the Bert Nash Community
VOL. 8, ISSUE 3
N E W S L E T T E R
September 2015
Brian Azcona has been there 200 MAINE STREET
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LAWRENCE, KS 66044
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(785) 843-9192
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www.bertnash.org
Since 1950, the Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center has advanced the mental health of the Douglas County community through comprehensive behavioral services responsive to evolving need and changing environments.
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he first time Brian Azcona came to the Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center was as a
client. Today, he does so as an employee. Azcona is a member of the Bert Nash peer support team, which consists of people who have experienced mental illness and are willing to share their recovery story in order to help others who are going through similar struggles. For Azcona, he finds the role satisfying. And it helps him make sense of his own issues. “Through peer support, my personal struggles have value for others,” he said. “Feeling useful, I think, is what makes it so rewarding.” Azcona, 38, first stepped through the doors at Bert Nash in 2014 and began going through the intensive outpatient program. Azcona was depressed and was also abusing alcohol. He started missing therapy appointments. “Things began to improve, but then I went on a bender,” he said. “The thing that triggered the relapse was trying to find a job and feeling inadequate. I got down on myself and felt frustrated with the job search, so I turned to the bottle.” He drank for about 12 days straight. Then he stopped. When he did, he decided to go home to New Orleans, where he stayed for about a month. When he returned to Lawrence, he started going through dialectical behavior therapy at Bert Nash. Azcona had struggled with depression as a child and attended therapy when he was in high school and as a college undergraduate. He was working on his Ph.D. in sociology when he began to experience depressive symptoms again. While focusing on his recovery, Az-
“Through peer support, my personal struggles have value for others,” said Bert Nash peer support specialist Brian Azcona.
cona also began thinking about what he was going to do next as far as a job, and whether he was ready to return to work.
“I was talking to my therapist about it and she suggested I look into peer support,” Azcona said. “I was receptive to the idea. The job listing had actually been posted that same day, so there was this feeling that it was fate or destiny.”
He got the job. Azcona started working as a peer support specialist Dec. 1. It has been a good fit.
“Brian has a very intense thirst for knowledge and understanding,” said Bert Nash peer support team leader
Sara Godinez. “He is also very insightful and intuitive. He is able to bring all of these qualities together in his work with clients, to provide them with information, as well as compassion, as they work together toward recovery.” As he continues on his own recovery journey — on June 18 he celebrated one year of sobriety — Azcona enjoys the one-on-one interaction of working with clients who are also going through recovery. “I find I’m able to do it even if I don’t feel that well, and as a result of doing it, I feel better,” he said. “After seeing clients, I almost always feel better at the end of the day than when I woke up in the morning.”
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THE BERT NASH COMMUNITY
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY
Health Connections celebrates first year
Aug. 1 was the one-year anniversary of Health Connections.The program has come a long way during its first year. “We started out with a state manual as a guide that provided limited direction, but allowed us to be creative in how we develop our program,” said AmyWarren, who was the team leader during the first year of Health Connections; she became director of Bert Nash’s adult services in September, replacing Eunice Ruttinger who retired.“We developed the program on our own and ran with it.” Support from the Bert Nash executive team has been key in the development of the Health Connections program. “The administration really believes in the program and what it stands for. It has been a culture shift for our system as a whole, but we’ve had support at all levels from the beginning,”Warren said.“We have also developed some really good partnerships in the community, which helps to connect participants with services, making sure they receive the services they should be receiving, based on whatever their diagnoses are.” One of the qualifications to be in the Health Connections program is the participant must have a serious mental illness. Qualification is also based on insurance claims data, which takes into account hospitalizations and emergencyroom visits. “The goal of the program is to obviously improve health outcomes, but also to curb costs,”Warren said.“We are an advocate for the client, coordinating care, connecting them to resources, encouraging them to live healthier lives and providing support.” The program has about 600 members who are eligible for services, and that number is increasing all the time. “I would expect even more growth the second year,” Warren said. As the program has grown, so has the size of the Health Connections staff.There are currently 10 team members, with plans to add one more. “The team does great work,”Warren said.“We always start our team meetings with celebrations, and it’s exciting to hear them talk about all of these successes. It’s pretty cool to see the difference the team is making in terms of what we did before without the program. It’s clear care gaps existed, and it’s amazing to see how Health Connections has assisted in filling some of those gaps in our community.”
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FROM THE GROUND UP
manda Ciambrone was around for the first year of a new Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center program called Health Connections. Even before her year was up — Amanda is a member of AmeriCorps and her position at Bert Nash is mostly funded through Douglas County United Way — she decided she wanted to stay on. “I’ve signed on for a second year,” she said. “I like that I’ve been a part of the program from the ground up.” Health Connections is the Bert Nash health home. A product of the Affordable Care Act, health homes are intended to narrow the gap between clients and access to community services. In her second year with Health Connections, Ciambrone will Amanda Ciambrone focus her attention on working with children and families. “We realize there has been a gap in terms of providing service for kids,” Ciambrone said. “So I will be working more with children and families, helping to support them in different ways.” Ciambrone will work with April Del Campo, Bert Nash Health Connections care coordinator, who has been working with kids and families since she came on board last spring. “We know if kids receive extra support and services they are less likely to end up in a psychiatric hospital or in the emergency room,” said Amy Warren, who was the team leader during the first year of Health Connections. Ciambrone had an interest in the mental health field, and AmeriCorps is a federal program that links volunteers with community agencies, which is how she ended up at Bert Nash. It was a win-win for all parties involved. “Through the AmeriCorps Program, United Way gets to work with great organizations like Bert Nash to meet critical needs in the community,” said Erika Dvorske, United Way of Douglas County director. “This partnership builds on all of our assets: United Way is leveraging and managing a grant that provides a great professional growth opportunity, Bert Nash is providing a high-quality placement and the chance to provide additional supports to residents of Douglas County who need more support, and members, like Amanda, bring a curiosity and enthusiasm to community work that helps to energize all of us.” “I knew I wanted a future in the mental health field, so Bert Nash was my No. 1 choice as far as sites where I wanted to work,” Ciambrone said. “It just seemed like a perfect fit. I’ve been really happy with my placement.”
