Ep35 Addiction Professionals Overcome Workforce Challenges

Ep35 Addiction Professionals Overcome Workforce Challenges

[00:00:00] Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Chris Langley: Hi, welcome to Addiction Recovery Place Podcast, the podcast championing addiction treatment professionals around the world. I'm your host, Chris Langley, and I'm very pleased to introduce today's guest, Lisa Ardner from New York. Lisa runs A Purpose 4 Life, a woman-owned small business dedicated to educating and training, helping professionals in all fields. Welcome to Addiction Recovery Place Podcast, Lisa. It's great to have you with us today.

Lisa Ardner: Thank you, Chris. Thank you for the work you're doing and uniting all these professionals on your podcast and giving me an opportunity to talk to us about things I'm really passionate about. So thank

Chris Langley: you.

We really appreciate you coming on today, and I know the audience is going to be really excited to hear about the great work that you're doing. So we're just going to jump straight in. Can you tell our audience about yourself and your journey to starting A Purpose 4 Life?

Lisa Ardner: Yes. Thank you. So I grew up in a home with substance use. In my teenage and young adult [00:01:00] years, I kind of hit a bit of a wall, and my life was a total mess. didn't have a lot of hope; didn't have a future. I was drinking and using drugs to cope with past trauma and pain, and it stopped working. It wasn't really satisfying me, and I was seeing my life go in a direction that would likely end up in death. So I went to an inpatient treatment center; met an amazing counselor, Ronnie, who changed my life. Really, it was there that the burden and and calling to be a Substance Use Counselor was birthed. I really left that experience wanting to share hope that recovery is possible. That we don't have to do this alone.

So I entered long term recovery about 27 years ago, and my journey was that through, faith in God, and that was the pathway that I took. I recognize there's [00:02:00] many pathways to get there. But I went back to school, got my Master's Degree in Counseling and Community and Human Services, and then went on to get a Master's Degree in Adult Education.

I have a Master CASAC in New York state at Master Counselor, and also I'm a New York State Addiction Recovery Coach. I've worked for the last 14 years in a local hospital based inner city, both outpatient and inpatient treatment center. I love the work.Love my coworkers. Love the patients.

I use a lot of Motivational Interviewing Trauma Responsive Care, with . amazing outcomes with retention and completion rates for individuals. I also have been a family member in recovery for the last 20 years. so I've seen really firsthand how families can be either a powerful resource or an obstacle to people in recovery.

um, In 2018, I took a [00:03:00] leap of faith. Small country girl from New York went to New Orleans and became a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers. It's an international group that is promoting the fidelity and best practices in training motivational interviewing, also a certified clinical, trauma professional.

I blend motivational interviewing and trauma responsive care really in all of my work. So walking that journey as an individual in recovery, then a family member in recovery, and then into, being a professional clinician in the substance use field and mental health field. Two years ago, I stepped away from my full time clinical work and opened my own training and consulting business really to help equip the next generation of professionals and supervisors that are working in the helping field. And so that's how a purpose for life came to be.

Chris Langley: Wow. That's an incredible journey you've taken. It really [00:04:00] is. And a big shout out to your first counselor. That's wonderful that you remember him as well. so vividly, and it just shows how one professional can just change things around so drastically. That's incredible.

So who do you work with Lisa? What's your, client base?

Lisa Ardner: So currently, I missed the clinical, and so I stepped back into, doing some inpatient counseling work and clinical care work as a per diem therapist. So we primarily work with adults, seeking treatment for substance use disorder, mental health trauma, but then my role at A Purpose 4 Life is really more of an education training advisory role,

primarily serving organizations and agencies, and healthcare and mental health education, social services, criminal justice, and the, whole goal is to provide professional development training for their staff so that the quality of client [00:05:00] care and patient care is improved and really the promotion of evidence based practices is implemented throughout our agencies here in central New York, as well as providing resources for families and individuals that are impacted by substance use.

Chris Langley: Goodness me. That's a whole raft of, clients that really is. So you offer some really extensive training. Can you explain some of these courses, and how you work for your clients, Lisa?

Lisa Ardner: Sure. Much of the training, as I said, is in Motivational Interviewing and Trauma Responsive Care. A lot of wellness and resilience training for staff because we know that's necessary for our well being in the field. Then in partnership with two of my colleagues, Sandy Rivers and David Forelli, we actually launched a Motivational Interviewing for our asynchronous course, that is an on demand course people can complete at their own pace. As well a 10 hour Criminal Justice Motivational Interviewing course, which we're really [00:06:00] proud of. I have a special passion for individuals that have lost a loved one or lost family members to overdose or suicide, so my training partner, Sandy Rivers and I, we do a grief and loss training for professionals working with families and individuals who have lost, but also family members who have experienced that loss. This year we were really proud to launch our embracing families training.

