Penn Team Wins National Public Policy Challenge

Fels Institute of Government’s second annual National Invitational Public Policy Challenge, held at the National Constitution Center, was won by the home team. Penn’s own Challenge winner, re:Mind, took the prize for its proposal of an appointment reminder system for mental health patients, with the ultimate goal of curbing the number of costly and preventable re-hospitalizations.

“This was basically a doubling in size of the competition. Last year we invited four schools to compete against Penn, and this year we had eight,” said Public Policy Challenge Executive Director Sarah Besnoff. “And what we saw was just an amazing sharing of ideas. All nine teams had fantastic ideas of great value to their communities.”

The re:Mind team includes Dan Bernick, a junior in the College and submatriculant to Fels; Molly Kreider Viscardi, a master in bioethics and nursing doctoral student; Meghan O’Brien, a master in bioethics and medical student; and Kayla Cheatham, a master of social work candidate. On the eve of the competition, the team officially partnered with Community Behavioral Health (CBH), a not-for-profit 501c (3) corporation contracted by the City of Philadelphia for mental health services.

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