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September 30, 2024 / 2024 Connecticut's Healthcare Heroes Awards

2024 Healthcare Hero: Community Health Resources

Community Health Resources Mobile Crisis Department Team Led by: Melissa Brown, LCSW (Children), Elizabeth Smith, LCSW (Adult) Return to the honorees homepage
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Winner Category | Innovation

Community Health Resources is a nonprofit behavioral healthcare provider in Connecticut, offering a wide range of personalized services for children, families and adults whose lives have been touched by mental illness, addiction, homelessness or trauma.

CHR’s mission: Inspiring hope for community and individual well-being.

What have been the team’s significant contributions to the organization in the past year?

CHR’s mobile crisis teams continue to provide essential support for individuals in crisis. Their work has increased exponentially through the pandemic and beyond. We now have crisis clinicians embedded within several police departments to co-respond with officers.

Schools are the largest referral source for children experiencing mental health crises. CHR has seen an annual increase of nearly 30% in crisis calls since the start of the pandemic.

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What are some major challenges the team had to overcome?

Some major challenges we have faced include recruitment of qualified staff and meeting the needs of the community. We have overcome these by expanding our recruitment efforts and enhancing supervision/training to help with retention. Wellness benefits and diversity training help meet the needs of the communities that we serve.

What’s the team’s next major goal and/or challenge?

The nature of crisis work is unpredictable. However, we are a learning organization and always train to be ready to respond when and where we are needed by continually assessing the needs of the community, collaborating with our partners, and utilizing person-centered approaches to care, and focusing on prevention work.

Team Members: Elizaibet Rodrigez, Caity Dion, Cat Jones, Victor Acevedo, Cassy Holmes, Angela Farmer, Hadiya Robinson, Josseline Rios, Tracy Smith, Melina Laboy, Alison Vacek, Terrell Forbes, Christine Tomlin, Abby Litrenta, Coree Campbell, Dawn Ferron, Kathleen Davis, Tara Smith, Taminesha Holley, Carolyn Johnson, Brianna Perry, Amy Lakin, Shontelle Brewster, Tomisha Walker, Krystle Pierce, Samantha Nielsen, Diana Giordano, Jul Gorman, Rebbeca Fischer, Michael Wilson, Lauren Rooney, Rachel Russo, Jonathan Sutkitis, Liz Torres, Serginho Walker, Kiajuana Dailey, Sarah DeVito and Miguel Olmo

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