We know that families are impacted by substance use and yet often don't have the tools or the resources to really understand what's happening, let alone to navigate that and still thrive in the midst of some really big challenges, so we developed a program called Embracing Families to address that gap. Embracing Families really seeks to build allies within the family, and there's some really practical steps that [00:07:00] people can take to promote health and wholeness in the family. We know that when we involve families and engage them in the recovery process that, we're taking a harm reduction approach. Currently we've been partnering with, Crouse Hospital, which is where I also work per diem, and they are doing amazing work with families there.

They sought to reinstate their family program, which kind of went on pause through COVID. They're launching a Celebrating Families program, and we've done three rounds of training their staff on Embracing Families and also an intermediate course that really helps to implement, "how do we involve families in treatment and in the recovery process?"

It helps to really enhance the clinician's ability to feel confident in working with families in treatment, which sometimes can be a bit of the gap. When agencies complete this training, they actually have a [00:08:00] four hour family education program that they can bring to families in their agency and in their community. and at the end of the day. At the agency where I'm employed, it's really been wonderful to see on discharge at inpatient, everyone is given a handbook of resources for their family members and invited to connect with our outpatient program to continue those family services. Many people don't know this, but family members are able to have individual sessions with a professional therapist regarding their loved one in New York state.

They're also able to have their own therapist. They can be admitted as a patient and actually obtain services as well.

a a large part.

Chris Langley: Absolutely. I love that you're so involved with families because families have been at the forefront of a family member's addiction, and they've been through so many different stages of [00:09:00] that person's addiction and to find a service like yours is that's about them as well. Because family members get forgotten, sadly. Family members are sometimes blamed, but it's just very sad that this, happens. I think offering a service that's so involved and with such expertise as what you're delivering, it's just wonderful. A question I wanted to ask you about families Lisa, is, do you ever come across much resistance from family members who have just had enough maybe?

Working with a resistant family member must be quite difficult. Yeah, I

Lisa Ardner: and often I think they're reluctant to seek help for a variety of reasons. They feel embarrassed, ashamed, helpless, hopeless, alone, fed up, filled with grief, many people misunderstand them. They can often feel very unsupported, like they're doing this themselves, [00:10:00] and life has gotten really crazy.

Yet we know that families are doing the best they can with what they know, and our hope is that even families living in great chaos, they still love their children. They still love their loved one. When we connect to members of the family, the whole family system can heal. While I think there is, some maybe just reluctance to step into getting help. It's, embarrassing. There's a lot of stigma around, substance use and substance use treatment. I think that there's a lot of hope, too. But unfortunately, I don't know that message is spoken as much as, some of the stigmatizing things we hear, like "tought love" and, detachment.

Chris Langley: Stigma is a word that comes up in every [00:11:00] podcast I do. Why do you think stigma has such a big part in people accessing services? It could be one of the biggest things to stop someone coming in and entering service because of this stigma we have around our communities. Why do you think that is?

Lisa Ardner: Oh my, stigma is huge. Even today we still hear a lot of that stigmatizing language. People still being called "addicts" and "alcoholics, junkies. They need to ge t clean." We've come a long way over time, but I think, too, with families, families are told they're "enabling" their loved one that they need to distance.

They need to set boundaries. They're codependent, and that is just full of connotations of blame and shame. I think one simple change in stigma is the language that we use, instead of using that stigmatizing language to use [00:12:00] person first language to really promote some hope in the work that we're doing. Empowering instead of enabling healthy attachment instead of detachment. Loving well instead of tough love. We do a lot of training with counselors on addressing some of our own biases. That we come into the work with when working with family members. We work with professionals to see that stigma and seeing every family that's being impacted from a family systems approach. Because when we help one, we help all or have the potential to help all.

Chris Langley: Have you ever found when you work with family members, when there's that light bulb moment, and you just see the whole attitude change towards their loved one's addiction, that must be quite amazing for you as therapists as well, to see that change. It's such a big [00:13:00] deal because family members have been dealing with this for many years, and to have that mind shift change must be quite an amazing experience.

Lisa Ardner: In our family program, we teach about the C's.

"You, can't control it.

You can't cure it.

You didn't cause it, but you can take care of yourself." And I think that's part of it. When the family begins to realize that they can have a really great quality life, and they can have a relationship with the individual and substance use and not have that continuing to tank them emotionally.

I think that there is this amazing hope that comes into people's eyes that there are other ways of doing things that will yield much more positive results.

Chris Langley: Most definitely. Well, big congratulations to you on what you're achieving because the service that you're offering, it's so needed. It really is. It's lovely to hear [00:14:00] that you're providing this for your community.

We're just going to go on, and we'll talk about, the professional side of things as well, Lisa, because when we first met, you told me that there are problems with many services that are going through having trouble employing and even retaining staff.

