Ep24 Addiction Professionals Avoiding Compassion Fatigue

===

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

Chris Langley: Hi, welcome to the 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, Emily LeVigne, Founder of LeVigne Consulting located in California. Emily provides group therapy, compliance, and clinical training to healthcare facilities.

She also offers free in person and virtual assessment based consultations for treatment referrals to families and individuals seeking behavioral healthcare. Welcome to the Addiction Recovery Place Podcast. Emily, it's great to have you with us today.

Emily LaVigne: Good to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Chris Langley: We really appreciate your time. And I know you're incredibly busy with doing the amazing work that you do. So we're just going to get crack on and ask you some of these questions. So can you tell our audience about you and how you started your consulting company in California?

Emily LaVigne: Yeah, sure. I have been a clinician in the behavioral healthcare space in California specifically [00:01:00] for oh, gee, since 2016, 2017, and I come from a background of addiction and mental health, so I didn't have any job experience prior to getting sober myself, little jobs here and there like Starbucks or, a pizza place, but nothing of significance.

And I knew that I wanted to help people in some capacity. I grew up in a, especially with my father who was a pastor and a helper for his entire life. That was just part of what I knew that I wanted to do. So LeVigne Consulting actually came, recently at the end of 2023 and it was born from, it was born from, it was born from extreme compassion fatigue and burnout and a frustration with, not being able to find occupational freedom in my roles [00:02:00] anymore.

And I quit my job of five years. And I had no idea what I was going to do. I just knew that I wanted to do something different. LeVigne Consulting was a wild hair in the middle of the night where I'm like, "Oh, you know what I should start my own consulting company and I'll figure out the rest later." But I'll this is what I want to do.

I want to work for myself for the first time, and that's how we got, that's how I got started. Now we, I keep saying "we," now LeVigne Consulting is about providing program development, clinical training, obviously accreditation, Survey Prep for Joint Commission in the state of California, just so much stuff mixed in with the packaging of consulting, but I knew that I wanted it to be person centered.

And I knew that was what our field needed. And I needed to find a way to always have any service that I do come [00:03:00] back to, "is this going to be client centered? Is this going to enhance the client experience? And are we truly going to be helping them? Or is this simply about checking boxes off= standards and regulations?", which is not what it's about.

So family education, consulting, group facilitation, per diem case management, there's just a lot of stuff in there that I do.

Chris Langley: Definitely. Firstly, congratulations on what you've achieved. So

Emily LaVigne: Thank you.

Chris Langley: You've achived this in such a short space of time and, Your clear commitment to your clients is very telling. And fact that you came from, a history of addiction yourself, and you've overcome that, and you're now running your own business, you're now doing your own consultancy. You're working for yourself.

That's incredible. Congratulations again.

Emily LaVigne: Thank you. Thank

you.

Chris Langley: You've already gone into a little bit of a description, but what, makes your consulting company different from other [00:04:00] consulting companies? You said a person centered, which is, very important,

Emily LaVigne: Yes.

Chris Langley: kind of

Emily LaVigne: Yes.

Chris Langley: that?

Emily LaVigne: So I believe what sets me apart from other consultants is the level of investment that I have in the clinical program. a lot of the consultant companies nowadays, especially in California, it's all about turnkey consulting. So it's all about give me all of the information on your facility and let me fill out all the paperwork and submit everything without any real investment into what is actually going to happen after you get approved or accredited.

And that is what I focus on. I care more about what is going to happen after than this whole process of filling out paperwork and submitting applications and stuff. That stuff is easy. It's the second part that matters. And the problem with, being a part of the turnkey kind of model of consulting is we contribute, they contribute to the problem.

The problem exists in that person [00:05:00] centered care must be at the forefront in order to have incredible outcome measures, in order to impact our clients positively, our families positively. So it's incredibly important. And I also think the learning environment that I cultivate is entirely different. Like I said, a huge emphasis on, each consulting package is the learning component and the education component.

