Gayle Lodato, McNabb Center Vice President, started her tenure at McNabb in 2002, working until 2005 when she left for UT College of Social Work. In July 2013, Mona Blanton-Kitts recruited Gayle to come back to McNabb to expand services in Chattanooga thanks to a merger with Fortwood Center.
Fortwood Center was established in 1947 and was the first outpatient mental health service in the state of Tennessee at the time. On April 1, 2013, the McNabb Center and Fortwood Center merged in order to increase the number of services provided to the greater Chattanooga-Hamilton County area. Services at the time of the merger included children and adult outpatient mental health clinics, group homes and a peer support center.
In addition to the merger with Fortwood, McNabb also merged with two other groups in 2013: Rosewood, a supportive living center that was included in the Fortwood merger, and Daystar, a counseling center that became McNabb’s Athens, TN clinic. Three McNabb Center employees still work with us today from those 2013 mergers – Dianne Cagle, Nancy Cain and Delois Bernard.
Over the past 10 years, Gayle and her staff have been working diligently to fill the gaps in the community and provide new, innovative services in Hamilton and McMinn counties. Some programs that have been started in the past 10 years include one of only two therapeutic preschools in the state, the TN Move Initiative, integration into the school systems, Building Stable Lives and partnerships with the United Way, Family Justice Center and Hamilton County mental health court.
In January 2014, the first CARF survey was held at the McNabb Center, meaning that Hamilton and McMinn County staff had less than a year to prepare the programs and facilities for the audit, yet passed successfully. The CARF survey helped bring the McNabb Center culture and mission to the forefront of the newly merged organizations.
The McNabb Center currently serves approximately 3,000 clients in Hamilton County. A wide range of services is available from mental health care, to substance use treatment and social services.
Gayle Lodato, McNabb Center Vice President, started her tenure at McNabb in 2002, working until 2005 when she left for UT College of Social Work. In July 2013, Mona Blanton-Kitts recruited Gayle to come back…
Mona Blanton-Kitts of the Helen Ross McNabb Center says it was a matter of being in the right place at the right time.
In January, the Helen Ross McNabb Foundation took Lance Robinson, founder of Equitas Group, on a tour of its Children and Youth Center. When he learned about the care McNabb offers to abused, neglected and otherwise mistreated children, Robinson had an idea for a potential partnership between McNabb and a nonprofit that Equitas also supports: Restavek Freedom Foundation.
“I was working simultaneously on those two projects and I realized the potential for cross pollination there,” Robinson said.
“Restavek, I didn’t even really know what that meant,” said Blanton-Kitts. “And he basically said child slaves, abuse, neglect, trauma — so we said yes. Then there was a follow-up phone call, and he contacted Joan (Conn), who is over the Restavek Freedom Foundation.”
Joan and Ray Conn founded the Restavek foundation in 2007. They are headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, and have three more offices in Haiti. The Conns work to end Restavek, a system of child slavery in Haiti.
Restavek is a Creole term that literally means “stay with.” Children from poor, rural families are often given to families in cities with the promise that they will be educated and cared for.
Instead, the children often become household slaves of the host family and seldom attend school, critics say. Often they are neglected and abused.
After learning about Restavek Freedom Foundation’s work, Blanton-Kitts and Mary Katsikas, director of children’s mental health programming at Helen Ross McNabb, submitted a proposal to ProVision Foundation and Equitas Group, who then funded a trip to Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
While there, the two women trained the child advocates in processing trauma and leading effective discussions on self-esteem, socialization, communication and teamwork.
“For 14 days, we very intensely, probably the most intense thing we’ve ever done, worked with those staff for eight, nine hours and then on some days, more than that,” said Blanton-Kitts, who’s Helen Ross McNabb’s vice president for children, youth and family Services.
Said Katsikas: “It was very hands-on, it was very skills-oriented, where they could apply, not only to themselves, but to the kids they work with, so it was a very neat process to watch in the 14 days where you could see them evolve and really grasp on to the concepts.”
Blanton-Kitts and Katsikas say that beyond training advocates to assist children, the advocates learned to help themselves deal with their own personal trauma. Many of them grew up as Restaveks. All of them survived the January 2010 earthquake.
“We were able to watch them transform right before our eyes just like if it was an intensive residential program and it was just in training,” said Blanton-Kitts.
According to Jill Mairn, communications director for Restavek Freedom Foundation, the staff in Haiti is trained on various aspects of child advocacy through the year, but they typically reach out to other places for therapeutic or psychological care for the children. The Helen Ross McNabb team was able to give the Haitian staff another skill in caring for the children.
“They already had that expertise so highly refined and the heart to share it with us that it allowed us to make that available to our team without having to go search and find that in Haiti,” Mairn said.
Katsikas and Blanton-Kitts returned to Knoxville on Sept. 2. They say there is still much work they could do in Haiti, and they would gladly go back if they received more funding.
“What we don’t want, what we would never advocate for, is for what we end up doing in Haiti to take away from anything we do here in East Tennessee. So we would never advocate for our dollars to send us there and take away from what we do here,” Blanton-Kitts said.
Click here to read the story on knoxnews.com.
By Beth Braden Bradenb@Knoxnews.Com 865-342-6336
Sept. 30, 2011
Child Advocacy Training in HaitiIn 2011, Mona Blanton-Kitts and Mary Katsikas spent two weeks in Haiti training advocates to help neglected and abused children who were forced into household slavery. Read about their story, originally published in the Knox…
The Knoxville Co-Response Team is a partnership between McNabb Center and the City of Knoville (Knoxville Police Department) that pairs a Crisis Intervention trained KPD officer with a Masters level clinician to respond to behavioral health crisis. Individuals served are both children and adults within the Knoxville city limits. There are 4 teams currently serving Knoxville City.
