About Dr. Diane Scott
Dr. Diane E. Scott is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, having earned both her BSW and MSW from the University of Alaska Anchorage. She earned a certificate in management from Duke University and is certified as a Trauma-Informed Care Practitioner, Instructor, and Consultant. Dr. Scott has over 25 years of experience working in the mental health field internationally and across the United States. She served as the Chief of Behavioral Health for the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at a U.S. Army installation. Her clinical and program management experience includes emergency, medical, and military social work. Dr. Scott is the co-developer of the “Trauma-Informed Peer-to-Peer Surveillance (TIPPS)” program and co-founder of Synergy Behavioral Health Solutions, LLC, which was developed in collaboration with her business partner Dr. Billie Ratliff while both enrolled in the Doctor of Behavioral Health (DBH) degree program from Cummings Graduate Institute for Behavioral Health Studies, where she completed the DBH program in 2023.
Dr. Scott’s culminating project, Sounding the Alarm: A Matter of Life and Death for Firefighters, results from a pilot partnership between the Rio Rancho Fire Rescue and Cummings Graduate Institute for Behavioral Health Studies. It is a four-module online course series hosted on an online learning platform, developed to increase awareness among first responders, including firefighters, paramedics, and emergency responders, of the impacts of trauma on health and mental health for this population. Specific learning outcomes included an increased understanding of trauma and the connection between untreated trauma and poor health outcomes for first responders; an increased understanding of the increased risk of poor coping skills, suicidal ideation, and lethality for first responders; and increased adaptive coping mechanisms for addressing trauma through help-seeking behavior, goal setting, and confidence building in giving and receiving peer support. In creating an online curriculum utilizing evidence-based behavioral health education and treatment, Dr. Scott and her co-author Dr. Ratliff aimed to increase firefighters'/EMTs/paramedics' knowledge concerning suicide, developmental and event trauma, and self-care. Primary objectives were to teach first responders to change from the "suck it up" mentality to a trauma-informed mentality, identify and replace unhealthy trauma responses/symptoms early, and reach out for help to heal from events and developmental traumas.
Learn more about Dr. Scott and her culminating project by watching the videos below.
