Jay Unick, PhD

Jay Unick has been an assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work since 2009. He received his MSW in 2002 and his PhD in 2006 from the University of California, Berkeley. From 2007 to 2009 he was a National Institute of Mental Health Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of California, San Francisco. 

Currently, Dr. Unick is involved with the evaluation of the Baltimore Child and Adolescent Crisis Response System (BCARS) emergency diversion project and consults on reforms for the State of Maryland’s crisis system with The Institute. Some current projects include validating the State of Maryland’s Mental Health Outcomes Measurement Survey, developing measures for understanding recovery from mental illness and the organizational characteristics of mental health agencies, developing post-acute psychiatric care discharge interventions, and evaluating child and adolescent child emergency room diversion interventions. Jay’s current research agenda focuses on understanding how mental health policy and social factors interact with individual’s mental health service utilization and how differences across these systems and policies affect racial and ethnic disparities in mental health service use.