I want to, spend a great deal of time investing in an individual and a clinician or a leader in order to ensure that the clients that come in there afterwards are going to be well taken care of. And they're going to be well informed by their leaders or by the clinicians around them. So the learning environment, the person centered care, and the degree of investment that I have into the outcome measures after.

Part of the training it's, spending purposeful time with a clinician and being able to come up with a performance improvement plan [00:06:00] using emotional

awareness. And, sure, I can come in and have these didactic lessons that I teach and spiel at you and hope that you retain the information and then leave, but that isn't impactful to the clinician and therefore is not impactful to the client.

So creating performance improvement plans if it's a facility that's established or coming up with a curriculum of training that I can go through in sequence of importance and in sequence of "Okay, now we understand this competency, let's move ahead and go on to acculturation, or let's move into Personality disorders.

What are some of the things that we're going to see when we open the doors?" So it just depends on the facility, but definitely purposeful time is incredibly important and utilizing evidence based practices in those trainings, and especially for the facilities that are established already, being able to provide a.

space for a clinician to [00:07:00] debrief is also incredibly important, staying tethered to them and, making sure that we made time for that in the beginning of our trainings. "What's going on? How are you guys feeling emotionally, spiritually, physically? Are we doing okay? Are we experiencing compassion fatigue?"

Because that's the full stop right there. When we're burnt out. We can't move ahead. We can't move forward. We're stuck. So always keeping an ear out for compassion fatigue and burnout is incredibly important. And I honestly, yes, it's a consultant company and yes, I, am a consultant, but teaching is what I love to do.

Teaching is what, brings me joy and fulfillment. So I do think, it's going back to the last question of what sets me apart. I believe I'm a teacher and I love that. I lean into anytime I can teach a concept and I learn in that too. I'm constantly evolving and learning what our field needs and what our clients need.

And yeah, it's incredible.

Chris Langley: Wow. It just sounds absolutely wonderful. [00:08:00] what you've, what you're doing and what you've,

Emily LaVigne: Oh, thank you.

Chris Langley: It really does. So can you tell us a little bit about the programs that you offer specifically? What are the, some of the programs that you specialize in?

Emily LaVigne: So speaking to the consulting first, I only deal with right now at the time, subacute adult substance use and mental health, residential and detox facilities. I'm hoping to open up PHP and IOP at the end of this year. I'm aware of the standards and regulations for that as well, but it. I'm focusing right now on inpatient.

That's really my space right now, what I love to do. I have goals of expanding to national and expanding to adolescent facilities and stuff like that. But that stuff takes time, and I want to really make sure that I'm very well informed and educated on what I need to do moving forward. So adult residential and behavioral health, mental health and addiction.

And, part of the consulting is it just depends on the facility's needs. So if we are in a survey prep, [00:09:00] space where a facility is already established and they need help with their either upcoming state survey or their joint commission survey, or they're certified and licensed with the state and they want to start JCAHO, those packages depend on what they need.

So survey prep or accreditation or licensing, and clinical training is always mixed in there somewhere. I have a separate package for leadership development that is a part of consulting. I love incorporating that when I can. but again, utilizing emotional awareness and leadership is so important in this field, and it's so important for a number of reasons, and the impact is severe when we see it, such as increased, staff turnover or employee satisfaction burnout, right?

Those are severe consequences, that reward is just amazing on the other side of that coin as well. And then quality control is built into each one of those. So auditing, staff training, obviously support staff clinician training, [00:10:00] if they need help recruiting, things like that. So I try to fit in as much as I can in that space

for what I can, prioritize and take over. And family education is something that's incredibly special to

me. family groups and the family weekend can absolutely change the trajectory of a client's future and their family's lives. And so that is what the family education component is for is just to provide resources to educate and to support.

And if they need placement or if they need help finding placement, I use an assessment based portion, similar to what treatment centers use, but mine's specifically tailored to what I think is really important that I need to know about the client's strengths, preferences, needs, Presenting issues, obviously, and we come up with a plan together of here are some resources or places that I think would be a good fit for your child or for your loved one, and we go from there.

