William Emmet is a longtime mental health advocate and policy leader. From 2013 to 2016, he served as the first Executive Director of The Kennedy Forum, a behavioral health policy incubator founded by former Congressman Patrick Kennedy. As Director of the Campaign for Mental Health Reform from 2006 through 2009, Mr. Emmet was responsible for coordinating the efforts of eighteen national organizations to make effective mental health services a national priority and to ensure the integration of mental health into national health reform.
Mr. Emmet served earlier as a Project Director at the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD), where he oversaw a federally funded technical assistance project involving six national organizations and their state-based affiliates. He also coordinated the mental health community’s contributions to the Council of State Governments’ Criminal Justice/Mental Health Consensus Project. Previously, Mr. Emmet served (1990–1998) as the first Executive Director of the NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) state organization in Rhode Island and subsequently (1998–2000) as Chief Operating Officer of NAMI’s national office. Over time, he has also served as a consultant on policy and organizational issues in various settings in different states.
Mr. Emmet twice served as Board chair of Fellowship Health Resources Inc., a Rhode Island-based multi-state behavioral health care provider, and currently is Board Vice-Chair of Elwyn, a multi-disciplinary human services organization based in Pennsylvania and operating in several states nationwide. He has served on many other volunteer boards and councils. From 2020 through 2023, he was President of the Mount Pleasant Village, a local Washington, D.C., organization focused on the opportunities and challenges associated with aging in the community.
A former journalist and teacher, Mr. Emmet became active in advocacy when his brother was diagnosed with a mental illness in the early 1980s. A husband, father, and grandfather, he divides his time between Washington, D.C., and Newport, Rhode Island.