Wendy Martinez Farmer, LPC, MBA is Regional Vice President National Crisis Center of Excellence at Carelon Behavioral Health. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor with over 25 years of crisis experience in the public and private sectors. Wendy holds a Master of Science in Clinical Psychology from Marquette University and a MBA from Georgia Southern University. Since 2020, she has served as a national crisis lead for Carelon helping to develop crisis capabilities, which include building and overseeing statewide and community crisis systems. She is currently the CEO of the Georgia Collaborative ASO program, which includes administration of the statewide Georgia Crisis and Access Line.
Prior to joining the Beacon team, Wendy was the President and CEO of Behavioral Health Link in Atlanta, where she oversaw daily operations of the statewide line as well as 24/7 mobile crisis response services in 104 Georgia counties. Wendy is passionate about ensuring individuals experiencing a behavioral health crisis receive the same predictable care individuals with medical emergencies receive. To that end, she has played a foundational role in building electronic capacity to coordinate crisis care in real time and continues that work today helping to oversee Carelon’s crisis programs and overseeing the development of Carelon’s newly created Crisis Center of Excellence.
A suicide prevention leader, she sat on the Standards Training and Practice Committee for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline from 2016 to 2019. She served on the Board of Directors for NAMI Georgia from 2020-2023 and was elected to the Board of Directors for the International Council for Helplines (ICL) in January of 2022 where she serves as treasurer.