Empathy Affect – Details, episodes & analysis

Caring for your mental health isn’t just about treatment. It’s about living a full life.

This is how the New York State Office of Mental Health is rethinking how we handle mental health—by centering recovery, resilience, and the whole person—not just a diagnosis. 

The office’s Chief Recovery and Resilience Officer Julie Burton explains what recovery in the context of mental health looks like practice, why thriving—not just surviving—matters, and how empathy, choice, and community connection shape better mental health outcomes. We also explore mental health workforce challenges and how supporting them is essential to effective care. 

As the new year begins, this episode offers a timely reminder that recovery happens not only in clinics, but in communities and everyday human connection.

Julie Burton is the first chief recovery and resilience officer at the New York State Office of Mental Health. She has over 30 years of experience in both community-based direct care for individuals and families, focusing on training and education and implementing programs to help people in care move toward full recovery. She previously served as her office’s director of adult services. 

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Explore Community Oriented Recovery and Empowerment (CORE) services 

Learn more about the New York Office of Mental Health 

Technology has the power to make interacting with our cities and local governments smoother, easier, and more intuitive—but only when it's designed with people at the center. 

We enter Season 4 of Empathy Affect with Boston Chief Information Officer (CIO) Santiago Garces, who shares how the city is using digital tools and AI to strengthen trust, improve services, and deepen the connection between residents and their government. From the everyday impact of Boston 311 to emerging AI pilots that help the city respond faster and more transparently, Santiago explains why innovation in Boston isn't about chasing the newest tech. It's about meeting people where they are. We get into what people-centered digital government looks like, how to prepare a public workforce for responsible AI use, and what other cities can learn from Boston's approach. 

Santiago Garces is the CIO for the City of Boston, where he leads the Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT). He was previously the executive director of Community Investment in South Bend, Indiana, and formerly served as CIO of both South Bend and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

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Read up on Boston’s Interim Generative AI Guidelines 

Get to know Boston 311 

Learn more about Boston DoIT  

Americans rely on safe roads, railways, and transportation infrastructure every day, so what goes into keeping them resilient and reliable both on the day-to-day and during emergencies? We explore this question with Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) Assistant State Emergency Operations Coordinator Matt Needham, learning how his team protects Georgians during snowstorms, hurricanes, and other emergencies in collaboration with agency partners. Learn what it takes to keep our communities resilient in the face of extreme weather and hazards in this episode's conversation. 

Matt Needham is the GDOT assistant state emergency operations coordinator. He has dedicated more than 20 years of his career to serving Georgians at GDOT, first serving as a civil engineer working on roads and infrastructure before transitioning to emergency operations. 

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Explore 511 GA to get the latest on traffic conditions in Georgia 

Stay up to date with GDOT alerts and travel information 

Disasters like the wildfires in Southern California have destroyed homes, displaced people, and are costing the country hundreds of billions of dollars to recover. It raises the question: how can we proactively invest to protect our communities from the impacts of extreme weather and natural hazards? Washington State has looked to answer this question through its Climate Commitment Act (CCA). Passed in 2021, it has generated and reinvested $500 million across the state to reduce emissions and leverage technology to mitigate harmful and large-scale wildfires and other disasters. We speak to Joe Nguyen, one of the legislative proponents of the CCA, to discuss the program’s impact across Washington State and how other states could adopt similar initiatives to keep their communities safe and resilient.

Joe Nguyen is the director of Washington State's Department of Commerce. He was elected to the Washington State Senate in 2019 and was chair of the Environment, Energy, and Technology Committee. He also served as vice chair of the Ways and Means Committee.  

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Learn more about the Climate Commitment Act 

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) created its Veterans Experience Office (VEO) in 2015 with the goal of integrating a customer experience (CX) approach to veteran care, benefit, and service delivery. Since the office’s launch, VA has measured that veteran trust in the department has grown from 55% to 80%. Because of VEO’s collaboration with VA's administrations, veterans have been able to more easily navigate VA websites, have more streamlined and empathy-driven medical care, and more. Denise Kitts, VEO’s enterprise measurement and design executive director, helped stand up VEO and has been a key player in improving how veterans, their families, and their caregivers interact with VA. She joins us in this episode to learn how CX has transformed the way veterans can get the service they need from VA and the role CX plays in building trust with veterans. 

Denise Kitts is the VA VEO executive director of Enterprise Measurement and Design. She rejoined VEO in 2022 after helping establish the office in 2015. She is responsible for the VA Qualitative and Quantitative Data Strategy and for deploying VA’s Trust Survey, along with other operational and program-level surveys. She was chief data technology officer for the chief technology officer prior to rejoining VEO. 

