Thrive Dispatches

Isolation among families is usually discussed as a feeling. This conversation puts it somewhere more concrete: in what a community has built and kept. Laura Huerta Migus is Director of Fellowship Alumni Engagement and National Activation & Impact at Ascend at the Aspen Institute. Before that she spent more than a decade leading the Association of Children’s Museums. In this episode of Thri...

In this video episode of Thrive Together, hosts Maya Smith and Jason Lehmbeck speak with Rebecca Ralston, Senior Director of Early Childhood and Preventive Health at Special Olympics, and an alumna of the Thrive Center’s Innovation Hub fellowship. Young Athletes, the early childhood program she has led for ten years, reaches about 350,000 children across more than 170 countries. Roughly 53 million...

Efren Aguilar is a researcher and community engagement specialist at the University of California, Los Angeles, working at the intersection of early childhood measurement, spatial epidemiology, and systems transformation. Over a career spanning more than three decades, he has worked in domestic violence prevention, refugee support, homelessness, public health, and early childhood systems, treating...

In this video episode of Thrive Together, hosts Maya Smith and Jason Lehmbeck speak with Maria Barrera , Co-Founder and CEO of Clayful and an alumna of the Thrive Center’s Innovation Hub fellowship. Clayful partners with schools, its financial and distribution partners, to give students across the country on-demand coaching by text.  Young people hear the statistics about a youth mental health cri...

Dr. Shabab Wahid is an assistant professor of global health at Georgetown University’s School of Health and a global mental health researcher working at the intersection of culture, climate, and wellbeing, with active studies in Bangladesh, Kenya, Senegal, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. In this episode of Thrive Dispatches, Dr. Wahid joins Dr. Matt Biel to explore what cross-cultural science tells us about...

In this video episode of Thriving Together, hosts Maya Smith and Jason Lehmbeck speak with Dr. Mary Ann Woodruff and Rachel Lettieri, LCSW, of Pediatrics Northwest, a pediatric group that has served families in the South Sound region of Washington for more than 50 years. Mary Ann is a general pediatrician who saw patients for 36 years and is now the Medical Director of Care Transformation as well...

In this episode, Dr. Matt Biel speaks with Alison Peak, a clinical social worker specializing in early childhood mental health and the Executive Director of Allied Behavioral Health Solutions, a behavioral health practice with sites across Tennessee. Before any of that, Alison grew up deep in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, in a place where predictable routines created safety even during ti...

Introducing Thriving Together — a new video podcast from the Thrive Center at Georgetown University, now appearing right here on the Thrive Dispatches feed. Hosted by Maya Enista Smith and Jason Lembeck, Thriving Together features the same commitment to honest, solutions-focused conversation as Thrive Dispatches — with a more personal, co-hosted dynamic and a focus on the entrepreneurs, families,...

This week, Dr. Matt Biel speaks with Jamal Berry , President and CEO of Educare DC , a model early childhood program serving more than 375 children prenatal to age five across two campuses and partner sites in Wards 7 and 8 of Washington, DC. Jamal joined Educare DC in 2013 as an infant and toddler mentor teacher and has moved through nearly every layer of leadership since. He is also an Ascend Fe...

This week, Dr. Matt Biel speaks with Dr. Christine Page-Lopez, Associate Medical Director at Neighborhood Health community health centers in Northern Virginia and the Virginia Medical Director for Reach Out and Read. Dr. Page-Lopez also holds a master's degree in public health and works at the intersection of primary care, community building and advocacy. In their conversation, Christine and M...

In this episode, Dr. Matt Biel speaks with Dr. Sunny Patel , a child psychiatrist who recently served as Senior Advisor at SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) and as a White House Fellow, about the current state of children's behavioral health policy. In a political environment where standing behind data and science is becoming a risk, Sunny has bravely spoken ou...

In this episode, Dr. Matt Biel speaks with Jay Chaudhary, former Director of Mental Health and Addiction for Indiana, about transforming an entire state's behavioral health system. Jay describes the mental health financing system he inherited as "a house of cards built on top of a shell game," where providers were locked into rigid financial formulas that made any deviation potential...

