Board of Directors
Mental Health Resource of Texas is a 501c3 nonprofit corporation that operates publicly as Via Hope. It was chartered by the Texas Secretary of State in 2014 and is governed by a Board of Directors.
Via Hope is seeking board members!
Download a membership application HERE.
Michele Alexander Bibby
BOARD CHAIR
Michele Bibby is President of MAB Consulting Services. As President of MAB Consulting Services, Michele is a person with lived experience of mental health recovery. Michele provides mental health education, advocacy, and policy analysis to public and private entities. Michele designs and delivers mental health workshops and training. Michele delivers public speeches and presentations on mental health policy matters. Michele facilitates Peer Support groups and provides Coaching Services to peers. Michele Bibby previously enjoyed a successful career in Human Resources Management in the Private and Public Sector. Michele has a Professional in Human Resources (PHR) Certification. Michele is a Certified Peer Specialist and a certified mediator. Michele previously held legislative positions with a Texas State Representative and Texas State Senator.
Michele’s previous civic leadership engagement include:
- National Kidney Foundation: Kidney Advocacy Committee and Health Equity Sub-Committee (2024 – Present)
- Via Hope Board Chair (2022 – Present)
- Texas Exes Black Alumni Network Board Member (2018 – 2019)
- Appointed to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission Behavioral Health Integration Advisory Committee by HHSC Executive Director (2013 – 2015)
- Appointed to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission Medical Care Advisory Committee by the HHSC Executive Director (2015)
- Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute, Recovery Oriented System of Care Work Group, CoChair (2015)
- Hogg Foundation Mental Health Policy Academy Fellow (2012 – 2014) Co-Hort
- Leadership Texas, Graduate, 1998
- Leadership Austin, Graduate, 1990
- National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Austin, Board member, January 1987 – 1989
- Member: Alpha Kappa Alpha
Michele holds a B.A. in Government from The University of Texas at Austin (1984).
Sam Shore, LMSW
BOARD VICE CHAIR
For more than 40 years I have been active in community mental health and psychiatric rehabilitation. My work has coalesced around the promotion of self-determination, independence, and recovery for people living with serious mental illness. For the past five years, I have been a Principle for TriWest Group, a small behavioral health consulting group. I serve as the Director of the Academy of Policymakers for the Center on Integrated Health Care & Self-Directed Recovery at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Prior to joining TriWest, I was Director of various programs within the Texas Department of State Health Services, including Community Mental Health Services, and the Center for Policy and Innovation. Also, as the Director of Mental Health Transformation and Behavioral Health Operations for the State of Texas, I was directly involved in initiatives to explore novel ways to organize, deliver, and finance public mental health services. These initiatives included, for example, successful leadership for the state’s Mental Health Transformation Grant, Project Director for the state’s Jail Diversion and Trauma Recovery Grant, implementation of statewide veteran’s mental health services, implementation of Medicare Part D, and implementation of behavioral health services in the STAR+Plus Medicaid Managed Care program. I was directly involved in the Texas Self-Directed Care research project in Dallas. On that project I helped convene community stakeholders in the Dallas metropolitan area to design, implement, and study an SDC program from the ground up.
Chrysanthemum Cohen
BOARD SECRETARY
Chrysanthemum Cohen is a certified Victim Services Advocate (VSA) at Open Arms Advocacy Center, a non-profit organization in West Texas that aims to support people who have experienced sexual violence and gender discrimination. Chrysanthemum has lived experience of trauma survivorship, including Intimate Partner Violence, C-PTSD, Depression, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and opioid misuse, to which she has also lost multiple family members. Chrysanthemum believes in an intersectional approach to advocacy – one where all voices are heard. She aims to utilize her lived experiences to serve Texas communities and empower others to overcome adversities similar to her own.
Before joining the worlds of victim advocacy and mental health awareness, Chrysanthemum was a dedicated writer and animal welfare advocate. Her writing has been published in Eagle Magazine and Greenbelt Magazine of Boise, Idaho and in literary magazines such as New Jersey Bards Association, Quilted Voices, and The Shallot: Journal of Mental Health, Art, and Literature. Once she discovered her passion for helping animals, this career would lead her to working and volunteering at various dog boarding and training facilities across the country, including in Alaska, New Jersey, Idaho, and Texas, and eventually to animal rescues and animal shelters, to include Idaho Humane Society, where she worked as the Foster Care Coordinator, and the San Angelo Animal Shelter, where she now serves on the Animal Services Advisory Committee.
