Speaker's Profile

Dr. Lana Lipe is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and previously served as the State Program Director of Suicide Prevention & Crisis Response for the State of Indiana’s Division of Mental Health & Addiction, where she provided strategic direction for five program areas along the crisis continuum: 988 Contact Centers, Mobile Crisis Teams, Crisis Receiving and Stabilization Services, Disaster Behavioral Health, and Suicide Prevention. She has led large teams of subject matter experts and has managed over $100 million in grants and contracts supporting crisis systems transformation. Lana’s career spans clinical practice, program implementation, advocacy, and policy development. She co-authored Indiana Senate Bill 222 with Indiana's Family & Social Services legal team, legislation signed into law in 2026 that formally designates 988 crisis specialists and mobile crisis teams as first responders. She has co-chaired Infrastructure and Crisis Services Workgroups and has helped develop statewide Suicide Prevention Plans. Through SAMHSA’s 2026 Systems Design Policy Academy, she is leading Indiana’s effort to create statewide policy that centers people with lived experience across the crisis care continuum, including 988/911 interoperability, the court system, and other critical touchpoints. A central focus of Lana’s work is advancing interoperability between 911 and 988, building the data-sharing infrastructure, cross-system relationships, and shared protocols needed to connect people in crisis to the right care. She previously served as a Medical Social Worker in neurological and surgical ICUs, where she co-founded a hospital-wide Critical Incident Stress Management Team, and she maintains a private psychotherapy practice and consulting business. Her doctoral research at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville evaluates the impact of continuing education on clinical provider self-efficacy.