The University of Texas at Austin

J.J. Pickle Research Center, Commons Conference Center
CHASP and the LBJ School are collaborating with the University of Texas, Brookings Institution and several other organizations to host this half-day symposium that focuses on various perspectives for improving health care in Texas. For additional information, visit the event page.

Clinical Education Center at Brackenridge, room C1.111, 12:15-2:15
Did you know that spending for health and human services in Texas accounts for about a third of the entire state budget? Join CHASP as we host a panel of policy experts to discuss critical health and human services legislation from the 81st Texas Legislature. Featured speakers Eva De Luna Castro, Senior Budget Analyst, Center for Public Policy Priorities; Stephen Palmer, Texas Health Care Policy Council, Office of Gov. Rick Perry; and Heather Vasek, Long-Term Care expert with Delisi Communications, will provide different perspectives of the impact of a few critical laws affecting health and human services.

Hosted by CHASP and the LBJ School of Public Affairs, and organized in part by LBJ professor Jacqueline Angel, the Conference Series on Aging in the Americas (CAA) is aimed at increasing knowledge through research about people of Mexican descent and identifying and fostering emerging scholars in the field during a time when the topic is quickly arising as a crucial policy and national budget issue.

Based on past conference attendance by scholars and students from all over the United States and Mexico, the CAA series is certain to draw a dynamic and multidisciplinary group in the conferences planned for 2007 and 2008.  Specifically, the conferences will focus two main areas that will contribute to the development of innovative research and social policies with respect to healthful aging in the population of people of Mexican descent:  Psychosocial and Behavioral Health and Epidemiology of Disability and Healthy Life Expectancy.  The conferences will consist of six plenary speakers and two keynotes. The speakers for the conference are leaders in their respective fields with extensive experience studying people of Mexican origin.  Each conference will conclude with a consensus building session on next steps and reviewing key issues raised during the conference.
For additional information about the CAA series and to read conference materials, visit the conference website:  http://www.prc.utexas.edu/caa/.

CHASP is hosting "Practice What We Teach: A Conference of Graduate Student Work in Education" at the Thompson Conference Center Auditorium. This event will be co-hosted by the Texas Center for Education Policy, the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources, the UT School of Education, the Charles A. Dana Center, and the University Council for Educational Administration. Students will present their research in education and hold question and answer sessions. Read More >

Did you know that adolescents in detention and correctional facilities are about 10 times more likely to suffer from psychosis than the general adolescent population? Join us as Steve Spencer, Director of Behavioral Health at the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission, talks about policies for addressing mental health problems among young offenders.

A discussion with Kerry Weems, Administrator, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Read More >

Join us as panelists Jodie Smith of Texans Care for Children; Kalese Hammonds of the Texas Public Policy Foundation; and Texas Representative Patrick Rose, Chair of the House Committee on Human Services, share their perspectives about how to address some of the issues facing Texas children, such as poverty and limited access to health care. Panelists will outline their legislative priorities for the 81st Texas Legislative Session. Read More >

Karl Urban and Nora Douglas of Texas’ Adult Protective Services Program, which helps provide a safety net for the elderly and adults with disabilities, will provide a brief history of the program reformation that began in 2004, a progress report about how well the program is working now, and some recommendations for the future.

The Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs' Center for Health and Social Policy and the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law will welcome Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum on Oct. 30 for a conversation titled "From the American People: Health and U.S. Foreign Policy" as part of the Elspeth Rostow Distinguished Lecture Series for Public Policy Leadership. Read more >

Director of Friends of the Global Fight (against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria), Natasha Bilimoria will discuss worldwide efforts to address public health issues. Learn More >

CHASP and FamilyConnections are co-hosting a Post-Partum Depression Summit. The event will be from 8:00-4:00 at the Thompson Conference Center Auditorium. Break-out sessions for discussion will follow.

The Center for Health and Social Policy, in collaboration with Raising Texas, is featuring a presentation by Dr. Walter Gilliam, Director of the Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy at Yale University, on his national research on preschool expulsion rates in state-funded programs. Read More >

CHASP will host “Medicare: Past, Present and Future,” a conference featuring nationally renowned Medicare experts, including Mark McClellan, former Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services Director, and Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag.  Sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the LBJ School of Public Affairs, the conference is one event in a series to commemorate the centennial birthday of Lyndon Johnson. Read More >

Anne Baddour of Texas Appleseed (http://www.texasappleseed.net/), Woody Widrow of RAISE Texas (http://www.covenantcapital.org/html/publicpolicy/idanetwork.html) and Don Baylor of the Center for Public Policy Priorities (http://www.cppp.org/) gave a presentation, "From Benefits to Bootstraps: Asset-Building as a Poverty Reduction Strategy," on March 28.

