Joe Birkmann, LSW, MPA, is an Assistant Professor in the Dept. Of Psychiatric Rehabilitation at Rutgers RBHS is the Director of the Psychiatric Rehabilitation Department’s State Hospital Psychiatric Rehabilitation Initiative (SHPRI). With over twenty five years of providing services and managing programs for individuals with serious mental illness, providing direct service, supervising staff, implementing activities and evaluating programs, he brings a unique perspective to his teaching, training and consultation activities in the state hospital system in New Jersey.
Over the past fifteen years, he has led a talented team of faculty consultants whose efforts have been focused on implementing best practices like Illness Management and Recovery, developing state hospital staff clinical competencies, addressing areas that include violence reduction, discharge readiness, trauma informed practice and wellness & recovery oriented rehabilitative programming in addition to evaluating a wide variety of hospital based activities.