The Hope Chest Playlist (the first 6 months) 3/27/22

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As you may have gathered from reading the posts, I love music. It speaks to my soul and I’ve done a lot of adding songs to go with the posts I’ve made for The Hope Chest. I even go back and listen to some of the songs on the posts for inspiration.  When I took down a list of the songs wondering if they’d be a nice compilation, turns out they did make a nice playlist! Come back to this post and click on the links when you need that type of survivor, hopeful, deep, soul-searching inspiration and music in your day 🙂 I know I’ll be a frequent flyer here! Thank you to all the great musical artists who lay out their emotions in song, and courageously put their souls into these pieces.

  1. “Stand By Me”- Ben E. King
  2. “Brave” – Sarah Bareilles
  3. “Fire Away” – Chris Stapleton
  4. “I Will Survive” – Gloria Gaynor
  5. “Warrior” -Scandal ft. Patty Smyth
  6. “There Goes My Hero”  – Foo Fighters (R.I.P. Taylor Hawkins, drummer)
  7. “Holding Out for a Hero” – Bonnie Tyler
  8. “You Will Be Found” – Dear Evan Hansen soundtrack
  9. “A Change is Gonna Come” – Sam Cooke
  10. “The Dog Days are Over” -Florence & The Machine
  11. “Still Standing” – Elton John
  12. “Eye of the Tiger” – Survivor
  13. “You Raise Me Up” – Josh Groban
  14. “Heroes” – David Bowie, sung by Peter Gabriel

 

 

Agency Hero Highlight – Community Health Alliance 3/8/22

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Community Health Alliance is a regional leader providing the highest in industry standards for Health and Human Services. Through the collaboration of our agencies, Community Health Alliance is able to offer a complete continuum of services, providing a comprehensive network of care for our patients. We equip our patients with the resources, services, and tools they need to achieve their goals and to reach their highest personal potential.

What Makes You a Trauma Hero in our Community?

At Community Health Alliance, we have so many healthcare heroes!

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, our teams continued to provide services without interruption including in the community, office and via telehealth. Our teams have participated in trauma trainings to build skills and respond to the needs of patients. They checked on our most vulnerable patients and helped patients navigate the challenges of the pandemic with increased contacts, help with testing and vaccination, and education on mental health symptoms and coping strategies. Our medical team was instrumental in helping with education, testing, and vaccination to help us stay healthy. All of our staff are healthcare heroes!

There is a special team member we would like to highlight as a healthcare hero, her name is Christine Birhanzl. Christine has been in the field for 25 years. Christine is our Director of Recovery Services at Community Health Alliance. She oversees peer recovery service and recovery housing. Christine holds her peer certification and has a deep connection to the recovery community. Her compassion for people struggling with addiction is unmatched. Christine focuses her time and energy doing outreach and engaging people in the recovery process. She respects the lived experiences of others and meets people where they are. She is a staunch advocate for people and will do whatever it takes to get someone the help they need.

Christine’s reach extends even beyond Community Health Alliance. She serves on the Board of New Life Mission, and has been involved in street outreach in Hamilton for the past 14 years, offering meals, clothing, and referrals to local services, as well as harm reduction items. What started out as feeding 125 sack lunches every Sunday out of her vehicle grew to providing approximately 250 meals a week, providing transportation to individuals struggling with addiction to local treatment programs, and helping people get their ID’s and Birth Certificates to enter treatment or seeking employment.

In 2011, Christine was awarded SELF’s Janet Clemmons Community Service Award. This is the highest honor SELF provides to outstanding advocates for low-income individuals. She celebrated 13 years of recovery on November 28th, 2021. In 2018, she formed SLIM (Saving Lives in Ministry) a nonprofit focusing on the needs of individuals struggling with addiction, mental health issues, and/or homelessness. SLIM has been widely successful.

Christine has a passion for people with a focus on the homeless, individuals struggling with addiction, and children. When asked what keeps her motivated, Christine responds, “If I can do or say one thing that keeps a young person out of trouble or helps an individual struggling with addiction or homelessness through a difficult time, I have succeeded. I am not one to highlight what I do. I do it because it is the right thing to do.” Christine understands the lived experience of patients and has great compassion and care for them.

