BHTalk Online Forum

The Behavioral Health Technical Assistance Learning Community (BHTalk) is an online networking site supported by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to promote collaboration and knowledge development among those individuals committed to making recovery and resiliency the expected outcomes of mental health services. Site members can join groups, allowing them to engage in targeted discussions on forums and collaborate on documents; ask questions or describe challenges to seek suggestions from other users; and read and comment on blogs authored by respected figures in the field of mental health.

How Will We use BHTalk?

BHTalk is not exclusive to issues pertaining to mental health. The National Health Care for the Homeless Council has created a group for homeless health care providers and consumers to share information and lend support to their peers. Each group (in our case, the National Health Care for the Homeless Council) can create discussion forum topics. Only administrators can create a discussion forum. Once in a forum, members can create new “threads” where they can discuss various issues related to that topic.

How to Join & Access the Forums

  • Go to www.bhtalk.org and log in, or choose to register now if you do not already have an account
  • Once logged in, you should be on My BHTalk (your personal page)
  • Click on the Groups tab in the top navigation bar
  • Look for National Health Care for the Homeless Council and click on the link
  • If you have not joined the group yet, click on Join this Group under My Links on the left side of the page. If you have joined this group already, click on Forum under the Welcome to National Health Care for the Homeless Council section. These directions are also in the highlighted announcement on the NHCHC group page.
  • Once you click on Forum, you should see the list of forums. Click on any of the forums to see more specific discussion threads.
  • If you want to view a discussion, simply click on the title of the discussion. Once there, you should be able to reply to any of the posts. If you are unable to reply, you have not joined the Group yet. (See above instructions for joining the NHCHC Group.) Note: you can add attachments as part of your reply. When you are ready to submit your reply, click the OK button. The time limit for how long you can work on a reply should be 90 minutes.
  • If you want to keep track of a conversation and get updates via email, you can click on Subscribe to Forum.
  • Click on New Thread to start a new discussion.
  • Questions? Contact Molly Meinbresse or submit your questions in the BHTalk-wide forum that can be accessed through the top navigation bar on the BHTalk website. Good luck! There are other uses of BHTalk that we have not fully explored yet but may consider in the future – i.e. blogs, an events calendar and a resource library. Feel free to play around with these other parts of the website. For example, upload a document to the resource library or submit an event for the calendar. The BHTalk site is meant to be user driven and you are encouraged to make it what you want!