I consult with a lot of different professionals in that [00:11:00] process, so I'll reach out to people that I'm very comfortable with that are clinicians in the field to get, to make sure that I'm making the best informed recommendation that I can, and a lot of those services I also provide for free.

So I,

I typically do not charge families for that.

Yeah. But it's special. It's

special to me. Yes. It's very special.

Chris Langley: Of

Emily LaVigne: course.

Per diem case management and group facilitation are the other two things that I do, that I will always remain tethered to in some way, shape, or form. I've since recovering from the burnout that I experienced for about,

the upwards of two years at the end of working in a facility, I will never let that part go again. I think that's what happened. I think that contributed to me losing the passion and the fever that I needed to feel. And per diem case management is a great way for me to do that.

It's a way for me to, remain [00:12:00] engaged with the client, always keeping up on evidence based practices and coping skills. And a lot of the interventions that we use in session are things that I continue to learn and grow upon. So per diem case management typically provided to facilities where I will do groups or they contact me directly for a case manager that can come in and do a mixture of both and then groups as well.

Group facilitation is special.

Chris Langley: how do you get your referrals? Do you get them people just calling you or do you, how, do you get referrals and how are you promoting what you're doing? Because it's some amazing

work.

Emily LaVigne: Sure. So I actually have not ever promoted myself anywhere, and I'm looking into doing that this year. It's something I obviously want to do. I want to cultivate some content that's education based and do all those things. But in terms of putting myself out there and going, "Hey, my name's Emily LeVigne and here's LeVigne Consulting," I have yet to do that.

And [00:13:00] I think that I'm not sure there's any specific reason for that. I think it's just, I have, I've been blessed with knowing so many people that I love and respect in this field that word of mouth and recommendations, have just been what has, kept me afloat and successful.

And I don't work specifically. I do think this part is important though. I do not work specifically. I'm not affiliated with any provider or agency or any form of networking referral network. And I think that's important to maintain. Because we see all the time, especially in California, that recommendations or interpretation can be skewed when we are responsible to someone or something.

So I want to remain completely independent. I want to be able to make informed and educated decisions based on my [00:14:00] belief of their clinical program and not my personal relationships within that program. It's been incredible organic. completely.

Chris Langley: Absolutely. If you've not put out, if you've not done any marketing or any, Yeah. you have a great website, and I was reading

Emily LaVigne: Thank you.

Chris Langley: the testimonials and it's just incredible what people feel about you and your expertise and your experience and what you bring to people. It really

Emily LaVigne: Oh, thank you so much. Every one of those individuals are so special to me. incredible people in the field.

Chris Langley: Would strongly suggest anyone listen to this podcast to go and look at Emily's website and just read. The reviews, it really did, it really was very impressive. And I, I'm very grateful to having you on the podcast because what, you're doing is very unique as well in something you've done yourself and you've not had any other support.

you've gone through work experience. you've grown, you've developed this consulting business real value.[00:15:00]

Emily LaVigne: value Sure.

Chris Langley: you're

Emily LaVigne: working

Oh, thank you.

Chris Langley: with families, you're working with therapists, you're working with groups, you're working with businesses. One of the specialities is clinical and staff training, Emily. Can you tell us about this and what, what, who do you work with for that? Because that's very specific, especially on staff training.

Emily LaVigne: Sure. so a lot of the time, at least thus far, I've done all my clinical training or a majority of it with facilities that I'm already affiliated with, either consulting or doing groups for, or we just create a relationship and they need help. And I'm like, I'm, here to help you if you need help.

In terms of a training environment for a clinician. It's largely scenario based, when I cultivate some sort of curriculum or the environment is scenario based. I utilize various learning materials, so that can look like a PowerPoint or, SAMHSA has some great [00:16:00] materials on learning.