THE BERT NASH COMMUNITY
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HEALTH CONNECTIONS! ‘I FEEL SAFE FOR THE FIRST TIME’
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lizabeth Sheils has been to plenty of medical doctors over the years. Not always with the best re-
sults. Which is one of the reasons she ended up using Health Connections, the Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center health home. “I just felt as if my doctor wasn’t listening to me,” Sheils said. “My therapist at Bert Nash, who is now part of the Health Connections team, suggested I go to Heartland. I did, and I had a really good experience.” Bert Nash and Heartland Community Health Center have a reciprocal relationship to provide integrated care for their clients, combining access to mental health and physical health services. Health Connections helps do just that. The program coordinates client care and connects clients with community resources that are available. Health homes are a relatively new concept that came out of the Affordable Care Act. Bert Nash started its health home program in August 2014. One of the goals of the program is to reduce emergency-room costs by providing coordinated care, encouraging people to live healthier lifestyles, and connecting people to resources. For Sheils and others with a mental illness, connecting with the right services can have a long-lasting impact. “I’ve always been concerned about the fact that people with mental health issues die earlier than the rest of the population,” Sheils said. “I’ve lost four or five friends whose deaths I think would have been preventable if there had been a Health Connections program then.” Studies show people with serious mental illness die 25 years earlier than other Americans, primarily due to
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“Amy Warren and the Health Connections team at Bert Nash are a highly engaged health home partner in the Kansas Medicaid Health Homes systems. Processes are in place to engage these members in management of their chronic health conditions.This is being done by reaching out to other community providers to ensure that members receive the care they need.Your strong partnership with Heartland Community Health Center and work with Lawrence Memorial Hospital are examples of this. Amy has shared many dramatic success stories, showing the benefits of a more personal and intensive care coordination effort. It has been a pleasure working with the Health Connections team.”
— Rick Hoffmeister, Health Homes manager Kansas Department of Health and Environment
Health Connections A HEALTH HOME PROGRAM
At left: Laura Haggerty is the new Health Connections team leader.
Members of the Health Connections team, from left:Amanda Ciambrone, Kate Kennedy,April Del Campo, Bill Welch, Mary Shipley, Dan Parker, Chris Seal, Brittney Lucas and Alisha Christian.
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Governing Board of Directors
Barbara Ballard Brad Burnside Reed Dillon Jane Fevurly Steve Glass Don Grosdidier Sue Hack David Johnson Cindy Maude, Chair Ken McGovern Bob Morse Elizabeth Sheils Doug Stephens Jeffrey Vitter
Endowment Trustees
Beverly Billings Jane Fevurly Carol Hatton Kelvin Heck David Johnson Alice Ann Johnston Cindy Maude Michael McGrew Rachel Monger Linda Robinson, Chair Gary Sollars Beth Stella Mike Treanor Kelly Welch Judy Wright
Sheils ...
THE BERT NASH COMMUNITY
FROM PAGE 3
treatable medical conditions. “One reason for that statistic is that people with serious mental illness don’t receive health care,” said Alisha Christian, Health Connections nurse care coordinator. “We are constantly reminding people that lifestyle choices Alisha Christian and Elizabeth Sheils are important: exercise, quit smoking, eat healthy.” tions is required to have monthly contact As part of the Health Connections prowith program participants, and every three gram, Sheils and Christian communicate months it conducts depression screenings. at least once at month, or more often if For Sheils, who was diagnosed with necessary. mental illness when she was a graduate “I call her when I have problems,” Sheils student at the University of Kansas, it’s said of Christian. “I feel like I have a supnice to know help is available whenever port system behind me. I can talk to her she needs it. about anything. Without Health Connec“I feel safe for the first time,” she said. tions, I would not receive help so quickly.” “Just that peace of mind of knowing that “I think it has been reassuring for Eliza- Health Connections is an advocate for me beth that I am a nurse,” Christian said. helps me feel better. It relieves a lot of fear that I will die early.” As part of its mandate, Health Connec-
Investment Committee Chris Anderson Carolyn Shelton Chuck Warner Kelly Welch, Chair Jide Wintoki
BERT NASH CENTER 200 Maine Street Lawrence, KS 66044 (785) 843-9192 bertnash.org
Join us for a virtual tour of the Bert Nash Center to learn about our programs and services.You’ll hear from distinguished members from our leadership team and hear testimonials from those served by the Center. Unless otherwise noted, it’s the 2nd Tuesday of the month at 10 a.m. and the 4thThursday at 5:30 p.m. Please RSVP as group size is limited. Contact Emily Farley at 785-830-1745 to confirm.
Check out the new Bert Nash website: www.bertnash.org