Counselor of the Year – Candance Brunyate
Submitted by Mark Miller, Regional Director Kentucky/Indiana
I am thrilled to announce that Candance Brunyate, our Clinical Supervisor from the Louisville location, was nominated and received an award for Counselor of the Year by the Kentucky Board of Alcohol and Drug Counselors. Candance has been with us for 8 years and worked her way up from counselor to team lead to clinical supervisor, all while keeping her keen clinical eye on working with patients and helping staff to learn and grow how to do the same! She has supervised and trained staff all while managing patients through everything thrown at her in 8 years, not least of all a pandemic, a “reshuffling of staff”, and all the usual every-day craziness that is part and parcel to what we do. This is truly a great accomplishment and an impressive award for an impressive staff member!
Of particular note is that our state is never the most accepting of what we do as a medication-assisted treatment program, including the very board that awarded this to her. In my personal opinion, that doubles the value of this award, as she had to overcome that ridiculous prejudice to receive it. So, really, double congratulations go to her for her outstanding efforts on behalf of our patients and in our community. She has truly made a difference over the years and we could not be prouder of her.
So please join me in congratulating her on a job well and truly done as well as looking forward to her continued efforts on behalf of our patients and staff!
Growing with Purpose – Chelsey Ragas-Karczewski, PhD, LPC-S, NCC Clinical Supervisor
Submitted by Michelle Peres-Tenorio / Program Director – BHG Downtown New Orleans Treatment Center
Hello, I’m Michelle Peres-Tenorio, Program Director from the Downtown New Orleans location. I want to take this opportunity to highlight one of our newer leaders in the company, Clinical Supervisor, Chelsey Ragas- Karczewski, PhD, LPC-S, NCC. Chelsey has been with BHG for over six years and has held multiple roles in her tenure, lastly settling in as Clinical Supervisor, earlier this year.
Chelsey has tackled many obstacles in her first year as Clinical Supervisor but continued to remain steadfast and reach goals! She has rebuilt an entire clinical team that currently includes case managers, a resource coordinator, and 15 counselors. Chelsey is highly organized, detail oriented and focuses on problem solving, not just as a part of her clinical orientation while working with patients but she also lends these skills when she assists with overall program processes.
She’s recently created a series of Counselor Trainings that were presented in a half day workshop that included our internal team in addition to other clinical team members from various locations. This training was accompanied by a detailed instructional binder that Chelsey developed to assist and encourage critical clinical thinking skills and foster autonomy within her team.
Throughout the years, Chelsey has shown great initiative in wanting to learn and master all things BHG. She has been heavily involved with Joint Commission Surveys, compliance audits, emergency / disaster responses, documentation development and implementation, volunteer and charitable contributions efforts, on and off-site training and education, and more recently collaborating with some of our top leaders.
Chelsey truly imbodies BHG’s values of hope, respect and caring not just with our patients but also with our entire team. I’m proud to work so closely with her and it has been a pleasure to see her grow into an integral part of clinical leadership within our company.
clinical team.
Personalized Christmas trees remember, honor lives lost to addiction and suicide – FOX NEWS STORY
(FOX 9) – It is a touching holiday tribute marked by grief and sadness inside a north metro drug treatment center – a trio of brightly decorated Christmas trees filled with personalized ornaments of those lost to overdose and suicide.
The trees are the idea of a heartbroken woman, hoping to raise awareness about the deadly addiction crisis she has experienced first-hand.
“You know, there’s too many lives that we are losing. And I feel like people need to come together more to do what they can to help stop it,” explained Anne Emerson.
Emerson was searching for a way to memorialize her fiancée Ryan who passed away after a fatal overdose several years ago, in the weeks leading up to Christmas.
She painted his name on a bright purple ornament to keep him close to her heart, and figured others grieving this time of year might want to do something similar.
Emerson’s idea was two-fold, to honor those lost to addiction and to bring awareness, particularly to the deadly fentanyl crisis sweeping through the community, with purple-themed Christmas trees. Purple is generally considered the official color of the addiction recovery movement.
She asked if they could go up in the Valhalla Place drug treatment center near her home in Brooklyn Park in an effort to engage the patients coming in for treatment and possibly impact their recovery efforts. Blank ornamental bulbs are left on a nearby table for those wanting to add a name to the Christmastime tribute.
What began as a single tree in year one has sadly exploded into three this year, all three filled with the names of loved ones written or painted on color coded ornaments, who are not here for the holidays.
Purple and silver for those lost to drug overdose. And the color teal was recently added for deaths by suicide.
“It’s very sad to see that the numbers keep going up,” Emerson told FOX 9’s Paul Blume. “But I also feel like it is a sign for people to take it seriously, that this is not something to joke around with.”
Valhalla’s program director Corey Thompson said the trees are greatly appreciated by staff and patients alike. He reports, many often gather around the display in tears, either reminiscing or adding names to the personalized ornaments. Tragically, it seems all three trees are nearly filled, and more might need to be added in the years to come.
Commenting about addiction recovery efforts and community awareness of the situation, Thompson said, “I would like to think we are making progress, but I think there’s more we can do. Definitely a lot more.”
Click here to see the news story on FOX9.