NAADAC has some incredible resources for clinicians to learn. So we culminate together. It's very collaborative. It's, very, again, it's person centered to the clinician as well. It's me spending some time building report them and helping them, be able to recognize problem areas of their own, which is a challenge in itself because not everyone wants to, not everyone is, understands or is prepared to admit where faults are or weaknesses are.

And so there's a very supportive and creative way that it's really important for me to be able to communicate that to them in a very supportive and compassionate way. And I constantly relate it back to, "Oh, I remember this one time where I really messed up. Let me tell you about it." Constantly referencing mistakes that I've made or, places where I've grown, because it's really important that the learning environment remain consistent whether I'm there or not. I, hope that it persists [00:17:00] even when I'm gone and when training is over, where they get to then pass on what they know to the next clinician and so on. So largely scenario based. It depends on again, the clinician, if they prefer video learning, if they're kinetic, if they're auditory learners.

So I use that and I, in my teaching as well, and try to be mindful and cognizant of that. And there's a large emphasis on critical thinking and problem solving when it comes to assessing is this decision or is this behavior or model going to impact the client in a positive way? Or is there a better option?

So again, we constantly reference back to person centered care in all of our learning. And formulate multiple scenarios and multiple solutions to each problem, so they can factor in the variables that we know exist in behavioral healthcare each day all the time. I also utilize trauma informed practice, so I am trauma informed.

I like my clinicians to [00:18:00] understand what that means and to be able to employ those practices in their care of a client or in their program development period. And again, just increasing their understanding of person centered care and the overall client experience and also the family's experience, because families are, need to be a part of this if a client is open and willing.

We do family systems training. We do emotional intelligence training, being able to read a client, interpret a client. It's just, it's so fun. Chris, it's awesome. It's my favorite part. I probably shouldn't say that being that the consulting is the first thing on my website, but, training and teaching is the best.

It's the best part because I, again, I continue to learn. I continue to get better.

Chris Langley: I can just hear the passion and love you have for your work and for helping

your clients.

Oh,

It's truly humbling to hear what you're speaking about and what you're doing. It really is.

Emily LaVigne: Thank [00:19:00] you.

Chris Langley: You, mentioned NAADAC, obviously we, we met on the NAADAC forum and can you just tell us a little about your, how you benefited from being a member of the country's largest association for addiction counselors.

Emily LaVigne: Yeah. NAADAC is incredible. One of my goals is to become more involved with NAADAC, whether it be at, a legislative bill, partisan type of thing, or whether it's, a community outreach type of involvement, but I'm relatively a new member of NAADAC. I reached out to NAADAC, and they have an incredible program where they waive your first year of registration.

If you are a clinician, it's like a raffle thing. So I reached out in there when I had just started living consulting and I said, "Hey, I just started my own company. I'm broke right now, but I really want to be a part of NAADAC." I really want to understand what this is and be able to have access to all these resources because I need to grow, and I need to continue to be learning and educating myself so that I'm, [00:20:00] again, passing on the correct information.

So NAADAC for me has just been a reservoir of education material for me. I have leaned into their webinars on cultural humility. They have so much stuff on different topics that we, deal with in behavioral health care, clinical supervision being one of them. They have been incredible, an incredible resource for me to learn.

It's a resource that I trust. They use a lot of evidence based tools. They have incredible clinicians with multiple letters behind their name teaching a lot of these webinars. So that's something that, that has been incredibly useful for me specifically. So

Chris Langley: Thank you for that. I wanted to mention NAADAC obviously, because that's where we first met. And I feel exactly the same way that you do about the organization. It really is a great resource for everyone really.

Emily LaVigne: yeah.

Chris Langley: We're moving on a little bit of around what's [00:21:00] going on in California briefly, Emily, because when we first met, you mentioned some rather shady ways that agencies or insurance companies are using people suffering from addiction to make fraudulent claims. I think you mentioned this is called body brokers. Is that right?

