.
Vasan will be serving as the 44th commissioner of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in a time of cautious optimism about the pandemic’s potential departure from the public’s everyday life. He is expected to focus on mental health and what Chokshi has called the city’s “epidemic of loneliness.”
Vasan previously served as president and CEO of Fountain House, a nonprofit organization centered around assisting mentally ill ����������ers with housing, hospitalization and therapy services. 
“Ashwin has been an inspirational leader for Fountain House, taking the organization to new heights in community-based mental health and public policy accomplishments,” said William Hilburn, the chair of Fountain House’s board of directors, in a statement released by the organization on Vasan’s resignation.
Prior to his work with Fountain House, Vasan was a member of the faculty at the Mailman School of Public Health where he worked in population and family health. He specialized in assisting low-income, underinsured patients in the city,  of the doctor on Columbia’s faculty website. 
The executive director of ���������� City’s National Alliance on Mental Illness, Matt Kudish, spoke to the experience that Vasan will be bringing to the role as a mental health professional. “We are thrilled to have a commissioner who values the lived experiences of the 1 in 5 ����������ers affected by mental illness and the other four who are their families, friends, neighbors, and colleagues.”
Chokshi had served as commissioner since August of 2020 after former commissioner  resigned from the role due to various disagreements with former Mayor Bill de Blasio on how to handle the COVID-19 pandemic in the city. Chokshi came from a background in public health with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and had previously served as chief population health officer at NYC Health and Hospitals. He is passing the baton to Vasan with COVID-19 cases on the decline in the city and a fresh administration under Mayor Eric Adams. 
Chokshi was a face that many ����������ers had grown accustomed to seeing on their television screens every day since the fall of 2020 with a plethora of PSAs that became commonplace in so many city homes. 
 posted to Chokshi’s professional Twitter account through the city, he reflected on the work still left to be done as the city seeks to recover from the pandemic that began just two years ago. 
“We have lived through a time filled with so many dark days, and so much suffering…This wasn’t just about tests, medicines or vaccines, but speaking to ����������ers’ fears, anxieties and uncertainties – and offering a roadmap for navigating them, even when solutions were imperfect,” said Chokshi in his departing message.