Faculty & Staff Details
Robert Paulson, PhD, M.S.W.
Research Professor
Division of Training, Research, Education and Demonstrations (TREAD)
Brief Biography
Robert I. Paulson, Ph.D. is currently: co-investigator of an NIMH study of Recoveries of Persons with Serious Mental Illness, PI on the local evaluation of the Broward County Project to end Chronic Homelessness, PI on the Bridging Information Gaps in Services for Kids and Youth: A Study of Mental Health Care for Children and Youth in the Florida Child Welfare System, and Senior Evaluation Consultant to the Boston Trauma Center. He has been a senior member of the research team studying the implementaion of Systems of Care in three cohorts of "graduation sites" under contract with the ORC-MACRO national evaluation and three state Medicaid funded projects looking at ways to improve the system of services to children with mental health problems. He was the lead investigator in the evaluation of Community Based Care, the privatization of child welfare in Florida.
Prior to coming to FMHI he was principal investigator of a CMHS community action grant to develop the IPS+ model which incorporated a dual diagnosis provider, supported employment and consumer providers to the standard ACT model. He was also Director of the Center for the Study of Mental Health Policy and Services, a NIMH-funded Social Work Research Development Center. Dr. Paulson also has been principal investigator of sites in two federally funded multi-site studies on "Managed Behavorial Healthcare in the Public Sector" and the "Supported Housing Initiative. He was also principal investigator on a federally funded randomized trial of an EBP "Comparing Consumer & Non-Consumer ACT Teams & Usual Care". He has conducted research on the interorganizational networks through two NIMH grants: the :"Partners Network Project"; and "Formal and Informal MH Service Networks in Selected Robert Wood Johnson Program on Serious and Persistent Mental Illness. He was also co-principal investigator of the "Oregon Partners Project: A Randomized Study" funded by NIMH, a demostration project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Mental Health Service Program for Youth. This project featured pooled funding from child welfare, education, and state and county mental health and the state Medicaid office in a capitated managed care model.
In addition to his rearch experience he has extensive experience with community mental health systems over the last 20 years. He has served on the board of multiple community mental health centers, as President of the Ohio Council of Community Mental Health Agencies, and as a board member of the Midwest Mental Health Leadership Consortium and the National Community Behavioral Health Care Council (formerly the National Council of Coummunity Mental Health Centers) and is therefore knowledgeable about mental health providers and government agencies. He currently serves on the board and is chair of the program committee for the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay.