Emily LaVigne: Yes.

Chris Langley: I am unfamiliar with this practice. So can you explain in a little bit of detail about how this is affecting client care and the obvious aftermath of people not being able to access proper treatment?

Emily LaVigne: Oh. Body brokering has run rampant in Southern California. For whatever reason, our insurance companies and carriers and the way that they provide behavioral health care services in California, specifically, and a couple other states, are not regulated to the degree that they should be so body brokering can exist when an intermediary is working specifically with a facility,

and then [00:22:00] gets paid "per head," we say, or "per client," for each client that lands in their facility. Again, obliterates person centered care and completely obliterates informed consent on the patient's part. But the problem with this exists in that the referrer or the, marketer, broker, then gets paid for that.

And we saw it happen where the marketer would get paid and then the client would get paid from the marketer as enticement to go to treatment, which you can imagine the repercussions of paying a client to go to treatment for a set period of time. The, hopping, the treatment hopping, cycling back and forth through treatment, the relapse rate,

skyrocketed. Those are some of the issues. We also see body brokering or unethical behaviors happening where a, in UA, urine analysis systems as well, which is probably a whole separate conversation. In terms of the level of [00:23:00] deceitfulness, I do think it's important that when we talk about body brokering, we, have things in place to push people away from it.

However, they're not being implemented. So I believe it was in September, 2018, the Senate bill 1228 was approved by Governor Brown. And this was specifically enacted to combat patient brokering, which is what it's referred to. And because of that bill, there were extra sections added into the California Health and Safety Code, which is another regulation that behavioral health care facilities, at least subacute, need to abide by.

The problem with this is there is no set penalty. That is stated in the bill that the state can enact upon someone. So it's just, "hey, you have the freedom to penalize [00:24:00] someone for this behavior. We're not going to tell you what you can do or can't do, and we're not going to tell you how to do it."

And we're going to assume that you have the infrastructure to be able to do that, but the state does not. We do not have the infrastructure to assign analysts and investigators to be able to investigate these types of claims. The other problem is, if they do happen to investigate and they visit a facility, which looks like a state visit, and they come in, the degree of deceitfulness, there is no promise that investigator will find that it's happening because it's very well covered up by marketing.

Marketing tools, marketing materials, marketing payments, right? So it's very well covered up by the provider and the company The other penalization that they talk about in the bill is you can have your license revoked, right? So we're talking about a certification or a license [00:25:00] on the state's end or we're talking about a counselor's or a certified individual's license being revoked on that part.

The problem is the brokers are not licensed or credentialed. We're talking about, we're talking about unprofessional, non credentialed, paraprofessional is not even the right term to describe it, we're just talking about people. And often clients come into treatment, they get exposed to this unethical behavior, and then they go out and they start marketing a facility to clients being a client themselves.

So we've seen it all the time, we've seen it all through Southern California and stuff, so there is no direct remedy for it. In terms of it affecting its, in terms of its impacts in behavioral health care, they're

severe. we're talking about incredible relapse rates at an incredible high. There is often sexual abuse.

And inappropriate relationships happening between the female or the male clients and these brokers or marketers, right? We're [00:26:00] talking about, an increase in homelessness. When you are hopping between facility with hopes that you're going to get covered and paid and you're not, right? You will have nowhere to go.

Families are caught in the crossfire of this, right? There is no family integration happening in treatment because the facility is afraid that the family will find out what's going on, so they just don't incorporate them at all. Frequent HIPAA and 42 CFR violations.

And at the end of the day, just very little access to resources.

Facilities that engage in this type of behavior are not clinically robust facilities. They're not facilities that employ professionals that know what they're doing because if they were, the professionals would have left, which is often what we see. It's why everyone, pretty much everyone in California has at one point in time worked for a shady facility, right?

You just end up

there, and then you leave.

Chris Langley: Yeah. Yeah.

Emily LaVigne: But, [00:27:00] In, terms of patient centered care, it's

non existent. It's absolutely

Chris Langley: Yeah.

