We are pleased to announce our January 2026 webinar: Freedom is Therapeutic: Trieste and Italian Perspectives on Community Care Reform.
Webinar Description:
Join ISPS-US for a compelling webinar exploring the Trieste Model, Italy's revolutionary, community-based approach to mental healthcare, and its radical implications for US systems.
The Trieste Model represents a profound commitment to full community integration, built on an ethos of accoglienza (Radical Hospitality). Unlike the US experience of deinstitutionalization, Trieste successfully closed its large asylum decades ago and redirected the entire institutional budget to create a robust, supportive network. This network is centered on 24/7 Community Mental Health Centers (CMHCs) and prioritizes holistic human needs, offering integrated community living, social supports, and opportunities for work and economic life. Discover how the Trieste Model’s core principles, where freedom is therapeutic, can inform sustainable change and the development of a more holistic, rights-based system in the American healthcare landscape, challenging the reliance on jails and hospitals as the default care system.
This webinar features Dr. Tommaso Bonavigo from Trieste, joined by members of The Équipe, a diverse learning community of mental health service and policy leaders, who recently completed an intensive study trip to Trieste, led by Heart Forward LA. Dedicated to challenging the institutional status quo in the US, panelists will discuss how lessons learned from Trieste are being practically integrated into American systems and the structural and practical considerations required for successful adoption.
- Can't attend live? Don't worry! The webinar will be recorded and sent to all registrants.
- *Need CE credits? Choose the CE Access Ticket. You’ll be able to attend the live webinar, and within 2 weeks of the event, we’ll send you a follow-up email with a link to the recorded session on our CE platform, CE-Go, along with a short quiz. CEs are awarded only after you complete the quiz; live attendance alone does not qualify. www.isps-us.org/ceinfo
- Unable to contribute? We encourage everyone to contribute towards our webinars where possible to ensure we can compensate our speakers and continue our vital mission. However, a limited number of free spots limited to people who are unwaged or on benefits can be accessed using the scholarship code SCHOLAR25
Presenters
- Travis Atkinson, MS, LPC
Travis Atkinson, MS, LPC, has worked in behavioral health services for the past 20 years as a clinician, trainer, supervisor, advocate, and consultant. He has presented on SAMHSA panels around crisis systems and crisis bed registries, researched best practices in emergency behavioral health care, and spoken at national behavioral health conferences on functional crisis systems and behavioral health workforce challenges. Since 2015 he has worked at TBD Solutions, and he was instrumental in authoring the Crisis Residential Best Practices Handbook in 2018. He is the past president of the Crisis Residential Association. He received his BA from the University of Michigan and his Master’s degree in Community Counseling from National-Louis University. Travis lives in Grand Rapids, MI, with his wife and three daughters. He is also a performing songwriter with six albums to his name. Travis is also the host of The Crisis Podcast.
- Tommaso Bonavigo, MD
Tommaso Bonavigo, has been working in the Trieste system since 2011 (as a resident until 2016, then as a psychiatrist). He works in a Community Mental Health Centre, has conducted some research on the field and coordinates the international cooperation projects of the Mental Health Department.
- Kerry Morrison, MA
Kerry Morrison, Founder and Executive Director of Heart Forward LA, entered this field not through a clinical door, but through the community door. She spent 22 years managing the business improvement district in Hollywood, which helped to spark an economic renaissance to lure back business, tourism and entertainment. Troubled by the inability to help people with untreated serious mental illness living on the streets of Hollywood, she applied for a Stanton Fellowship which afforded her an opportunity to explore better approaches to mental health care to bring ideas back to Los Angeles. Her two-year study fellowship led her to Trieste, Italy, where she discovered the world-recognized system that focuses upon robust community support, an authentic belief in recovery and a focus upon the whole person. She brought others back to see it and worked with Los Angeles leaders to begin work to adapt the model to address mental health system change in L.A. The collaboration led to a state-funded mental health pilot in Hollywood, inspired by Trieste.
Morrison has visited Trieste seven times and lived there for a month in 2019, embedded in their system. She most recently (October 2024) escorted a group of 20 leaders from throughout the US to study the system, as a result of a grant awarded by The Hilton Foundation. Heart Forward LA models the guiding principles inspired by Trieste by partnering with Hollywood-based residential communities, community volunteers, the LA County jail and other locations to practice a culture of Radical Hospitality which contributes to social inclusion, personal flourishing and reduced isolation. Morrison also hosts a podcast which seeks to juxtapose the dysfunction of the American mental health system against the North Star which is Trieste. It is called Heart Forward: Conversations from the Heart.
Morgan Shields, PhD
Morgan Shields’ researches the quality and accountability of behavioral healthcare. Her work seeks to identify implementation strategies to improve the use of evidence-based practices, with a focus on patient-centered care and equity. She is particularly focused on identifying policies (e.g., payment, regulations) to motivate and support quality improvement. Shields is one of few people studying the quality of inpatient psychiatry. Her research identifying disparities in quality performance at the Veterans Health Administration led to internal investigations by the Deputy Under Secretary for Health and Organizational Excellence.In 2019, the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health revamped its critical incident monitoring system in response to Shields’ research. Her analyses highlighting the systematic exclusion of psychiatric patients from national measurement of patient experience has prompted action from national entities to address this discrimination. Shields serves as an expert in related legal cases.
Shields received training in implementation science and community-academic research through an NIMH T32 postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. She has a Ph.D. from Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management, where she was an NIAAA T32 fellow and a Harvard Kennedy School Rappaport Public Policy fellow, and an M.Sc. from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Shields publishes in outlets such as Health Affairs, Medical Care, and the JAMA Network. Shields directs the IDEAL (Inclusive, Dignified, Equitable and Effective, Accountable, and Loving) Lab, which identifies strategies for providing patient-centered care.
