Barb Solish serves as the National Alliance on Mental Illness’s National Director of Program Innovation. She is passionate about mental health awareness, education, and advocacy, especially after the loss of a friend to suicide. Barb’s lived experience developing a mental health condition as a young person also motivates her work improving outcomes for young people with mental health concerns. In addition to youth and young adult work, Barb has overseen NAMI’s workplace mental health initiatives, including the NAMI StigmaFree Workplace program and NAMI’s new “You Can Ask” workplace mental health online training. Barb believes strongly that not only is creating a mentally healthy workplace the right thing to do, it’s an economic imperative.

Solish briefed National Press Foundation fellows in May 2026: NAMI and Lyra Health Unpack the Latest Workplace Mental Health Data.