Resiliency and Your Mental Health Journey with Connections Wellness Group

Resiliency AND YOUR MENTAL HEALTH JOURNEY

by Steve Gamel

The team of clinicians at Connections Wellness Group was recently bowled over with excitement when one of its regular patients came strolling through the door with a big smile on his face. This was a young man who, from the second he joined the mental health program seven weeks earlier, had this profound sense of sadness about him.

The way he carried himself, his halfhearted interactions with those around him, and that he insisted that he didn’t want to be there, made it clear that he was embarking on a potentially long journey. And yet, on this one day, he looked resilient.

“I remember saying, ‘I think I heard him laugh!’” said Vianey Reinhardt, LPC and Vice President of Business Development. “You saw this incredible change as he moved through the program. The community he built and the connections he made became very valuable to him.”

Sydney Reece, LPC and Director of Intake and UR, agreed, saying, “It was one of the more impactful things I’ve ever seen.”

Real-life results like these are what this team of mental health experts churn out every day through their Partial Hospitalization Program and Intensive Outpatient Program — even in the face of COVID-19. They’ve hired the best of the best to handle the most clinically challenging of circumstances, whether in-person or through teleservices, and the PHP and IOP programs have since become nationally accredited.

So when the most is on the line (feelings of loneliness, chronic depression, thoughts of suicide), and your symptoms are so profound that you question your ability to come out on the other side, these people have your back.

“The work we do is fragile, and you have to be intentional about it every day,” said Baqi Martin, LCSW-S and VP of Outpatient Services. “We focus on our clients’ resiliency. We prepare them for the seen and the unseen.”

In a typical setting, a patient may be coming from a hospital to a private practitioner only to receive care from several entities. At Connections, the client care is consistent because everything is handled in one office as they progress through different levels. Connections offers 4-hour programs per day for teens and adults that include a wide array of services in one packaged approach: Process groups, psycho-educational groups, experiential groups, psychiatric evaluations, nursing evaluations, and medication education.

Each evening, the participants return home to practice the skills learned and return the next day.

Nicole Hoffman, LPC Intern, LCDC, helped launch the adult PHP program. She has been amazed by the results — even as medical facilities across the nation have been forced to adjust their services.

“We did all of this during a pandemic,” she said. “You can still get the level of care you need, no matter the situation.”

The message on kicking the stigma on mental health has always been the same: it’s okay not to be okay. If you need someone to talk to, give Connections Wellness Group a call.