Ms. Biegel is a psychotherapist, researcher, speaker, and author in the San Francisco Bay Area who specializes in mindfulness-based work with adolescents. She is founder of Stressed Teens, which has been offering Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Teens (MBSR-T), adolescents, families, schools, professionals, and the community for over a decade. She created MBSR-T to help teens in a large HMO’s outpatient department of child and adolescent psychiatry whose physical and psychological symptoms were not responding satisfactorily to a multitude of other evidence-based practices. An expert and pioneer in bringing mindfulness-based approaches to youth, she is the author of Be Mindful & Stress Less: 50 Ways to Deal with Your (Crazy) Life, The Stress Reduction Workbook for Teens (first and second edition), the Be Mindful Card Deck for Teens and the forthcoming book Mindfulness for Student Athletes: A Workbook to Help Teens Reduce Stress and Enhance Performance. She also has a mindfulness practice audio CD, Mindfulness for Teens, to complement the MBSR-T program; provides worldwide multiday trainings and intensive ten-week online trainings; and works with teens and families individually and in groups. Her work has been featured on CNN and Reuters, and in the New York Times. For more information, visit her website at www.stressedteens.com.
ValJeán Dale, LMFT, LPCC, ADC
Ms. Dale was the first Vice-President and second President of MHWA and co-founder, has been recognized as one of today's most insightful and original voices on an array of clinical topics, including constructs of introspection/modern relationships and EQ (Personal Competences: Self-regulation, -management,-regulation and Empathy). Her varied professional achievements span over business and industry, educational institutions (professor/academic counselor-- community college, and university level), the mental health clinical profession for 20+ years as a double licensed mental health clinician, consultant, and as president of a solution-focused corporation. Her college was a trail-blazer with one of the first mental health & wellness programs on a CA community college campus she created/managed for 10 years, with paid MFT interns; before accepting a promotion to administrator: Dean, Counseling & Assessment divisions. She is proud of her contribution to the initiation and growth of MHWA. Presently, she divides her time between a clinical practice, consulting, speaking, writing, research, and the non-profit she founded 1999. The "Psychology of Men" became a specialization area, and sabbatical leave choice, as a result of identifying the specific needs communicated by hundreds of male students attending psychology and interpersonal relations courses she taught. Post sabbatical, she began leading student support groups, for male students, on campus and eventually trained male interns to integrate ongoing groups. She conducts staff development and other trainings for associations, colleges, and universities. Notable topics include “An Introduction to Title IX Investigator 101 for the College Campus." (Note: she served as the Title IX Sexual Assault & Harassment Prevention Officer for four years.) Ms. Dale has been committed to the development of an independent profession of psychotherapy, and offices in her community, for over twenty-five years: services include unique group structures (i.e., tri-couples groups, client or clinician groups), counseling, consultation, clinical assessments, and individual or group clinical supervision.
Dr. Gerald Amada, PhD
Dr. Amada is co-founder and past director of the Mental Health Program, City College of San Francisco, where he practiced for 30 years. He is an expert on student conduct issues, and has presented at 150+ colleges in the US and Canada. Dr. Amada has published twelve books in three genres: psychotherapy, college student conduct, and fiction, and has over ninety articles and book reviews in professional journals on college student therapy and conduct issues.