Dan Arens

Dan Arens began his career working in group homes for youth who experience autism and developmental disorders and later transitioned through both residential and community-based programs supporting families in the child welfare and probation systems before taking operational leadership roles at 2 different Community Mental Health Centers in Central Indiana. Throughout his career, he’s kindled two of his passions, working with under-resourced populations and building more patient centered health care systems. Dan has worked with many youth and families who struggle with co-occurring disorders and who repeatedly fail to effectively navigate a siloed health care system. The most impactful family he supported unfortunately culminated in the early death of teenage boy. This young man lived in poverty, had unmanaged juvenile diabetes, was diagnosed with Conduct Disorder, had a family history of SUD, and an ACES score of 9. Dan’s experience and frustration in attempting to support the complex needs of this family across multiple health care providers in small town Indiana continues to fuel his interest in building a better system of integrated care. Dan has provided leadership along every phase of A&C’s journey toward integrated care. From the early beginnings of co-locating an LCSW inside an FQHC location to co-locating a partner FQHC in the mental health center to winning multiple State and Federal grants focused on integrated care and finally launching A&C’s four site FQHC Look a Like program which integrates the delivery of primary care, chronic disease management, psychiatry, behavioral health therapy, Medication Assisted Therapy, and enabling services in each location. Along the way, Dan and his team has worked through the many challenges of integrated governance, funding streams, and operations.