So how long has this been going on for? Why do you think this is happening?

Lisa Ardner: Yeah, it's interesting. I think, and this is just my experience. I don't have any data for this,

It seems that the gap has really started to rise after COVID. I think it seemed after 2020, the acuity of patients really started to increase. People are coming in with more and more needs.

We never used to ask upon admission to inpatient, do they have wounds that we're going to need to address because of the xylasine use. It's huge acuity. I think a great thing is that more people are seeking treatment, which is wonderful, but there's a strain on the workforce right now.

The [00:15:00] current workforce, they are, the burden of a huge caseloads, high turnover and staff, the baby boomers are retiring and leaving the field. I know Oasis here in New York state has done a wonderful partnership with SUNY Empire University, where I'm an adjunct professor. They actually are partnering to give scholarships to people so that we can get more people into the field. Get them educated. Get them trained and fill some of those vacant positions and the gaping holes in the workforce. I think that some of the reduced restrictions has improved access to care for patients, but I do think it makes it challenging for clinicians because it makes it more difficult when you can't see people to treat them, for instance. So I think it's an interesting dynamic.

I think it's something [00:16:00] that, you think about methadone take homes were previously reserved for very stable patients, and now that restriction has been taken off. It makes it difficult for clinicians, I think, to work well with people because we've had to adjust how we approach individuals and substance use. I think that's why training and education is so important and OASIS does a great job of providing a lot of quality trainings for us in the field. It's a shift. It's a mindset shift for the people in the field, and it's been challenging for clinicians to meet up with these demands.

Chris Langley: Most definitely. You mentioned about the methadone, and they've changed their way of prescribing. When did this happen? Has this been post COVID?

Lisa Ardner: I believe the changes have been since COVID. There's, access to telehealth, less restrictions on take [00:17:00] homes, but I think there's good and bad to it.

Chris Langley: Yeah. You mentioned as well with the xylazine and with obviously wound care is such a huge deal. You're located in New York, which like many other States who experienced the opioid crisis, sadly, like the rest of the country and now the rest of the world, it seems to be creeping even more now.

So how are communities in your state coping with this crisis?

Lisa Ardner: Yeah, Well, boy boy, communities have just been devastated by the opioid crisis, and it's scary. The substances that are being used today, while we've made great efforts to educate people on Narcan, they're not as effective, when it comes to xylazine. There have been some great things done, certainly the MAT regulations diminishing is wonderful in many ways. The suboxone waivers lifted. They have [00:18:00] injectable MAT. with SUBLOCADE® and BRIXADI®. They're offering MAT in the jails. Many jails also offer like a 30 day injectable naloxone when people are leaving jail. So I think that, another thing that's been wonderful in New York state, we are really passionate about our peer workforce here. I think that is an incredible way to support the demands on the workforce, during the opioid crisis. We've seen an increase in alcohol use among women, for instance.

The need to integrate families has just been incredible. We have a lot of local agencies here that do great work. I know our own Syracuse University partnered with Kraus, and they were exploring how does mindfulness make a more effective and sustainable recovery.

They really measured some of those stress responses, and then how mindfulness could assist them [00:19:00] in, really promoting recovery. We have a local gentleman that's opening his own facility soon. We're really excited about it. Devon's Rec Room. They provide the community with physical activity to bring people together for sober living and recovery commitment and just a lot of really cool things in that, vein.

I dont know if you're familiar with Invitation to Change. But New York state did a great initiative with Invitation to Change Groups. And these are 12 week groups that work with providing support and skills for family members, and they meet free on Zoom for families to connect and have support. They have new sibling groups, which is super exciting.

Chris Langley: Wow. It sounds like New York are doing pretty well.

Lisa Ardner: I feel like there's a lot of initiatives here.

Lisa Ardner: We're doing the best we can.

Friends of [00:20:00] Recovery is another organization. They do a lot with New York state. Then the Alcohol and Substance Abuse Professionals, Inc® ASAP, recently partnered with InUnity Alliance, and they also are doing great work with peers, education, advocacy, so it's exciting.

Chris Langley: It is.

Lisa Ardner: I think embracing families is also one of the things that we really hope will catch like lightning in the community,

and it's not just a nice idea, it's necessary to really expand the reach of recovery for individuals in the community. Embracing families is a form of harm reduction. If you look at the people in the United States that are dealing with substance use disorder right now, it's 40 million. If you multiply that by four people, even. For, every person who has a loved one who's impacted, if you [00:21:00] do the math, it's virtually 50 percent of the population is impacted by substance use.

It's a really a huge impact. By including family services, it is a way of using that family systems approach to create that entry point for individuals and the family ultimately to be a source of support and resilience have them engaged in the process because the individual is very likely to return to their family system.