In this episode, Dr. Matt Biel has a conversation with Shawn Hardness, Founder and CEO of Statesmen College Preparatory Academy for Boys in Washington, DC. Shawn built a school that challenges everything we think we know about supporting students from high-need communities. At Statesman, 90% of students come from families engaged with public support systems, and the school serves three times the t...

In this episode, Dr. Matt Biel speaks with Secretary Elizabeth Groginsky, who leads New Mexico's Early Childhood Education and Care Department, the first cabinet-level department of its kind in the country. When she arrived in New Mexico in 2019, the state ranked 50th in many national measures of child wellbeing. Now they're building what many see as a national model for early childhood sy...

In this episode, Dr. Matt Biel speaks with Dr. Susan Swick, Executive Director of the Ohana Center for Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health on California's Monterey Peninsula. Dr. Swick is building a comprehensive mental health ecosystem for her region. Rather than simply expanding services that are reactive to crises facing young people, she's creating a model that integrates promotion of emoti...

In this episode, Dr. Matt Biel speaks with Dr. Maya Coleman, Director of Hand in Hand Parenting and faculty member at the Thrive Center. Hand in Hand is an international organization that has been supporting families for 35 years across nearly 40 countries. Dr. Coleman brings a unique perspective shaped by her experiences as both a clinical child psychologist and as a parent who discovered firstha...

In the first episode of season 2 we’re talking about video games. More specifically we’re speaking with Dr. Lynn Fiellin Play2Prevent Lab about how their video games are used as tools for substance use prevention in adolescents and health education. Through five games developed with young people as co-designers, Dr. Fiellin's team creates virtual environments where teens can experience the con...

Thriving isn’t a solo act. In this closing conversation, host Matt Biel looks back on 11 episodes that help shape how Thrive Center pursues its mission. Anchored in Dr. Jack Shonkoff’s insight that thriving is “ the match (or mismatch) between what’s unique about each child and the environment that child is living in, ” Matt revisits the season’s most resonant lessons on collective transformation....

There’s no impact without funding. This week. Thrive Dispatches Podcast explores the family-centered approaches to mental health through the lens of impact investing. Our guest is Louise Langheier, founder of Luminary Impact Fund, the first venture capital philanthropy fund dedicated exclusively to family mental health. Louise brings a unique perspective shaped by personal experiences and decades...

🎧 Building Community Through Culture: A Conversation with the Navajo Nation In this special extended episode of Thrive Dispatches , we explore how culturally grounded partnerships can drive sustainable change in early childhood mental health. Host Matt is joined by Thrive Center’s Jen Drake-Croft, who introduces a powerful conversation with Kim Kee and Charnielle Desiderio—two inspiring leaders f...

What does it really take for children to thrive—not just individually, but within families and communities? In this episode of Thrive Dispatches , host Dr. Matt Biel speaks with Dr. Jack Shonkoff, renowned pediatrician and funding director of Harvard's Center on the Developing Child, about what he calls Early Childhood Development 2.0 . Together, they unpack how decades of developmental scienc...

As they prepare for their first Solutions Fair on May 22nd, 2025, Dr. Matt Biel speaks with Jason Lehmbeck and Kinsley Cuen from the Thrive Center's Innovation Hub, exploring how the first cohort of innovators at the Hub benefited from building and learning with academic and clinical experts from Thrive. The Innovation Hub, launched earlier this year, enables collaborative partnerships that bridge...

This week, Dr. Matt Biel speaks with Dr. David Willis, a pediatrician who dedicated his career to understanding how relationships shape child development and wellbeing and putting in places policies and support structures to enable these relationships to flourish. David brings a unique perspective shaped by his experiences as a developmental and behavioral pediatrician, academic scholar, leader of...

In this episode, Dr. Matt Biel speaks with Rob Harris, an expert in early childhood mental health and education. Their conversation explores the critical role of relationships that young children form with the adults in their lives - caregivers, parents, extended family members, and educators. Rob brings a unique perspective shaped by his experiences as a classroom teacher, mental health counselor...

In this episode, Dr. Matt Biel speaks with Andy Arias, whose work spans policy, advocacy, and program development in disability rights. Their conversation explores what it means to thrive at the intersection of disability, cultural identity, and lived experience. Andy brings perspective as a professional in disability policy, as a member of Latino and LGBTQ+ communities, and as someone who has liv...