Dr. Billina Shaw
Dr. Billina Shaw is a triple board-certified psychiatrist and public health strategist who has spent her career at the intersection of clinical expertise, public health systems change, and human flourishing.
Her background spans academia, local government, as well as federal government. She served as a Senior Medical Advisor at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), where she was a lead author and consultant to several sentinel documents including the 2023 Certified Community Behavioral Health Criteria and the 2025 National Behavioral Health Crisis Care Guidance. She also led the Interdepartmental Serious Mental Illness Coordinating Committee and spearheaded the national behavioral health strategy for bereavement and grief.
Dr. Shaw's clinical credentials include fellowships in both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Society of Addiction Medicine, with specialized training in child, adolescent, and adult psychiatry, as well as addiction medicine. She earned her undergraduate degree from Yale University, medical degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and completed her adult and child/adolescent psychiatry residencies through the University of Maryland/Sheppard Pratt program. This setting that rooted her in community psychiatry from day one. Her MPH is from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she was a Bloomberg American Health Initiative Fellow in the Addiction & Overdose focus area which further expanded her the public health lens that now shapes her work.
After years working inside systems, Dr. Shaw recognized that the most powerful change happens when organizations, leaders, and individuals align their behavioral health strategy with their deepest purpose and their operational reality. When she left the federal government, she built three interconnected practices:
Speaker & Thought Leadership (here at drbillina.com) is where she shares frameworks and insights on the psychology of holistic aligned wellness and prosperity, financial wellness, and what it takes to move from disconnection to peace.
Freely Flourish Financial™ offers financial wellness coaching for high-achievers who want to develop a strong relationship with money in order to build purpose-driven wealth.
ViCat Consulting provides behavioral health strategy, grant writing, executive coaching, and organizational transformation to non-profits and public agencies.
Dr. Shaw's core belief: sustainable change—whether personal or systemic—requires alignment of purpose, capacity, and behavior. She helps leaders and organizations vitally catalyze that change.
The Core Framework
Whether talking about mental health, money, or purpose-driven leadership and resilience or any mix of the above, Dr. Billina's signature framework supports individual holistic wellness as well as healthy teams, and organizations.
She helps leaders and organizations vitally catalyze change by connecting purpose to strategy, addressing the limiting beliefs that undermine progress, and building the inner capacity to act with genuine authority.
Where Dr. Billina Thrives
Mental health, wellness and substance use awareness events
Recovery-oriented programming
Trainings for behavioral health clinicians
Financial literacy progams
Career, entrepreneurship, and founder-focused events
Healthcare organizations and associations
Corporate offsites and executive retreatsWomen's and other employee resource group events
Faith-based events and services
Community-based and government-sponsored programs
HR and talent conferences
Women's retreats
Speaker bureaus
