4 minute read
From Adult Learner to the Path of Mental Health
By Grace Eades ‘23
WHILE SOME PEOPLE SPEND YEARS searching for their callings, others are drawn to lifelong careers of service early on. The latter is the case of Carrie Slatton-Hodges ‘88, the former commissioner of the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (ODMHSAS), who claims to have known from an early age that she was destined for a career in behavioral health.
Carrie began her very successful career by attending Southern Nazarene
University, in the brand new (at the time) adult learning program. Having already obtained an associates degree, she was able to complete her studies in human resource management by attending weekly night classes, a relatively novel concept at the time. “It was one of the first adult learning programs in the state,” she recalled. It was through SNU’s adult learning program that Carrie was able to develop and refine the skills that she would later utilize throughout her career, such as critical thinking and collaboration. “I look back on everything really fondly. I feel like it really prepared me for moving into a career and a world in the future. It was a fantastic program.”
After graduating from SNU, she went on to obtain her masters degree in applied psychology, and served as a clinician. However, the skills she had honed in her bachelors degree became incredibly helpful in shaping the trajectory of her developing career.
“One of the things that I learned pretty quickly is that I have a relatively good business brain, and so with that I was able to see areas of need and make a business plan for those for the agency I worked for and then develop new programming,” she explained. Twelve years in, she became the chief of operations for the largest community mental health center in Oklahoma.
From there, Carrie set about working with the state, involving herself with the policy side of mental health. She served as deputy-commissioner of ODMHSAS for ten years, before being promoted to the commissioner of ODMHSAS, a position she held for four years.
There are many things that Slatton-Hodges was able to accomplish as commissioner that she remains proud of, including setting up a robust crisis system consisting of a three-digit statewide mental health hotline, developing a statewide 24/7 call center as well as a series of urgent recovery centers, and renovating and refurbishing Oklahoma’s psychiatric state hospital, Griffin Memorial Hospital.
Before retiring in November of last year, Carrie made sure to create, in her words, “a strong backbone” for the behavioral health systems Oklahoma had in place.
“At one point in time, as we continued to have state budget cuts and reductions, I felt like there was really a risk in Oklahoma of [behavioral health funding] going away,” she said. “And so really putting in place a series of instrumental steps to ensure that we not only had that system, but that that system could really thrive and do amazing things and serve even more people.”
After retiring from her position as commissioner, Carrie now works with the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors, a non-profit that gives assistance to behavioral health commissioners in all 50 states.
When reflecting on how her faith has influenced her career path and the ways in which God has led her, Carrie believes its significance cannot be overstated.
“A lot of this work can be really hard.” “You can experience trauma vicariously by being around other peoples’ trauma, and there are times that you can become disheartened or sad, or have situations of people that you’ve gotten to know and really care about that don’t always turn out like you would want. Having the faith that I do is what gives back to me and strengthens me on a daily basis to do the work. Whenever I go to make a decision, especially big decisions around career changes and things of that nature, I try to put those things into God’s hands and say, ‘If this is what you want me to do, lead me down this path.’”
