Award for Promoting Evidence-Based Mental Health Services for Children & Adolescents: Ritchie J. Rubio, PhD

Award for Promoting Evidence-Based Mental Health Services for Children & Adolescents: Ritchie J. Rubio, PhD

The SCCAP Award for Promoting Evidence-Based Mental Health Services for Children and Adolescents recognizes a clinical child and adolescent practitioner who has made a significant and enduring impact on promoting awareness, accessibility, and/or implementation of evidence-based mental health services for youth. This recognition highlights the outstanding work of currently practicing clinicians who take scientifically derived clinical knowledge and promote, provide, or share it on a broader scale, particularly with members of diverse, vulnerable, or underserved groups. An award review committee, including Ashley M. Shaw, Ph.D., Michelle Roley-Roberts, Ph.D., and Alysha D. Thompson Ph.D., reviewed the outstanding applications for this award.

SCCAP is thrilled to announce that the 2023 winner of this award is Ritchie J. Rubio, Ph.D., Director of Practice Improvement and Analytics of the Children, Youth, and Families System of Care at the San Francisco Department of Public Health. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Counseling Psychology programs of the University of San Francisco, Pepperdine University, and the Wright Institute. Dr. Rubio has made a significant local, state, national, and global impact regarding increasing awareness and dissemination of remote-delivered and culturally responsive evidence-based practices for youth. Dr. Rubio completed his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology, with a Child and Family emphasis. Across his 25 years of experience, he has worked in various roles (e.g., clinical psychologist, researcher, trainer, statistical consultant, professor) in three different countries, including the Philippines and New Zealand. Dr. Rubio is licensed in both California and New Zealand, and is proficient in Tagalog and two other Filipino languages.

In terms of promoting awareness and accessibility, Dr. Rubio engages in community-based participatory research to consistently integrate the voices of key stakeholders (children, families, program leaders) in his efforts to enhance diversity and equity in the work of various mental health organizations. For example, one of his research efforts seeks to understand the implications of racial/cultural matching of clients and clinicians on mental health outcomes. Additionally, he has been very involved in increasing awareness of evidence-based remote-delivered and culturally responsive interventions for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) families. He also participates in a San Francisco committee collaborating on a city-wide plan to apply for funding through the federal Family First Prevention Services Act law. This committee seeks to obtain funding for efforts to implement evidence-based prevention and intervention services (e.g., Triple-P and Multi-Systemic Therapy) for child-welfare involved families.

In terms of his implementation efforts, Dr. Rubio seeks to build sustainability for therapists to utilize remote, culturally-informed, and culturally-adapted evidence-based practices in their settings. As a concrete example of the global reach of his efforts, we were incredibly impressed with Dr. Rubio’s “Tools to Improve Practice” website, which includes practice-oriented resources for clinicians (e.g., tools for working with a range of marginalized groups and an anti-racism toolkit). Overall, Dr. Rubio has been involved in creating and leading a range of training opportunities with the goal to strengthen the use of evidence-based assessments and interventions in a telehealth environment primarily for diverse, marginalized, and underserved communities. For example, Dr. Rubio created a curriculum and facilitated a learning network for the Greater Bay Area Mental Health and Education Workforce Collaborative in California to prepare behavioral health providers to use evidence-based, trauma-informed, and culturally-responsive clinical practices with their clients, in a telehealth environment. Additionally, he collaborated on and co-facilitated a 12-week webinar series attended by 2,000 providers to consolidate learning from the quick transition to telehealth during COVID-19.

In sum, through his many hats, we thank Dr. Rubio for the substantial impact he has made on marginalized families with lived experiences of mental illness, behavioral health clinicians, and mental health organizations across three countries. SCCAP heartily congratulates Dr. Rubio on his achievement and receipt of this prestigious award!