Chrysanthemum has completed three AmeriCorps service terms, including American Conservation Experience in South Texas, where she worked to restore the local habitats and ensured invasive species removal, Idaho Conservation Corps, where she maintained trails, removed invasives, and assisted in repairs for wildlife rescues. Her most recent AmeriCorps service term (2022-2023) was based in San Angelo, Texas, at Concho Valley Community Action Agency, where she spent a year providing direct services and outreach to locals experiencing homelessness and developed the San Angelo Homeless Program Manual for the Concho Valley Homeless Planning Coalition. Chrysanthemum used the opportunity of this service term to bridge the gap between social services and animal welfare and developed partnerships and fundraisers that have resulted in a vast change in the way underserved populations in the community are able to provide care for their pets. Chrysanthemum continues her work with the Homeless Planning Coalition, and she assisted in developing the first Lived Experience Advisory Board in San Angelo, where currently serves as a member.
E. Jean Boone, M.D., RPS
BOARD MEMBER
E. Jean Boone is a fourth-generation Texan and Menifee descendant. She is married to Joseph, and they have a blended family: Gathan and Jodi and five grandchildren. Gathan is a graduate of Texas Tech University and Jodi is a graduate of Lamar University. Jean earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Prairie View A&M University and a Master’s in Education from Texas Southern University. In 1999, she was elected the first Black female judge in McLennan County; she served for fourteen years as Justice of the Peace in Precinct 7, representing her East Waco district. Historically, that district had no Black judicial representation.
Jean has firsthand experience as a woman impacted by the justice system. After her lived experience with the carceral system, she volunteered with Truth Be Told, a non-profit organization that supports other justice-impacted women. Jean has served as a board member and is the immediate past Board Chair for Truth Be Told. Truth Be Told’s gender-specific programs have proven to be transformative and essential in breaking the cycle of recidivism for justice-impacted women who completed their programs. As a result, numerous documented success stories exist today.
In 2024, Jean became certified as a Reentry Peer Specialist. She currently provides peer support services to graduates of the Truth Be Told program, which helps women reintegrate into their communities. Jean continues to champion the rights of justice-impacted individuals, including the unhoused, our youth, and the incarcerated. Further, she is committed to promoting and uplifting marginalized communities within the “beloved community.”
William Boyd, III
BOARD MEMBER
William A. Boyd, III, affectionately known as “Byl” (pronounced Bill), was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and is a product of the Birmingham Public School system. Upon graduating he matriculated at Hampton Institute (University) in Hampton, Virginia with in a major in Elementary/Special Education and a minor in Music/Voice Education. As a Hamptonian, Byl was favored to be a member of the famed Hampton Institute Concert Choir as a Bass-Baritone and travelled extensively.
He is the founding Director of both the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Abilene and PHOENIX House, Abilene’s first mental health clubhouse. As a member of the Board of Directors of NAMI Texas he serves on the Nominating Committee and is on the Board of Directors of Disability in Action in Abilene. He serves as Chairman of the Planning and Network Advisory Committee (PNAC) to the Board of Directors of the local mental health authority, the Betty Hardwick Center. Byl has lived experience with a co-occurring disorder of schizoaffective disorder, bipolar-type, and in recovery from drug and alcohol abuse/misuse, and justice-impacted. His lived experience has juxtaposed him to serve those to whom he’s called well.
In the 1980’s Byl moved to Chicago, Illinois for a job at the General Offices of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated where he served as an assistant to the Editor of the SPHINX (the national magazine) after his term on the Alpha national Board as Eastern Region Assistant Vice President. While in Chicago, he was also employed by the Chicago Tribune as Educational Services Coordinator, Illinois Department of Children & Family Services, Foster Care Placement Worker, The University of Chicago (NORC) Data Enry Supervisor, and served as Senior Pastor of the Antioch Cathedral of Hope Church for seven years before returning to the south.
Now his focus is on legacy as he works tirelessly to promoting the elimination of stigma and for the support, education, advocacy and awareness of those affected by mental illness, trauma, and co-occurring disorders. He is an active member of his local church, Highland Church of Christ, with a passion for “the least of these – the helpless, the hopeless & the homeless”.
