Anna Duncan: A Passion for Promoting Youth Mental Health
Anyone who’s spent time with Anna Duncan can sense how deeply she cares about people. This is evident in the passion she brings to her work as a program operations specialist at CoLab and has been a through line of her career.
After graduating from Emory University with a BA in Psychology and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Anna worked at LifeWire as an advocate for survivors of domestic violence and their children. In this position, she also co-directed the Children’s Domestic Violence Response Team, a wraparound partnership program aimed at bridging the gap between behavioral health services and domestic violence survivor advocacy. Additionally, Anna previously worked as a research coordinator for the Grady Trauma Project in Atlanta, GA, a large-scale study examining Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Since joining CoLab in March of 2021, Anna has managed projects focused on strengthening the publicly funded behavioral health care system for children and youth. Anna has been working on the CARE project since its inception (read her background story here), and currently leads partner engagement and program implementation efforts. Anna recently shared her perspective on CARE and how the project connects to her personal values.
“Everyone deserves mental health care that is relevant, responsive, and accessible to them, and it is a privilege to be able to advocate for this on a statewide level.”
What drives you to do this work?
AD: I have always been passionate about increasing access to mental health care for all children and families, especially those with systemic barriers to culturally relevant services and support. In my previous position as an advocate for survivors of domestic violence and their children, I saw first-hand how critical early intervention is to the healthy development of children and how lowered access to resources and non-culturally relevant support systems can cause further harm. I feel lucky to get to work on projects that are centered on promoting health equity, and am always working to bring a trauma-informed and client-centered lens to the work.
What resonates with you about the CARE project?
AD: The CARE project feels incredibly relevant and important right now as communities reckon with the mental health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, racial trauma, and broader health equity concerns. It is an honor to be able to work on this project because it is working toward something so critical--increasing the cultural relevancy of mental health services for children and families in the Medicaid system. Everyone deserves mental health care that is relevant, responsive, and accessible to them, and it is a privilege to be able to advocate for this on a statewide level.
Additionally, I love that the CARE project is a community-owned, iterative, and collaborative design process. It is so important that policy design places the individuals and communities who will be most impacted by these policies at the center of the design process, ensuring that it is directly informed by their lived expertise and experience. I really appreciate that in this [messy and imperfect] process of designing a major behavioral health framework, we are working to ensure it is deeply informed by community input and reciprocal community partnership.
“ It is so important that policy design places the individuals and communities who will be most impacted by these policies at the center of the design process.”
Anna living her best life lake floating.
Rapid Q&A with Anna
Q: What is the last thing that you ate?
AD: 3 cups of coffee and leftover shallot pasta. 😊
Q: What’s an album you play on repeat?
AD: Anything by Brandi Carlile!
Q: Favorite Seattle restaurant?
A: Café Selam in the Central District! Runner up is Kedai Makan.
Q: What’s the best book you’ve read lately?
A: In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado.
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We at CoLab are immensely fortunate to have Anna on our team! If you’d like to learn more about her work or reach out to discuss the CARE project, you can reach her at aeduncan@uw.edu.
To learn more about CARE for Kids & Families, visit uwcolab.org/CARE.