Ted Kennedy Continues Family’s MH Advocacy

Edward “Ted” Kennedy Jr., son of the late Massachusetts senator and brother of former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, will deliver the William C. Menninger Memorial Convocation Lecture at this year’s annual meeting in Philadelphia.

Kennedy is the president and co-founder of Marwood Group and Co., a health care–focused financial services firm headquartered in New York with offices in Washington, D.C., London, and Kuwait. According to its Web site, the firm provides services to institutional investors, health care corporations, and trade associations. His wife, Katherine Gershman Kennedy, M.D., an APA member, is a psychiatrist in New Haven, Conn., and is on the voluntary faculty at Yale University School of Medicine.

The lecture will be presented at the Convocation of Distinguished Fellows, which will be held Monday, May 7, from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Kennedy brings to the APA meeting his family’s longstanding interest in and support of issues related to mental health. His father served 47 years as senator from Massachusetts and was a staunch supporter of parity coverage for treatment of mental illness and of funding for research on mental illness. Sen. Kennedy delivered the Convocation lecture at APA’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C., in 1992.

Brother Patrick Kennedy was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Rhode Island from 1995 to 2011. He was instrumental in the passage of the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, signed into law on October 3, 2008. He also is the founder of “The Next Frontier: One Mind for the Brain,” a campaign to promote brain research (Psychiatric News, May 6, 2011).

Ted Kennedy Jr. also has a long history of involvement in health care issues. Prior to founding the Marwood Group, Kennedy served as an associate and later as counsel to the law firm of Wiggin and Dana, a health law practice focused primarily on state and federal regulatory and reimbursement issues affecting hospitals, home-care agencies, long-term-care providers, physicians, and mental health professionals.

In addition, Kennedy served as director of legal and regulatory affairs at the Connecticut Hospital Association, educating acute care providers and policymakers on a wide variety of emerging health care issues.

Kennedy has been a leader in the civil-rights movement for persons with disabilities. In his law practice, he advised companies about how best to expand opportunities for persons with disabilities and how to avoid liability under the Americans With Disabilities Act. He serves on the corporate and advisory boards of numerous disability organizations, including the American Association of People With Disabilities, and lectures nationwide on topics relating to health and disability law.

Kennedy’s experience with the health care system is more than professional, however. In 1973, at the age of 12, he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in his right leg, requiring surgical amputation.