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Explore the Veterans Experience Office 

Learn more about the Veteran Trust Report 

Although the United States has made great strides in reducing tobacco-related disparities, commercial tobacco use is still the leading cause of today’s biggest health challenges. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Office on Smoking and Health (OSH) has been leading tobacco prevention, cessation, and control. The office's director joins us to discuss the progress the team has made in decreasing tobacco use, as well as the challenges and work ahead.  

While CDC has found that smoking and e-cigarette use are down, new nicotine products threaten progress. OSH works to protect future generations by addressing these evolving threats to reduce preventable tobacco-related death and disease in the United States. 

Dr. Deirdre Lawrence Kittner is the director of OSH. She has more than 20 years of public health experience, with a focus on global tobacco control, tobacco and health behavior science, and preventative policy development. Previously, she worked at the National Cancer Institute and served as deputy director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products' Office of Science.  

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Read the new Surgeon General report on prevention and control strategies to reduce tobacco-related disparities. 

Find resources to help quit smoking. 

Explore the Empower Vape-Free Youth and Tips From Former Smokers campaigns. 

The 2024 election season brings fresh and complex challenges to election systems across the country—from mis- and disinformation to threats to security. The Election Assistance Commission (EAC) serves as a federal election hub, providing resources, training, grants, and support to our state and local election administrators, helping them prepare for this election so that voters can cast their ballots with confidence. For our Season 2 finale, EAC Commissioner and current Chairman Ben Hovland discusses the hard work that’s gone into developing secure, resilient election administration and systems. So, whether you’ve voted early or plan to vote on Election Day, tune in to discover how the EAC is ensuring every vote counts!

Ben Hovland is a commissioner and the current chairman of the EAC. He has served as co-chair of the Election Infrastructure Subsector's Government Coordinating Council and chair of the Joint Subsector COVID-19 Working Group, coordinating pandemic response among state and local election officials, federal partners, and the private sector. His career in elections spans over 20 years, including as acting chief counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration and deputy general counsel for the Missouri Secretary of State’s office.

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Visit vote.gov or helpamericavote.gov to plan to vote or learn to become a poll worker

Discover video guides for voting and more about how the EAC is building election readiness 

Breast cancer is the second most common cancer in women behind skin cancer, with approximately 13.1% of women estimated to receive a diagnosis of breast cancer at some point in their lifetime. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is pioneering research to understand how we can better prevent breast cancer and promote risk reduction. In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, NCI Division of Cancer Prevention Breast and Gynecological Cancer Research Chief Dr. Brandy Heckman-Stoddard about cutting-edge solutions in cancer prevention and how you can talk to your family and doctors to stay ahead in protecting your health.

Dr. Brandy Heckman-Stoddard has led the Breast and Gynecological Cancer Research Group in NCI's Division of Cancer Prevention for 6 years. She is also currently the acting chief of the division's community oncology and prevention trials and is the project scientist for breast cancer and uterine cancer for the Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network. She has been with NCI since serving as a cancer prevention fellow in 2009.

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Explore NCI's Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Tool 

Learn more about breast cancer on NCI's website 

Learn about mammograms and recommendations for screening 

Explore oncological clinical trials on ClinicalTrials.gov, NCORP, and NCI's other programs. 

The federal government is the United States’ biggest employer, with more than 2.1 million Service members and over 2 million civilian employees. Behind those millions of professionals, federal human capital leaders provide resources, benefits, programs, and growth opportunities to uplift our civil servants, so they can uplift our country. In this episode, we get a behind-the-scenes look at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the U.S. House of Representatives to learn how these institutions approach public service recruitment, initiatives to ensure federal employees grow and succeed, and more.

Traci DiMartini is the Chief Human Capital Officer at the IRS. She has previously served as the Chief Human Capital Officer of the General Services Administration, Peace Corps, and U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

John Salamone has served as the Chief Human Resources Officer at the U.S. House of Representatives for the last 8 years. He has previously consulted in human capital, was executive director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's Chief Human Capital Officers Council and served as a staff member of the Senate Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management.

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Search for career opportunities on USAJOBS 

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s policies have been key to keeping our country's people and environment healthy and safe. The agency's Office of Policy has been hard at work with some new updates though, taking new steps to strengthen climate adaptation, resilience, and emission reductions. Office of Policy Associate Administrator Vicki Arroyo walks us through these updates, as well as how her and her family's first-hand experiences with environmental disasters have informed how she approaches her work. 

Vicki Arroyo is the associate administrator of EPA's Office of Policy. She also oversaw environmental justice work at the agency from January 2021 to September 2022. She has served as the executive director of the Georgetown Climate Center and was also a professor at Georgetown Law and director of the Environmental Law and Policy Program. Earlier in her career, she created and directed the Louisiana Department of Quality's policy office. 

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Explore more of the Office of Policy's work 

Learn more about EPA's climate adaptation planning