Patti M. Clark, EdD, MBA, CPS

Dr. Clark earned a BA in Journalism from Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Kentucky, an MBA from Sullivan University, and an EdD in Leadership and Policy Studies from Eastern Kentucky University.

She has served as the Kentucky State Suicide Prevention Coordinator and Principal Investigator for the Kentucky Initiatives for Zero Suicides and was Project Director for the state’s Suicide Prevention Efforts for Adolescents in Kentucky, both Garrett Lee Smith funded suicide prevention projects.

Dr. Clark provides training and technical assistance to prevention providers in Kentucky, with focused efforts on substance use and suicide prevention, integration/collaboration with other sectors through shared risk and protective factors (bullying, sexual assault, violence), needs assessment, capacity building, and strategic planning for state- and community-level prevention implementation. She was co-team leader for Kentucky’s SMVF Suicide Implementation team and co-created Kentucky’s military immersion training, Operation Immersion.

Previously she was the Associate Coordinator of the Southeast Resource Team of the Center for the Application of Prevention Technologies, a SAMHSA-funded training and technical assistance provider to state-level behavioral health grantees. She served ten states and two jurisdictions in the Southeast Region (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Virgin Islands, and Washington DC) focusing on Florida, Georgia, and Kentucky.

Dr. Clark began her prevention career as a project coordinator for Kentucky’s Underage Drinking Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF) project in Owen County, Kentucky, where binge drinking among high school youth was reduced by 36% over a two-year period. She is a former newspaper publisher and brings a 20-year career of managing community newspapers to the prevention field.