The National Institute for Medical Respite Care, a special program of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, is thrilled to announce keynote and featured speakers for the upcoming 2024 California Recuperative Care Symposium in Sacramento, Sept. 12-13, 2024. Learn more about each keynote and featured speaker below, or click the button to register for the symposium!
Thursday, Sept. 12: Symposium Welcome
Vanessa Davis, Kaiser Permanente
Vanessa Davis brings more than 15 years of experience in health care and with national and international health and social justice nonprofits. She has a robust background in public health research trials in various hospital and community-based settings, working at the intersection of health and social behavior.
Currently serving as the Director of Medi-Cal External Engagement and Initiatives at Kaiser Permanente, Davis leads efforts to strengthen the Medi-Cal program by fostering meaningful collaborations with external partners, including county agencies, community-based organizations, and managed care plans. Her portfolio includes strategies to address population health, homelessness and affordable housing, food security, and other social influencers of health.
Davis holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Wesleyan University and a Master of Public Health Degree from the University of California, Berkeley. Owing to her familial and ancestral experience of displacement and diaspora, she’s committed to working in solidarity with the communities most impacted by systemic inequities to address personal and collective health and well-being.
Bobby Watts, National Health Care for the Homeless Council
Bobby Watts is the Chief Executive Officer of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, which supports the 300 federally funded Health Care for the Homeless programs and 100 Medical Respite providers with training, technical assistance, sharing of best practices, research, publications, and an active policy and advocacy program working to eliminate homelessness.
Watts has 30 years of experience in administration, direct service, and implementation of homeless health services, beginning as a live-in counselor at the New York City Rescue Mission. He spent most of his career prior to joining the Council at Care for the Homeless, which operates clinics, shelters, and conducts policy analysis and advocacy in New York City, beginning as an intern, and serving as the executive director from 2005-2017. Under his tenure, the Federally Qualified Health Center agency tripled in size, adding major programs and initiatives — including constructing and operating a shelter for 200 mentally ill and medically frail women — and becoming licensed as a Diagnostic and Treatment Center in New York State.
He has served on numerous boards, government-appointed task forces, and workgroups including serving as the finance officer for the NYC HIV Health and Human Services Planning Council, on the NYS DOH Medicaid Redesign Team’s Affordable Housing Workgroup and Value-Based Payment Workgroup on CBOs and Social Determinants of Health, and as an inaugural member of the NYS Interagency Council on Homelessness, where he co-chaired its Health Committee.
In February 2021, Watts was appointed as a member of the Biden-Harris Administration’s COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force.
Watts is a graduate of Cornell University and the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, from which he holds a master of public health degree in health administration and a master of science degree in epidemiology. He also earned a Certificate of Theological Studies from Alliance Theological Seminary in Nyack, N.Y.
Sept. 12: Opening Keynote
Susan Philip, MPP, California Department of Health Care Services
Susan Philip was appointed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom as the Deputy Director of Health Care Delivery Systems at DHCS in March 2021. Her areas of responsibility include the oversight, monitoring, and contract administration of California’s Medi-Cal managed care program, Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE), the California Children Services (CCS) program, and Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) Waivers programs. She is also responsible for driving key initiatives under California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM) including Community Supports and Providing Access and Transforming Health (PATH).
Prior to her appointment, Philip served in a variety of roles in the healthcare sector including in leadership positions for more than 25 years. Philip has served on boards including a federally qualified health center working with the LBGTQ community as well as people experiencing homelessness. She is currently on the board of directors of SafeHouse, which provides transitional housing and support services for survivors of trafficking.
Sept. 13: Breakfast Session
Barbara DiPietro, National Health Care for the Homeless Council
Barbara DiPietro earned a Bachelor’s degree in English from James Madison University. Shortly thereafter, she served with the U.S. Peace Corps as a volunteer in Malawi, a country in southeast Africa where she worked in maternal-child health in a village near the Zambian border. Projects in Malawi included improving sanitation conditions, building beds in the women’s ward of the local clinic, and partnering with midwives to distribute accurate health information.
After returning to the U.S., Dr. DiPietro earned a Master’s degree in Policy Sciences with an emphasis in Organizational Management from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and then a Doctorate in Public Health Policy (also from UMBC). Her doctoral dissertation examined the impact of homelessness in Baltimore City’s emergency departments. While earning her Master’s degree, she worked at the Office of the Maryland Governor on policy issues related to health, aging and human services. From there, she moved to the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene where her major focus was inter-agency child and family policy, developing the State’s 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness, and developing and coordinating policy and legislation related to public health services.
At this time, she is Senior Director of Policy for both the National Health Care for the Homeless Council as well as for Health Care for the Homeless of Maryland. In this role, she is able to focus on federal, state and local policies that affect individuals experiencing homelessness, and takes a particular interest in how public systems can better serve vulnerable populations.
Sept. 13: Closing Keynote
Michelle Schneidermann, MD, California Health Care Foundation
Michelle Schneidermann is director of the California Health Care Foundation’s People-Centered Care team. She leads CHCF’s efforts in the care of populations with complex needs, including people experiencing homelessness, older adults, and people with serious behavioral health conditions.
Prior to joining CHCF, Schneidermann served as a Medi-Cal managed care plan Medical Director at Alameda Alliance for Health, where she provided clinical support and oversight with a focus on care coordination and special projects. Before that, Scheidermann spent more than 14 years as a professor and physician leader at UCSF. In addition to being a primary care doctor and hospitalist at San Francisco General Hospital, she was the founding Medical Director of the San Francisco Medical Respite and Sobering Center.
She has served as a county commissioner for Alameda County Health Care for the Homeless, a program of the Alameda County Health Care Services Agency, for the past seven years.
