Senior Staff

Darby Penney, MLS.

Senior Research Associate

Darby Penney, MLS, is a qualitative researcher with a background in mental health needs assessment and planning, proposal writing and program management. She is also an experienced writer and editor with skills in curriculum development and training, and policy development and analysis. Ms. Penney is currently lead evaluator for AHP’s Shared Decision Making project and the National Center on Trauma-Informed Care. She is a member of the evaluation teams for the National Evaluation of Co-occurring State Incentive Grants (COSIG) and the National Evaluation of Jail Diversion/Trauma Recovery Grants, responsible for assessing state implementation of national and state program goals. Ms. Penney is the lead evaluator for a project assisting the Michigan Department of Community Health to implement the Recovery Enhancing Environment Measure statewide.

Darby was previously Director of Recipient Affairs at the New York State Office of Mental Health, where she was responsible for bringing the perspectives of people with psychiatric histories into the policymaking process. Her work focused on ensuring rights in a system that relies on coercion, on reducing practices that demean people, on promoting self-determination, and on diminishing prejudice and discrimination.

Ms. Penney is co-author with Peter Stastny of The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic (Bellevue Literary Press, 2008). The book and a traveling exhibit of the same name, which has toured the country since 2006, are based on the discovery of 400 suitcases, boxes and trunks of personal items taken from patients when they were committed at Willard State Hospital in upstate New York.

dpenney@ahpnet.com