William is listed in Who’s Who in America, a Certified Peer Specialist, a NAMI-trained support group facilitator and trainer for both peers and families, a NAMI presenter, teacher, and State and National Trainer of Trainers. He is also a Mental Health Recovery & Wellness Recovery Action Planning (WRAP) Facilitator and has completed Mental Health First Aid training. He is author of the book, “To the Edge of the Abyss and Back: When You Want to Curse God & Die” (1990).
Erinn Graber, MA, LPC, LCDC, PSS
BOARD MEMBER
Erinn Graber is the Peer Services Manager for The Center for Health Care Services, the Local Mental Health Authority for Bexar County. Erinn has had the opportunity to support homeless and at-risk youth, families and adults in Oregon, Hawaii and Texas in both the non-profit and public sectors. She is passionate about meeting community needs and has been an active community volunteer for the past
five years serving at various non-profits as a volunteer counselor and a mentor to new clinicians. She also has extensive experience navigating systems and advocating for her children with diverse needs.
Erinn has been in change management for six years and supports program develop to better meet the needs of all individuals with a focus on person-centered and recovery-oriented practices. She has developed programs in Long Term Care and IDD services to include Home and Community Services, Texas Home Living, and General Revenue programs. She also has developed a successfully integrated peer program serving in many different programs. Erinn has been instrumental in motivating agency culture change promoting the value of peer work in all areas including mental health, substance use and family services.
Erinn has a Bachelor’s degree in Cultural Anthropology and a Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy with licenses in Professional Counseling and Chemical Dependency. Erinn is also a Peer Support Supervisor, Certified Family Partner Supervisor and Certified Family Partner. Erinn was recognized for her work with unhoused youth in Southern Oregon and was awarded the Outstanding
Woman Graduate in Cultural Anthropology by the American Association of University Women. She is also a graduate of the Arc of Texas Partner’s in Disability Leadership. Attending to all dimensions of wellness is centerfold to Erinn’s journey and she enjoys spending time with her husband and son in the beautiful Texas State Parks.
Stephanie Zepeda, MHPS, NCPRSS
BOARD MEMBER
Steph is a dedicated Recovery Support Services Supervisor, where she leads efforts to provide compassionate and effective support for individuals on their recovery journeys. As both a Texas Certified Mental Health Peer Specialist and a Nationally Certified Peer Recovery Support Specialist, she brings a wealth of expertise in mental health and peer recovery, with a deep understanding of the challenges faced by diverse communities.
As a queer, neurodivergent Latina, Steph has often felt alone, which drives her passion for creating inclusive, safe spaces where individuals can feel heard, supported, and understood. Her approach to recovery is grounded in harm reduction and the belief that everyone has their own unique path. She is committed to fostering environments of trust, connection, and personal growth.
Outside of her professional work, Steph is an avid crafter, baker, and a new mom. She enjoys life with her partner and their two beloved cats, Horchata and Smokey Brisket.
Elliott-Phillip Niblack, MHPS, RSPS
BOARD MEMBER
Elliott Phillip Niblack is Chief Equity & Education Officer and Director of Peer Services at The D. Wood Foundation, a non-profit organization promoting mental health advocacy and suicide awareness in minority communities. Elliott has lived experience navigating the diagnoses of Bipolar type II, Attention Deficit Hyper Activity Disorder and a history of opioid misuse; he is dual certified as a Mental Health and Recovery Peer Specialist and an Empathetic Communication Specialist.
Before stepping into the professional mental health arena, Elliott’s second home was the classroom, nurturing students from Early Childhood education through High School. His career as teacher, school administrator, and Social Emotional Learning Support Provider made Elliott’s transition into youth and young adult Peer Support as natural as breathing. He leads a dedicated team in the foundation’s Near Age Peer Support program which aims to embed certified peer support services in both Historically Black Colleges & Universities and traditional community colleges. The nationally recognized program has been awarded grants by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Texas Health and Human Services Commission’s Innovative Healing Centered Projects.
Elliott holds a B.A. in Elementary Education from Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His achievements and experience as a program developer, published reentry and SEL curriculum writer, and diversity, equity and inclusion consultant inform his presence as a leader. As a sing member of the Texas Empowerment Initiative Peer Leadership Advisory Group, Elliott collaborates to establish accreditation standards for peer operated service providers in Texas. His public speaking engagements have included co-MC of the Central Texas African American Family Support Conference and facilitator for Together We Will Heal, a monthly online forum held by the mental health provider Integral Care.