Cheryl Perry, Professor and Regional Dean, University of Texas School of Public Health, Austin Regional Campus, and Eduardo Sanchez, Director, Institute for Health Policy, University of Texas School of Public Health, Austin Regional Campus, talked about the new regional campus, founded in 2007, as well as the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Advancement of Healthy Living and the Institute for Health Policy. Dr. Perry also discussed CATCH (a Coordinated Approach To Child Health), a project funded in all Travis County elementary schools to address childhood fitness and nutrition.

Dr. Cynthia Osborne of the LBJ School questioned the efficacy of state and federal policies intended to promote marriage as a means to protect children in her presentation, "To Wed or Not to Wed: Should the US Promote Marriage?" on January 25.

On November 30, 2007, a panel of education research experts discussed how their research has impacted education policy and practice. Panelists featured were:

• Dr. Celeste Alexander, Department of Educational Administration
  "Houston Schools for a New Society: A Study of High School Restructuring"
  • download presentation
  • download handout
• Dr. Ed Fuller, University Council for Educational Administration
  "Principal Turnover and the Effect on Teacher Turnover and Student Achievement"
  • download presentation
• Dr. Chris King, Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources
  "Education and Work After High School: First Look at the Central Texas Class of 2006"
  • download presentation
• Dr. Pam Paek, Research Associate, Charles A. Dana Center
  "Perspectives of mathematics achievement: implications for educational policy and practices at the local, state, and national level"
  • download presentation
• Dr. Michelle Young, Executive Director, University Council for Educational Leadership
  Topic: Leadership Development

On October 26, Eva De Luna Castro, Senior Budget Analyst with the Center for Public Policy Priorities (http://www.cppp.org/) presented “On the Razor’s Edge: Texas Families and Economic Insecurity.”

In August 2007, CHASP co-hosted an important conference, "The First Nine Months of Fatherhood," a national conference on emerging research and practice on the prenatal contributions of fathers.

The center proudly co-hosted the university's inaugural conference on Gender, Globalization and Governance, held at the Law School on April 12-13, 2007. The conference considered the role of state and other governance models in crafting gender policy, contributing to debates about how international and national policymakers negotiate the changing global order.

On March 30, 2007, LBJ Professor David Warner and the students in his policy research project on options for providing Medicare coverage for US Retirees in Mexico hosted a conference to present their findings from site visits to several retirement communities in Mexico and a survey of approximately 1000 retirees.

On March 23 CHASP featured a panel presentation and discussion about measurements of success of delivery and coordination of mental health care services.  The panel included LBJ professor Pat Wong, director of a policy research project to evaluate the transformation of Texas’ mental health system (http://www.utexas.edu/lbj/students/view_course.php?cid=395); Judy Willgren, director of the Raising Texas (http://www.hhsc.state.tx.us/si/oecc/oecc_home.html) initiative to coordinate services for children statewide; and David Marcotte, (http://www.umbc.edu/pubpol/Bios/DaveMarcotte.html) Associate Professor of Public Policy, University of Maryland – Baltimore County, and expert in the evaluation of social services systems.

On February 8, Tommy Thompson, former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, presented “Medicaid Makeover,” (http://www.utexas.edu/lbj/webcasts/movie/51/) outlining his ideas for innovative strategies that would make Medicaid more cost effective and efficient when delivering critical health care to millions of low-income Americans.

CHASP hosted a panel on December 8 to discuss legislation likely to be considered during Texas’ 80th Legislative Session, which convened in January 2007.  Guests on the panel included Amy Herzog, Senate Health and Human Services Committee Director; Troy Alexander, Senior Policy Analyst for Health and Human Services for House Speaker Tom Craddick; Eva DeLuna Castro, Senior Budget Analyst, Center for Public Policy Priorities; Dan Finch, Director of Legislative Affairs, Texas Medical Association; and Jennifer Banda, director of advocacy and public policy, Texas Hospital Association.

On November 3, Dr. Ken Shine, Executive Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs for the University of Texas System, and senior advisor of the Task Force for Access to Health Care in Texas that produced Code Red: The Critical Condition of Health in Texas, presented “Code Red: Improving the Health of Texans,” focusing on options for addressing Texas’ high uninsured rate and the use of Electronic Health Records to improve access to care and patient safety. 

Kicking off the series was DeAnn Friedholm, with her September 29 presentation, “The New South Africa: Transforming Social and Health Services for Today’s Needs.” Ms. Friedholm gave a broad overview of critical health and human services issues in South Africa and then focused on her work with the government to restructure the social grants/services system to meet new challenges.