Volume 2 Issue 5 June/July 2015

Happy New Year! Well, it’s not EXACTLY the new year, but it IS a new fiscal year with lots of imminent changes, challenges, and opportunities! We may be in the behavioral health business, but that doesn’t mean change comes any easier to us “profess-sionals!” So what can we do to handle changes more effectively? The John Maxwell Leadership Team has some suggestions. Simply notice that you are in the midst of change and that change is a part of you. This might seem like a no-brainer, but it takes some practice to become aware of change instead of subconsciously denying it. Don't try to run and hide. Face your feelings about the change, especially when the change is imposed and beyond your control. Get past "Why me?" "But I don't want to!" and "It isn't fair!" Figure out what your fears or worries are. That takes work. You don't have to be a victim, even when you are not in control of the change. Figure out when to accept and when to reject the change. Have you heard the serenity prayer? The consumers in our substance abuse programs almost certainly have! Reflect on what you are accepting, what you are rejecting, and what you are actually doing. You will be amazed at how effective your choices can be. Adopt an attitude of anticipation, and be grateful. Welcome change as an opportunity. Find the benefit somewhere in the change. There is always a benefit and an opportunity. Every day try to notice 3 things, large or small, for which you are grateful.

Choose your thoughts and attitudes about each change. Negative thoughts block your creativity and problem-solving abilities. Positive thoughts build bridges to possibilities and opportunities. Learn to relax (more). Deep breathing works for many people. Exercise helps most of us to relax. Choose the way that works best for you. Relaxation allows you to deal well with change. Set smart goals so you can consciously guide the change. Smart goal-setting helps you decide how to make the change happen and to recognize your successes. Realize that with life, comes change. Seize the day and embrace the changes as evidence that you are alive and well and blessed with the ability to contribute! Happy New Year!

The CSB of

Middle Georgia’s

Perspective

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From the Director’s Chair By Denise S. Forbes

For our June/July edition of the Perspective, I want to take time to thank our amazing staff for coming through with some really outstanding accomplishments over the past 12 months. By the time you read this article, we will be well into the month of August, our second month of FY 16. Last fiscal year was our baseline year for the BH Core Redesign, as most of you already know; and our goal was to reach at least the 90 – 95% performance range in delivering encounters to our fee-for-service clients. Although we came up a bit short, we were a far cry from where we landed at the end of FY 14. We ended the year at 86% earned encounters for Adult MH and 88% earned encounters for Adult Addictive Disease (up from the 70 % range in FY 14). Kudos for the hard work in getting our agency this far in 12 months!

I encourage all of you to work as hard as (and maybe even a little harder) in FY 16 so that we can reach the 90-95% range. This is important because the Department will begin paying us for our encounters on a graduated system, beginning in January 2016. Simply put, this means that we will stand to lose some of our grant-in aid dollars if we do not produce enough service to earn these encounters/dollars provided to us by DBHDD. This is why it is so important to continue to document all that each of you do, and to document in a timely manner. If the fee-for-service system had been in place in FY 15, our agency would not have been able

to collect a total of $247,119 from our contract. To be sustained, we must be able to meet the deliverables and expectations set forth in the contract. I have all confidence that we will be successful in meeting the demands set forth by DBHDD.

Because we focused on many of the MTM training points throughout the past year, our overall productivity increased. When our productivity increases across all payer streams, our revenue increases. We ended this year with a surplus, which allowed our agency to pass on a 2.5% wage adjustment to our staff. While this was not a huge adjustment, it was the first across-the-board raise we have been able to implement in a number of years.

In several meetings with our staff over the past year, we have discussed the fact that each of you have an important role to play in helping our agency do well from a financial point. By doing so, we can deliver more service to our clients/families, we can add new services, and we can reward our staff for their hard work! Thank you for helping us reach this goal this year.

Our agency was awarded a Child and Adolescent Clubhouse contract of $500,000 (SOAR --- Supporting Opportunities. Achievements, and Resiliency); two DD System of Need grants of $50,000 each; and the Georgia APEX Project grant of $330,000 for Child and Adolescent services. Our C&A services were also sought out to be a part of a pilot program (one of 4 in the nation) through a collaboration/grant with the Georgia Council of Substance Abuse, the Hilton Foundation, and the Center for Innovation in Boston (Project AMP), which will target low to medium risk youth for substance use/abuse.

We added one new Certified Peer Specialist certification (Wendy Bridges) and a new C.A.R.E.S. certification (Tina Clements) to our agency during the past few months, with several others beginning to work toward their certifications in the coming months.

