The nonprofit mental health provider offers outpatient, in-school and occupational therapy for children. The organization also offers foster care services and trains other professionals in trauma-based care.
Mr. Newson was named as president and CEO in February. He was most recently chief community impact and advocacy officer for Ascension Wisconsin. Prior to becoming chief advocacy officer, Mr. Newson was CEO of the Ascension Wisconsin Foundation, leading the system’s philanthropic efforts.
He has held numerous other roles in public policy, including as secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, giving him a “grassroots and grasstops” perspective on advocacy.
Mr. Newson told Becker’s about why he jumped at the chance to lead Wellpoint Care Network and his vision for the organization’s future.
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Question: Why Wellpoint Care Network?
Reggie Newson: There have been three things that have driven my passion and my purpose: building opportunities, strengthening community and enriching lives. Certainly, WellPoint, thematically, hits all of those areas. Wellpoint Care Network is a community anchor. It has served the Milwaukee community for over a century and walked around families and children to help them overcome the impacts of behavioral health, trauma and adversity. When I saw the opportunity to lead Wellpoint in the next chapter, I jumped at it.
Q: What experience from your role at a major health system, Ascension, are you bringing to your new position as CEO?
RN: At Ascension Wisconsin, my role was addressing healthcare access for vulnerable communities. As part of my role, I headed up public policy around government insurance, and changing those policies to make insurance more accessible and affordable for community members. I like to think I bring my public policy experience. I developed a wealth of connections and relationships working with a variety of community members, civic leaders, business leaders — grassroots and grasstops. I was charged with making sure the programs we had to serve the vulnerable were sustainable, viable and safe. I bring that experience along with community support to Wellpoint Care Network and will help lead and drive the mission, vision and values there.
Q: What are your top priorities for your first year as CEO?
RN: Wellpoint Care Network is in a great place in terms of sustainability and viability. It’s ready to bust at the seams to address and scale impact. I’m going to spend a lot of time doing rounding, listening to community members, learning from the passionate group of associates at Wellpoint Care Network that have taken on serving the community around trauma and behavioral health as a vocation and a passion, listening to them, meeting with board members, meeting with the people that we’re privileged to service.
Q: What are the most pressing challenges in youth mental health in Milwaukee now?
RN: We need to continue to break down the stigma around behavioral health. A lot of work has been done on that. For vulnerable communities, access is a barrier. We need to have more access — timely access — to behavioral health for young people and their families. The unique thing about what Wellpoint Care Network is doing to address this is really scaling its reach. It’s meeting people, particularly children, where they’re at. Wellpoint Care Network is in 50 schools across the market, providing access and virtual services to young people, really focusing on trauma, addressing anxiety, and providing all sorts of therapeutics, whether it be art, occupation or play. Those therapeutics are really helping address the issues. They’re much needed, and we’ll continue to work on expanding access and really meeting people where they’re at.
Q: What do you hope Wellpoint Care Network is doing 5 years from now?
RN: We want to make sure we are meeting people where they’re at and helping the thousands of people we are privileged to serve continue to maximize their full potential, to flourish. That’s addressing the whole person, providing access to behavioral health, and the things we can do programmatically to help families and children — access to education, access to a good-paying job, housing, food — all the other social supports they need. We want to make sure Wellpoint Care Network is building strategic alliances with organizations that can help scale that impact. Wellpoint Care Network is a thought leader, and we want to continue to be a thought leader. We want to continue to train more people around trauma-informed care and make that accessible for people who want to engage and address those issues. That’s going to be a top focus moving forward.