The University of Oregon will bring finalist candidates to campus this month in its national search for the executive director of The Ballmer Institute for Children’s Behavioral Health.

The Ballmer Institute is creating an entirely new profession aimed at promoting the behavioral health and wellness of children and adolescents with an emphasis on early detection and prevention of mental health disorders. Child behavioral health specialists who graduate from the Ballmer Institute will enrich the behavioral health and wellness of children and adolescents across identities and abilities, from a variety of family structures and backgrounds, in schools, public health and other health care settings.

“This hire is crucial,” said Janet Woodruff-Borden, acting provost and executive vice president. “The executive director will develop and implement a vision that enables us to deliver on our commitment that the Ballmer Institute contributes high-quality research and trains a group of diverse and very qualified specialists to augment the existing behavioral health care workforce and play a key role in the continuum of care for Oregon’s persistently underserved youth in an area where numbers in desperate need of that care are growing.”

Affiliated faculty and staff will be invited to meet with each of the finalists during their respective campus visit, which will include a UO Portland component.

Details about each candidate will be released in advance to invited participants, along with an online feedback survey for each candidate, through which participants can share their observations.

The search committee is chaired by professor Leslie Leve, Lorry Lokey Chair and department head in the Department of Counseling Psychology and Human Services in the College of Education, and includes a broad range of internal and external UO stakeholders. The committee partnered with Isaacson, Miller to ensure a broad search yielding a diverse pool of well-qualified candidates.