Healthy Minds welcomes new fellows to focus on workforce, substance use policy

Healthy Minds has welcomed two new fellows to its staff to broaden the organization’s expertise and capacity around substance use policy and workforce development and integrated care.

Sharita R. Thomas, MPP, is Healthy Minds’ workforce and integrated care fellow. Sharita comes to Healthy Minds with extensive experience in health policy at the state and federal levels, including previous roles at the U.S. House of Representatives and the North Carolina General Assembly.  

At Healthy Minds, Sharita will support Healthy Minds’ work to grow Oklahoma’s behavioral health workforce and better integrate screening and treatment for mental health and substance use conditions into primary care settings.

Tane Webb, MPH, is the substance use policy fellow at Healthy Minds. Tane has a strong background in navigating the intersection of policy and public health, with previous experience at the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma and the Massachusetts Legislature.

In addition to supporting policymakers with data and evidence for thoughtful substance use policy, Tane will also facilitate the Zero Overdose learning community, which convenes community leaders in public safety and behavioral health fields to strategize around preventing drug overdoses.

The learning community was launched by previous fellow Emily McPherson, who now works as a project manager at Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences overseeing a mental health awareness training grant.

The Healthy Minds fellowship is an opportunity for emerging policy leaders to grow their own subject-matter expertise on mental health and substance use topics, but also to make meaningful contributions to public policy by developing sustainable solutions to our state’s behavioral health challenges.

Tane and Sharita were each hired for a two-year fellowship. Several past Healthy Minds fellows joined the staff full-time after their fellowship, including policy director Brittany Hayes, community initiatives coordinator Audra Brulc, and policy analyst Juli Leber.

The Healthy Minds fellowship is funded by The Anne and Henry Zarrow Foundation.