Denise Sulzbach, JD

Director of the National Training and Technical Assistance Center for Child, Youth, and Family Mental Health and Assistant Extension Professor

Innovations Institute

Denise Sulzbach, JD, is assistant extension professor and director of the National Training and Technical Assistance Center for Child, Youth, and Family Mental Health, funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work Innovations Institute.

With more than 25 years of experience in behavioral health system transformation, she specializes in systems of care, data-informed decision-making, care pathway planning, implementation science, and the use of data analytics to improve behavioral health systems and outcomes for children, youth, and families. Her work focuses on helping states, territories, tribes, and communities design, implement, and sustain effective cross-system approaches to behavioral health care.

Ms. Sulzbach has led and supported large-scale technical assistance initiatives across the nation, helping public systems strengthen services for children and families with complex behavioral health needs. From 2013 to 2020, she provided and oversaw outcome-based technical assistance through two other SAMHSA-funded children’s behavioral health technical assistance centers. In these roles, she worked with state and local leaders to improve service delivery, strengthen system performance, and advance sustainable behavioral health reforms.

Before joining academia, Ms. Sulzbach held several senior leadership positions in state government. As a former prosecutor specializing in child abuse, sexual assault, and juvenile law, she developed expertise in addressing the needs of vulnerable youth and families involved in multiple service systems. She later served as deputy secretary of the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services and as director of Systems of Care and Interagency Policy in the Maryland Governor’s Office for Children, where she led initiatives to strengthen cross-agency collaboration and improve outcomes for young people with complex behavioral health needs.

In addition to her leadership in behavioral health systems transformation, Ms. Sulzbach has authored numerous successful grant and contract proposals, including Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) technical narratives that have resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in federal and state awards supporting behavioral health and human services initiatives.

Ms. Sulzbach earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Baltimore School of Law and her BA in sociology from Fairfield University.