Chris Langley: Yes.

Lisa Ardner: And whoever engages in the family really it allows that open door for support and education and awareness and resources and And help to the family because we know that will help the individual also to recover. So, it's important

work.

Chris Langley: Oh, big time. Absolutely. Something you did mention earlier that resonated that they were doing a 30 day blocker for people leaving jail for [00:22:00] opioids. That's going to save so many lives.

Lisa Ardner: I have to imagine,

Chris Langley: It must do.

Lisa Ardner: If someone's been incarcerated for a long period of time, and they come out of jail and attempt to use at the same level that they, their tolerance is low and just really a recipe for overdose, and it's a great initiative that's taking place right now. Most people leaving jail actually have the ability to connect to MAT services before they leave of some form.

Chris Langley: That's incredible because there was a whole host of things you were just telling me about there, and it just sounded like New York are actually addressing this, or doing what they can to address this. It's good to hear that the criminal justice system are actually, not shunning this as well. When I was in the UK, I'll just quickly mention that when I was in the UK, the biggest fear for us was someone leaving prison than using because of the tolerance.

We had lots of deaths around that, and that seems like a very sensible [00:23:00] harm reduction approach, should we say so? But it's great to hear about the other work that's going on in NY state. I just want to ask about, we met through NAADAC, which is a great organization. So can you tell us why you joined this organization and what are some of the benefits of being a NAADAC member?

NAADAC is an incredible organization. They do a huge amount of advocacy for those in substance use disorder, a lot of support for professionals in the field. They have exceptional quality educations that are offered through NAADAC. They just had a great conference in Washington, DC last week.

It's really a place to create collaboration and connection with other addiction professionals. It is how we met. I've met a large number of individuals that really are passionate about this work. When you can unite those kinds of [00:24:00] professionals, we all feel supported. We all get invigorated and inspired by each other.

Chris Langley: It is an incredible organization. It really is. Last couple of questions for you, Lisa. I ask all my guests this question because I get some very interesting and varied answers, but can you tell me what your opinion of harm reduction is and how it can play such a pivotal role in recovery?

Lisa Ardner:

Harm reduction is all about saving lives. There's various tools, strategies, information that promote that. But ultimately, harm reduction is going to keep people alive long enough, so that they can develop a reason to embark on change or have the insight about change.

If we don't have that opportunity with individuals, we can't influence change. The drugs today are not allowing people second chances. Rock bottom is now [00:25:00] death. It definitely is extremely important. I think of harm reduction. I love the peer professional movement and how employing peer professionals reduces harm to individuals.

They're able to connect quicker and in a more relevant way to the individuals in treatment. iIt's It's something so underfunded, underutilized is really promoting harm reduction with family engagement. We have family peers here in New York state that are highly underutilized.

Chris Langley: Wow. Thank you very much for that very good explanation, and I completely agree with everything you say. So do you have a message for anyone listening to this podcast who's going through addiction or experience a mental health trauma, Lisa?

Lisa Ardner: Yes, there is hope. There is hope. There is help. Whatever you're going through, [00:26:00] whatever you're facing, you no longer have to face it alone. If you are in the dark; if you feel there's no way out, I am just here to tell you there is a way out. There is no one right way to get there. There are many pathways that lead to recovery.

Whatever, you might be going through, no matter how difficult or how impossible it seems, you are a person that matters. Tomorrow needs you.

Chris Langley: Beautiful.

Lisa Ardner: Nothing is impossible. No matter how challenging it might seem at this moment. There is hope. Each individual, I really believe, was made for great things. So I want to encourage anyone that might be struggling, don't quit. Don't you quit.

Link arms with people who can help you find that pathway because you are not alone. You don't have to go through this alone. There is way too much help out there, to go this route [00:27:00] alone. It's too powerful.

We recover in the context of community, and so we can do this together.

Chris Langley: That's perfect. Thank you very much, Lisa. Last question, obviously, this is very important, but can you tell our listeners how to best contact you and to find your service online, please?

Lisa Ardner: Thank you, Chris. They can locate me at my website, apurpose4life.com or Lisa@apurpose4life.com I'm on LinkedIn and Facebook, so you can find me there as well.

Chris Langley: Fabulous. We'll have all the links as well below in this podcast for anyone that wants to check out Lisa's website and to find out about the great work that she's doing. I just want to thank you again, Lisa for telling us about your great work and thank you for everything you're doing for your community because anyone hearing this is going to be very inspired by your story and the work that you do, and especially around the family element.

It's [00:28:00] just wonderful to hear. So thank you very much indeed. I really appreciate it.

Lisa Ardner: Yeah. What a pleasure. Thank you. It's been a delight talking to you. Chris.

Chris Langley: Thank you, Lisa.

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