Lewis Miller received the National Health Service Corp student loan forgiveness assistance this year, and Jennifer Woodall was approved through the Federal Student Aid Public Service Loan

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Forgiveness Program due to her work with the CSB of Middle Georgia. We are excited for Lewis and Jennifer, and hope that others will apply during the next application cycles.

We continue to make improvements in the technology side of the agency, and ask that you continue to be patient as we put some additional things in place. During the third week of August, our friends from Ogeechee will be back with us for a couple of weeks of training for our new Profiler EMR. Keep your fingers crossed that all goes well!

Our DD side of the house has worked diligently in getting Therap off the ground, and are beginning to submit a few “billing tests” to make sure this is working as it should be. Once the testing is complete, our DD program, for the first time in our agency’s history, will have an electronic medical record that should make for more efficient use of staff’s time.

Our Suicide Prevention Coalition Dublin-Laurens held its first “Unmasking the Darkness” gala event in January 2015, and raised approximately $12,834.67 for continuing education and awareness projects for suicide prevention.

Although these are just a few of the highlights for the past 12 months, the list could certainly be added to. I thank you for making this a really great year, for putting the CSB of Middle Georgia “on the map” and on the hearts and minds of DBHDD, our Regional office, and our community. Without all of your hard work, dedication, and passion for the jobs that await you each day, none of this would have been possible.

I appreciate the work that you do, the support that you provide to me and our managers, and the compassion and care that you give to those we serve. When I share with others in our GACSB community and around the state about the individuals that I am privileged to work with each day, I say that I am blessed beyond measure. I am, indeed, blessed beyond measure. Our staff is absolutely the very best!

CSB Connection

We are pleased to announce that Lewis Miller was approved by the National Health Services Corps in the student loan repayment program for his work as a mental health professional in a designated Health Professional Shortage Area. Congratulations, Lewis! Additionally, Jennifer Woodall has been approved as a recipient of the Federal Student Aid Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program! Great news, guys!

The Emerald City Express has been working overtime bringing new staff to the CSB of Middle Georgia and transporting others to their retirement or the next leg of their journey! We need to extend a warm welcome to: Ashley Harrison, Connie Smith, Brenda Warren, Hugh Kight, Chelsey Peterson, Malissia Leach, Tammy Bostic, Nicole Snyder, Try Joiner, Maurese Stanley, Scott Heaton, Stephanie Ford, Cassie Hess, Reanna Osburn, Calvin Wilcox, Marshaya McMiller, Demetrice Holsendorff, Monica Walker, Shana Mitchell, William Faulk, Markeisha McKinnon, Natasha Davis, Jerome Pittman, Nyeisha Myricks, and Jeremy Kirtz.

We bid a fond farewell and best wishes to

Beverly Walker, Juniata Coleman, Misty Selph, Abby O’Quinn, Sherry Jones, Dr. Louis Barton, Calvin Stephens, John Birdsall, Daniel Walker, and Logan Pyle. And happy retirement to Gloria Bowen and Pat Love!

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Gloria retired with 26 years with the CSB, and Calvin had 22 prior to his move to another agency.

We are so proud of our very own, Dr. J. Roy Rowland, whose portrait was unveiled at the Dublin-Laurens Chamber of Commerce on August 11th! Be sure to stop by and thank him personally for his service to this agency, community, state, and country!

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the friends and family of Charles Willis, who passed away on June 14th. Charles was a long-time recovery champion, having a history of 22+ years of recovery himself from both depression and addiction to alcohol and drugs. He was most recently employed by the Georgia Mental Health Consumer Network as a certified WRAP facilitator and Self-Directed Recovery Program Director. Charles was the keynote speaker at the CSB of Middle Georgia’s 2014 National Recovery Month Community Rally. He will be greatly missed by his friends, family, and all those whose lives he touched.

Congratulations to these Employees of the Month! May: Barbara Ford June: Wanda Currie July: Mabre Johnson Check back on the next edition of Perspective for their photos and bios!

We heard it through the grapevine that our former special projects coordinator won a full-body makeover!

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1-Be sure to read OAP 90-17 (Employee Dress Behavior) to make sure this is not you!

2-Slow down! Excessive speed and reckless driving will not be tolerated! Please exercise caution and follow speed limits when in agency vehicles!

CSB Chatter

Congratulations to the Child & Adolescent program for successfully acquiring grant money to establish a clubhouse! The SOAR (Supporting Opportunities Achievements and Resiliency) clubhouse is located in Olde Towne Village at 1008 Hillcrest Parkway and will soon open. Persons served will range in age from 5 to 21. On Monday through Wednesday children attending will be between the ages of 5 and 12. On Thursday and Friday person served will be 13 to 21. The clubhouse will have a dance studio, music studio, tutoring area, cosmetology area, sewing area, recreation room, gym, etc. There will be an Open House for the Clubhouse during the fall.