Emily LaVigne: non-existent. Especially on the client's part, there's, no informed decision making on the client's end, which we expect. When they're getting paid to go somewhere, why would you have motivation?

There's the treatment readiness is obviously compromised. The motivation to get sober is compromised. So it's an incredible uphill battle that we continue to face. And there is no database that you can check and go, okay, is this place ethical? What complaints are out there? What's happening?

Because the state is not required to, publicly report that. That's not public information. So you have to rely on word of mouth, client experiences, to know who's shady. Or if there happens to be an indictment, which there are a few, then you have obviously access to that information, but it's just, it's [00:28:00] atrocious.

It really

is.

Chris Langley: It is complete fraud. It's complete

zero care, and it's all about the dollar. That's it.

Emily LaVigne: Yeah.

Chris Langley: When you mentioned this to me when we first met Emily, I was trying to get my head around what was, what it was. And you've just explained it in such a concise way. And I'm sitting here I feel angry that this is even a thing.

Emily LaVigne: Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Langley: my goodness me,

Emily LaVigne: Yeah.

Chris Langley: This is so risky behavior, and so this can make the addiction problems so much bigger for society, for the person, for the families and family members think they're going in there for treatment and they come out. Okay. And they just, continue.

And wow, that's,

Emily LaVigne: And the families are like, what's

going on? I don't understand. I just sent my child. I live in North Carolina. I just sent my child to California to receive treatment and they're homeless on the streets having not received any help repeatedly for years. [00:29:00] And I've had clients come into facilities that I've worked with and consulted with program director, clinical director, and we have to have an honest conversation and sit down and go, "this patient's being brokered?

What are we going to do?" I have cussed out brokers before on the phone working at facilities. I, am not, have no qualms with getting vocal with these people on, how incredibly detrimental they are and continue to be to people, right? Forget clients,

Chris Langley: exactly.

Emily LaVigne: They are people that are being, essentially trafficked.

I think the other important part to mention with brokering too, is, a different type of brokering that we've seen an increase in, the past few years, where facilities are now employing certain people or employees that work for their program to go to different states and obtain fraudulent insurance policies through then obtaining fraudulent residence documents.

So this is one thing that we've seen rise. We've seen it a huge escalation in Oklahoma, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oklahoma. [00:30:00] There's Alaska policies that you can, finagle New York. They're all over the place and they will just go obtain residence documents, right? To prove the client lives there with a falsified address.

And therefore obtain a state insurance policy that is then covered in California as an out of network or in network policy. So it's just, it's disgusting. It's, unfortunate. It's really unfortunate. And, to even further, it's like, how is the state meant to investigate that type of thing, right? We have I think it's insurance section, part of the California insurance code.

I think it's 750 that talks about obtaining fraudulent insurance policies, and they state a specific penalty in there. They say, hey, here's the minimum and the maximum amount of time you can spend in jail. Here's the fine. Here's the restitution. But again, it's like we don't have the infrastructure for these people to investigate and then prosecute, something like this.

It is a criminal offense. Their facilities are well aware of that, [00:31:00] but there is no infrastructure to stop providers. Okay, I get my license revoked from the state. I can just apply again and get another one under a different company name, which we've seen multiple times. So it's broken. It's very broken, but while we're spending time talking about body brokering, there are incredible facilities in California that have been around for a long time.

There are people that are just incredible. They've been doing what they've been doing for so long and they've remained and kept their facility sacred and safe. So

Chris Langley: Oh, no, I

Emily LaVigne: yeah.

Chris Langley: there's always some bad apples,

Emily LaVigne: With the bad, there's the good. Yeah.

Chris Langley: there's always some bad apples, but it's always the

Emily LaVigne: Yeah.

Chris Langley: that outshine and, you're an, example of this Emily, and there's no

question about that.

Emily LaVigne: Oh, thank you.