Is there a call-to-action you’d like to make?

Community Health Alliance has two agencies, Transitional Living and Sojournor, that offer assistance. For more information on Community Health Alliance and their agencies, check out their website at https://communityhealthalliance.com. Send them a note today to start on your path to change!

Thank you to Community Health Alliance for being a TTN Member and for providing specialized services for trauma survivors and the staff who treat them. We love hearing about Christine’s passion and work, and know that people like her are key to helping community members heal!  She is definitely a heroine in this field. We look forward to hearing about and seeing more and more lives being changed through the efforts of Transitional Living and Sojourner.

Wishing you a day filled with HOPE and the good fortune of encountering staff like Christine to help you on your journey!

Melissa Adamchik, MA, LPP, Executive Director, Tristate Trauma Network

Agency Hero Highlight -Talbert House 3/2/22

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This month we are highlighting another long-standing TTN Member, who joined us in 2016. Talbert House is empowering children, adults and families to live healthy, safe and productive lives. The agency’s network of services focuses on prevention, assessment, treatment and reintegration. Services are provided at multiple sites throughout Southwest Ohio.

What Makes You a Trauma Hero in our Community?

Talbert House has two avenues in which they are providing trauma informed care. The first is Safeguards, a Talbert House program specifically addressing trauma treatment. Safeguards serves children and families who have been victims of any type of trauma, but specifically assists sexual abuse survivors, providing support to the victims and their families during their healing process. In addition, trauma informed care is critical to working with perpetrators of sexual abuse, treating them with compassion and addressing their own victimization process. Talbert House offers individual services, family treatment, and more recently, a Case Manager has been incorporated the team to work with youth and adults with trauma history. During weekly meetings and supervision sessions, Talbert House provides space to therapists to debrief their experiences with their patients – encouraging staff to practice self-care and monitor compassion fatigue. During the last two years, the team handled incredible challenges based on the social panorama and circumstances, involving racial inequalities and tensions that evoked the generational trauma that cause fear and pain in our families. A divided political environment caused frustration and insecurity in our immigrant families was also part of last year’s scenarios. Then a pandemic hit, exacerbating the mental health difficulties of our communities. However, in the middle of the difficulties, the compassion grows, and the Talbert House team was able to handle their own circumstances, trauma, and fears while continuing to offer quality services to our communities in times when it was needed the most.

The second way Talbert House is providing trauma-informed care is by focusing on the increase of the accidental overdose rates in the black community, which is up 47%. This increase is directly related to the isolation of use due to the pandemic, the stigma of the disease, the lack of awareness of available treatment that is accessible and affordable for all members of the community, and the increase in fentanyl distribution. Fentanyl is being laced in all drugs unknowingly to the community. The Gateways Peer Recovery Coaches provide outreach to communities of color supporting information dissemination, harm reduction and treatment. The African American Workgroup co-lead by Talbert House has launched a faith-based initiative working with two churches – The Greater New Hope Missionary Baptist and Corinthians Baptist – to provide harm reduction initiatives in ten traditional black churches to reduce overdose rates and increase engagement in treatment. The church has great influence in the black community and these churches open the door to reducing the stigma and increasing access to services. These innovative approaches are addressing community and individual trauma, looking at the collective and historical adverse experiences that continues to traumatize this population of our community.

Is there a call-to-action you’d like to make?
Addiction and mental health services are offered in Brown, Clinton, Hamilton, and Warren counties.You can request an appointment at this link: https://www.talberthouse.org/outpatient-appointment-requests/ or if you’d like to speak with someone immediately, call 513-221-HELP(4357) for assistance.

Thank you to Talbert House for being a TTN Member and for providing specialized, innovative, and collaborative services for trauma survivors and the staff who treat them. Last year, Talbert House served over 26,000 clients face-to-face, with an additional 134,000 receiving prevention and hotline services. Such an amazing achievement in and for our community, and we are eager to see those nunmbers grow as we continue to advance trauma-informed care together!

Wishing you a day filled with HOPE and with resources like this to find the services you or someone you know needs!

Melissa Adamchik, MA, LPP, Executive Director, Tristate Trauma Network