Powerful Community Outreach by BHG Nevada Team Members
By Nancy Buttyan, Chief Marketing Officer
On Mon., Feb. 7 in Las Vegas, BHG team members, Krista Hales and Rhonda Fairchild, participated in the state’s largest opioid awareness event, the annual Black Monday hosted by There is No Hero in Heroin (TINHIH), a 9-year-old nonprofit organization focused on educating, referring, supporting and assisting the public on aspects of SUD. Hundreds of community partners, patients and other treatment centers showed up to learn and connect.
Further elevating TINHIH’s platform this year was keynote speaker Darren Waller, NFL tight end for the Las Vegas Raiders and founder of The Darren Waller Foundation, which equips youth to avoid and overcome addiction to drugs and alcohol and support youth and their families during their recovery and treatment journey.
“The event was amazing. I think we made a huge impact,” said Krista Hales, MS, LADC-S, BHG IOTRC Director – Nevada. “The Attorney General for the state attended so I think we showed him how strong the recovery community is in Nevada. We had 63 vendors in the Resource Fair and roughly 800 attendees. I think the highlight was our Remembrance Display, which had 258 pairs of shoes representing the number of individuals who overdosed daily in the US in 2020. Our keynote speaker, Darren Waller, was amazing and made a huge impact on the crowd. He stayed for over an hour after the event ended to make sure everyone who wanted an autograph got one.”
Building connections that save lives
Krista has nurtured remarkable community partnerships over the years that have led to strong pathways for patients to get holistic care and treatment, including:
- the development of a peer support program.
- a strengthened criminal justice program.
- a syringe exchange vending machine program at two of the four Nevada clinics.
- strong relationships with two universities which developed a pharmacy program rotation site for third-year students, and fourth-year students doing six-week rotations so that our professionals can train as many students as possible before they go into the workforce.
- the creation of a co-occurring disorders program.
- a recent invitation to run the resource fair for the this year’s Southern Nevada Substance Misuse and Overdose Prevention Summit where BHG will grow even more relationships.
Where it began, where it can go
Krista and Rhonda Fairchild, Program Director – Criminal Justice, are among our newest team members from the CBH merger, and they have played integral roles in TINHIH for many years. TINHIH is one of those powerful relationships that will just keep growing and growing. The relationship began years ago when Rhonda was asked by her dear friends, Joe and Heather Engle, the founders of TINHIH who started the nonprofit in honor of their son who died of an overdose. They asked Rhonda to support their events and help create their peer group. That’s where she met Krista who was serving as a TINHIH volunteer while working for CBH. Krista now serves as President of the TINHIH board and she convinced Rhonda to come work with her at CBH. Now they continue to serve TINHIH together on behalf of BHG.
“This year’s event was over the top. It really brings our community together,” said Rhonda. “We talk a lot about building bridges, and we are all tightly connected and help each other.”
BHG now has four treatment centers in Nevada with an estimated 2,000 patients. To learn more about this year’s Black Monday event, check out this news story and watch the recorded live stream on Facebook.