Chris Langley: Would you say that homelessness, this is this whole brokering thing has changed because homelessness in California just seems like such a problem on an epic scale. Would you say this is added to this? Maybe she was saying people are going from [00:32:00] facility to facility and

Emily LaVigne: Yes, our strain the strain that's on social services and public health in California already is extremely severe, but when you add, several different non, non-residents, nonCa-lifornia residents and bring them into California with no stable living environment, no aftercare planning, no discharge preparation or anything like that, because of this behavior, you will then increase homelessness in California.

Yes. And deaths ultimately as well.

Chris Langley: Yeah. Because my next question was, want to just. Briefly talk about the fentanyl crisis and there's a real trend and it seems to be getting bigger and bigger. So how is California dealing with this crisis and what needs to be done to ease the pressure on the community at all?

Because it just seems to be growing week by week.

Emily LaVigne: yeah. [00:33:00] California has done a semi decent job at starting to incorporate some harm reduction prevention strategies. We have things like Operation Engage. We have, obviously the National Harm Reduction Coalition and things like that are starting to show themselves a bit more in behavioral health care as well as public health care.

There was a crazy stat that I read, I believe it was from Facts on Fentanyl, and it said 40% of overdose deaths in California, a bystander is present. So imagine the amount of deaths, which we are in the thousands of deaths per year. 40% of those deaths, a person has been there.

So when you talk about being able to make a positive impact on the communities in California because of the fentanyl crisis, you're talking about, which we will get into, harm reduction. And Right? the prevention strategies that we can utilize making naloxone, increasing the access of naloxone, make it free.

We're talking about naloxone training. I cannot even tell you. It's, [00:34:00] honestly, the amount of people that do not know how to properly administer naloxone that either work in treatment or don't is astounding. Being able to train and create access of that education and that training to multiple people, right?

Train in schools. Right? The days of ignoring drug use and alcohol abuse in schools is over, sadly. There's a number of things that we can do. It's just about increasing awareness, reducing the stigma, and making harm reduction and prevention strategies a bit more accessible. I think would make a great impact.

Chris Langley: Most definitely. I ask everyone this. you've, spoken about harm reduction, but I always ask, finish my podcast with asking this question,

Emily LaVigne: Yeah.

Chris Langley: so many interesting and varied answers and my main background in the UK was very harm reduction focused. And, can you tell me what your opinion of what harm reduction is and how it plays such a pivotal role in [00:35:00] recovery?

Emily LaVigne: Harm reduction is essential. And harm reduction, again, it's still there's still a stigma around the word or context of harm reduction. And again, those days are over. We're done with that. The amount of deaths and the increase of substance use that we've seen across our country is heartbreaking.

It's heartbreaking, and it's essential and it's critical to behavioral health care. Again, an important part of harm reduction is to being able to assess "Is this strategy or is this prevention method going to help my client?" And we talk about that in person centered care. We talk about it in training.

Let's assess the person's background, right? Let's assess what is their relapse potential. Let's think about their treatment readiness. Let's think about the positive impact or the pros and cons of introducing a harm reduction strategy to them. Is it going to help them or is it going to hurt them, right?

Being able to, use clinical discernment [00:36:00] and interpretation in assessing of harm reduction in individual sessions is, critical, but there's nothing to say that we can't educate them no matter what, right? Being able to, explain to them that there are safe places where they can go use, providing Narcan, right?

Naloxone training is now, finally been, the past couple of years, finally been adopted by JCAHO and the state that naloxone training is required at least one person per shift, and Narcan must be at the facility at least two boxes of unexpired narcan, which it's a relatively new addition, which is wild, but it is in there.

The newest addition as well is the MAT policy, right? So we're talking about medication assisted treatment, which again is just harm reduction. So there are incredible, resources for this. The impacts of utilizing harm reduction strategies are incredible. They're very similar to what we've talked about already.