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Our very own Jackie Carr has been using her amazing artistic talents to add some pizzazz to the clubhouse! Beautiful work, Jackie!

Welcome to Scott Heaton, who has been hired as the CSB’s new Information Technology Manager. From Scott: I am very excited to be a part of the Healthcare Staffing team. I have truly enjoyed meeting many of you and look forward to meeting those of you I have not met yet in the near future. I have an exciting vision for the IT department that is clearly focused on continuing the strategic technology implementation currently in place as well as expanding the services offered in order to

continue to keep your technology experiences positive and productive. Later this month I will send out more information as to specific tasks the IT Department is working on to include a new Help Desk model. I have roughly 20 years of professional experience in the IT business and have worked with most business and personal IT products that have been in the market place at some point in my career to include VOIP, PBX, Routing, Switching, Servers, PC, Wireless, Video Conferencing, Content Management Systems, Mobility and Virtualization. Most of my experience is with HP, Lenovo, Dell, Enterasys, Polycom, 3Com, Cisco, Citrix, VMware, NetApp, Fiber Channels, Microsoft, Google, DotNetNuke , WordPress, HTML, JavaScript, PHP, .Net Framework and Apple products. I am also a veteran of the United States Navy of which I served a total of 6 years, 4 years active and 2 years inactive. On a personal note, I am a graduate of Georgia College and Georgia Southern University and have logged many hours of post graduate work at UGA. I also have a strong background and interest in Internet publishing and completed the Georgia Institute of Technology's Web Design and Production program circa 2002. I am happily married to my wife Patti who is a Kindergarten Teacher and Church Musician and I enjoy spending as much time as possible with my family. Patti and I have 6 pets, 3 cats and 3 dogs and we hope to fill our house with children one day. My personal passions are Classical and Jazz guitar. I’m also an avid reader and love to travel.

A MICP Hiccup?

Per Cynthia Reid from Utilization Management on August 13, 2015: “There was a problem with processing the MICP files last week so if you notice that some you entered are not showing in the Authorizations please let the UM Department know…we will have to enter these manually.”

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There is a new method of accessing your documents and setting up your main “default” printer. Tutorials are available in the “Knowledge Base” Folder, located in the Public (T:) drive.

There is now a new way to access Medusa for those who have one of the new Windows 7 computers. You will no longer have to login by clicking the “CSBMG Desktop Connection” icon. Instead, there is a new icon located on your computer that takes you into Medusa. If the icon does not show up, try rebooting your computer. The GRI (Georgia Recovery Initiative) Change Team at the CSB of Middle Georgia has been working hard on several projects around the agency. The Developmental Disabilities sub-committee has been busy redesigning Building 5 to provide specific areas for various activities such as music, crafts, art, etc. so that consumers can be empowered by being allowed to choose in which activity to participate. This process has been completed in Dodge County, where the large room has been divided into a multimedia room and game room and other rooms designated for health & wellness, arts & crafts, and beauty room. The photos below show the progress in Building 5 on the main campus in Dublin where consumers are enjoying their new theater room and popcorn machine.

In honor of National Suicide Prevention Month, the Suicide Prevention Coalition of Dublin-Laurens will be holding a Silent Walk at the Fairview Park track on 9/12/15.

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The Carl Vinson VA Medical Center is also hosting a Suicide Prevention Event, Celebrate Life Pep Rally, which will be on 9/28/15 from 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm in the Main Auditorium. Celebrate life with cake and ice cream while hearing about recovery and how the suicide prevention program can help!

The 2015 National Recovery Month Community Rally will soon be upon us! The theme this year is “Silent No More.” It will be held on Friday, September 25th at the First Baptist Church Family Life Center in Dublin. The organizers are seeking staff and willing family members of staff who are in recovery and willing to share their “before” and “after” recovery photos for Powerpoint presentation. Please contact Marlena Dixon if you would like to participate in this project.

Transitioning young adults in the adult day service program made care baskets for residents at the Dublinair Health Care & Rehabilitation Center. Baskets included things like socks, combs, peppermint candy, word search books, and personalized pencils. The residents enjoyed their baskets, and the consumers are making plans to begin making monthly visits to help with leisure activities and story time.

NAMI Georgia and DBHDD are sponsoring “Creative Recovery Artist Exhibition” featuring original artwork by individuals in recovery from mental health challenges. The event will be held on September 9, 2015 in the Venetian Room at 50 Hurt Plaza in Atlanta. RSVP by August 21 to Jennifer.mcintosh@dbhdd.ga.gov.

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The consumers from Building 5 had a great time during their Fourth of July celebration!

And their moods were also flyin’ high on their trip to the Aviation Museum in Warner Robins!