“Living Your Best Life – Keys to Optimizing Better Mental Health” is March 18 topic

Michael Yates, director of business development at Oak Ridge-based Ridgeview Behavioral Health Services, will speak on “Living Your Best Life – Keys to Optimizing Better Mental Health” at noon Tuesday, March 18, during the Lunch with the League meeting of the League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge. 

The public is invited to attend the lunch and lecture between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. at the Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church, 809 Oak Ridge Turnpike. All are welcome to bring their lunch or purchase a boxed lunch for a nominal fee. Coffee and tea will be served. The hour-long presentation will end with questions and answers.

“Optimizing better mental health is important in managing life’s hardships and plays an important role in people’s ability to live their best life,” Yates said, quoting M. Scott Peck, who stated in his 1978 book “The Road Less Traveled,” that “life is difficult and complex.”  

“I intend my presentation to be conversational and help elevate the importance of mental healthcare in building stronger individuals, families and communities," Yates said.

Yates has nearly 35 years of combined experience in community behavioral health and public child welfare services. He received a master of divinity degree from Vanderbilt University in 1990. He spent two years at Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital before joining the McNabb Center in 1992.

For 12 years he provided therapeutic foster care services before joining Harmony Family Center in 2004 as the statewide director of the Adoption Support and Preservation Services program. For this work he received the Bill Williams Award for Excellence in Adoption Services.

In 2014, Yates joined Ridgeview Behavioral Health Services as director of development. He is a regular contributor to newspapers through op-eds, guest columns, and agency-related media releases. In addition to his various responsibilities at Ridgeview, he is also the project director on a Behavioral Health Support project in Fentress County that is funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration.

Yates is a former board member of the Alcoa City School Foundation and Alcoa Kiwanis Club. He is past chair of the board of directors of the Mental Health Association of East Tennessee.