We reduce overdose deaths. We increase client awareness, right? We reduce stigma. We prevent [00:37:00] spread of infectious diseases. And again, we improve client care, clinical care outcomes,

right? So if we have a client who's experiencing cravings on a 10 for 30 days of treatment, how much work do we really think they're going to get done?

Almost none. They can't think, their stress, their anxiety. It's so again, just simply utilizing effective harm strategies, right? Putting them on an anti-craving can significantly help that client's treatment engagement, and therefore help them achieve their treatment goals. There's a lot to harm reduction.

There's a ton of stuff out there. I highly recommend, and I understand why clinicians or individuals would be wary of harm reduction, but I encourage anyone who's wary of it just, go on to Google Scholar or read some journal publications on harm reduction, and make an informed, educated decision at that point if, you agree with it or not.

But, there's incredible data out there to support that it is effective and it is [00:38:00] useful. And it's actually very important.

Chris Langley: That was a perfect description, Emily. It really was. I agree with every single word you just said. Last couple of questions, an important one, but do you have a message for anyone listening to this podcast who is going through addiction or suffering with their mental health? What message do you have for them anyone?

Emily LaVigne: I'm going to try not to cry in this question. When I saw it originally, I thought, "Oh my God, what a good question." And I constantly think about it all the time, right? Whether it's a graduation ceremony for a client or the first day that they walk in the door, I try to think to the best of my ability, what is

the thing that this person needs to hear. Do they need empowerment? Do they need to be validated in their emotions? Do they need tough love? Do they need a direct approach? Which is sometimes we need. But for anyone listening, I just, I hope that my passion [00:39:00] and my love for this field and for people comes across, strongly because it is, it drives me, it drives my decision making. It drives my belief system, and it most importantly, drives my purpose and my intention for not only my career, but my life.

And I have suffered tremendously in my life through addiction and recovery. There have been some really challenging moments where I just needed support. And so for anyone listening who suffers from mental health or substance abuse or feels alone, I just want you to know that you're loved. You are so loved.

You were made intentionally with purpose and divinity and you belong here. And I hope that someone can support you and if not, reach out to me. I'll give you a hug or give you a little conversation on the phone, but I just, Showing love, [00:40:00] love and clinician and working as a clinician

it's not really talked about a lot. It's "okay, boundaries, ethics. We can't talk about how we love the client," but I love my clients. I love every single one of them. And I have found ways to communicate my love through action, whether that be continuing my education or relying on evidence based practices or introducing more holistic ideas, because that's what the client needs.

That's how I show love. So it's incredibly important that as clinicians, we continue to find ways to show love in that way.

Chris Langley: Most definitely. Emily, you said about people contacting you. Can you tell our listeners how to best to contact you and to find your service online?

Emily LaVigne: Sure. the best way to contact me is to visit my website, lavigneconsultingllc.com You can also reach me at lavigneconsulting@gmail.com, which is also listed on my website, [00:41:00] and instagram also works. You feel free to send me a message there. And I try to incorporate a lot of my content to answer a lot of questions on various different social media platforms.

That way someone doesn't always have to reach out if they're unsure, they can just read up on, on some of the common questions or facts that they have. And, but yeah, I hope people can find some, solace or comfort or answers on one of those platforms.

Chris Langley: I'm sure they will. Emily, it's been a real, privilege to have you come onto the podcast and the work you're doing is exceptional. And everything that you said, I completely agree with. And it's just lovely to another amazing professional on the podcast to tell us about the great work that you're doing, because this is what it's all about.

It's acknowledging the work that you're doing and to show people commitment, and you've got that in abundance and you've,

Oh, thank you

really

you.

just, [00:42:00] a genuine privilege to have you today. And I really appreciate your time and coming on to talk to me. Thank you very much indeed.

And,

Emily LaVigne: Thank you so much. What an honor. Thank you so much.

Thank

you.

Chris Langley: It's been amazing. Thank you so much, Emily.

Emily LaVigne: Yeah. Thank you. Talk soon.

Do, do, do, do, do.