Representative Daisy Berbeco of Winooski, Chittenden County, Democrat, was born in Alaska. She attended Sonoma State University and the University of Sussex. Before coming to Vermont she worked internationally in global health and the nonprofit sector.
Her career has focused on mental health and substance misuse advocacy, policy and practice improvement. She spent six years at the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, a member association that represents more than one million mental health and substance use treatment providers and was key in the passage of the Affordable Care Act (2010) and Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (2016). There she led the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration’s (SAMHSA) BHbusiness program working with 3,200 community mental health and substance use treatment organizations to improve business operations and sustainability. She has also managed national health care consulting teams and learning communities on trauma-informed care, peer recovery groups, care management, leadership and integration.
Prior to joining the Vermont General Assembly she was the Senior Advisor for Mental Health Policy at the Vermont Department of Mental Health. In that role she managed legislative coordination and planning, suicide prevention portfolio, and Medicaid Global Commitment Waiver reporting. She also was the Secretary for the Finance & Policy Division of NASMHPD (the National Association of Mental Health Program Directors), a member of Vermont's Substance Misuse Prevention and Oversight Council, and the Vermont Suicide Prevention Coalition. She is on the advisory board of the Hopi Foundation's peer-run Substance Use Prevention Center on the Hopi Reservation, Arizona and the Winooski School District's Anti-Racism Steering Committee. Daisy is a 2021 graduate of Emerge Vermont.