Self-Help Toolkit: About Us

United States Department of Veterans Affairs

Mental Health

About Us

John McKellar is a health science specialist with the Program Evaluation and Resource Center at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System and is a consulting assistant clinical instructor at Stanford University, School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry. Dr. McKellar has published a number of articles on the benefits of self-help participation for patients with substance use disorders and is currently evaluating several strategies to improve referral to and engagement in self-help groups.

Christine Timko

Christine Timko is a Research Career Scientist (VA HSR&D), Associate Director of the Center for Health Care Evaluation (a VA HSR&D Center of Excellence), and Consulting Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University. Dr. Timko’s research focuses on developing and evaluating interventions to facilitate substance use disorder patients’ participation in 12-step mutual-help groups; understanding gender differences in substance abuse course and treatment response; reducing and preventing violence among substance use disorder patients; and examining the impact of psychiatric and substance use disorders on the family.

Jeanne Schaefer

Jeanne Schaefer is a health science specialist with the Program Evaluation and Resource Center and the Center for Health Care Evaluation at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. Dr. Schaefer’s work has focused on continuity of care practices in substance use disorder treatment programs, the impact of these practices on patients’ engagement in continuing care and their abstinence outcomes. Dr. Schaefer has examined the impact of factors such as the number of AA/NA sessions patients attend during treatment and staff’s efforts to connect patients to self-help groups prior to discharge on their continuing care participation and treatment outcomes.