Excerpt from WBIR:
Knoxville city leaders said that one of their top priorities is addressing the mental health crisis, getting more people treatment when they need it.
Last fall, leaders formed a co-response team between the Knoxville Police Department and McNabb Center hoping to connect people in need with community resources.
The program pairs a behavioral health specialist with a KPD officer to respond when someone needs treatment or to deescalate instead of arresting them.
In August, the Knoxville City Council approved an additional $380,000 a year in funding to expand the program, which mayor Indya Kincannon said in July would allow up to four teams working seven days a week.
“If we can provide that kind of response early on, then we have the ability to give them treatment in lieu of maybe being incarcerated or maybe going some other path that may not be so beneficial for them,” Candace Allen with the McNabb Center said.
Lillie Halsey is on the team and teams up with KPD Sgt. Thomas Clinton 4-6 times per day to respond to calls involving behavioral issues and mental health crises.
“Every call we get, you don’t know what you’re walking into,” said Halsey.
From October until the end of May, the team responded to around 200 calls. Those calls ranged from suicidal ideation, substance abuse and anything in between.
Halsey said having an officer on the scene provides safety as she works with people in need.
“Day to day we never know what we’re going to get dispatched to, called to, or respond to,” she said. “He’s able to give me space and time that I need while I’m helping the person in crisis, while also understanding scene safety for not only me but also him.”
While working one on one with the person in crisis, she’s able to de-escalate the situation and figure out the best way to meet the person’s needs. She said the team’s big goal is to divert people away from jail and criminal charges, connecting them with resources instead.
Around 50 percent of calls ended with a visit to the emergency room, but Halsey said she continues to follow up with calls in the weeks after she meets a person who needs help.
“The more we can get mental health professionals at point of contact, I think the better it is for the community,” she said.
Leann Human-Hilliard with the McNabb Center said they are continuing to make improvements to the program.
Some community leaders want to see an alternative response program, pairing a social worker with a medic instead of a police officer. Human-Hilliard said those teams would be separate from the current program in place.
The Knoxville Co-Response Team is a partnership between McNabb Center and the City of Knoville (Knoxville Police Department) that pairs a Crisis Intervention trained KPD officer with a Masters level clinician to respond to behavioral…
The McNabb Center’s Hamblen County Jail to Work program, established in 2017, helps promote the recovery of women who have substance use disorder and are involved in the criminal justice system. The 12-week program provides participants with skills building and relapse prevention. The goal is to reduce recidivism and increase community tenure through work, transitional housing recovery and reintegration into the community. A similar program was opened in Claiborne County in June 2022.
Raneika Greenlee, Co-Occurring Services Coordinator, Jail to Work and Recovery Home says, “When clients send me messages such as: ‘This program has saved my life. If someone would have told me a year ago that at this time I would be six months clean and where I’m at in life today, I would not have believed it. This center has given me more peace and security than I’ve had in years.’ It makes coming to work something I look forward to! McNabb programs help save lives and I get to see it daily.”
Hamblen County Jail to WorkThe McNabb Center’s Hamblen County Jail to Work program, established in 2017, helps promote the recovery of women who have substance use disorder and are involved in the criminal justice system. The 12-week program provides…
The Hope United program provides peer navigators embedded in the University of Tennessee Medical Center’s Emergency Department who provide engagement by speaking one on one with hospital patients who present with an overdose and/or substance use disorder. Navigators provide relatability along with hope for a different, improved way of life and interact with patients using motivational interviewing to encourage movement along the stages of change. They provide resource information to patients, families and staff about available substance use treatment and assist in securing treatment if the patient desires and it is available.
“It has been an honor to lead our peers at Hope United, one of our programs at UT Hospital. When a patient comes in struggling with Substance Use Disorder, they often feel alone and are void of hope. It is amazing to watch the change in patients when we are able to share we struggle with the same disease. It helps them to realize that they too can turn their lives around. We walk with them through the beginning of their recovery journey and the transformation in such a short amount of time is a reward to experience like no other.”
Rachel Loveday, LMSW, LADAC II, CPRS
Hope United Team Leader
Employee since 2017
The Hope United program provides peer navigators embedded in the University of Tennessee Medical Center’s Emergency Department who provide engagement by speaking one on one with hospital patients who present with an overdose and/or substance…
Justin Mynatt, DNP joined the McNabb Center in 2012 and has provided clinical services for over ten years. He currently serves as one of the Center’s medical directors. In 2016, the McNabb Center expanded services into Cocke County, opening a clinic in Newport. Justin worked there for three years and at the time, he was the only provider in the clinic. One of his most memorable experiences was initiating the clinic’s outpatient Vivitrol program. Vivitrol is a prescription used to help treat alcohol and opioid dependence.
One client that stands out in Justin’s mind is a woman with a history of addiction who came out of jail to receive Vivitrol treatment at the Newport clinic. Because of this treatment, she was able to attend “Dr. Seuss Day” at her son’s school. She said that she would not be here today if it weren’t for the McNabb Center and that now she could be more present in her son’s life.
Client experiences like this one are what reaffirms Justin’s decision to work at McNabb and champion community mental health, especially in rural, underserved communities like Newport.
The McNabb Center offers Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) in many of its outpatient clinics across East Tennessee. MAT combines counseling and behavioral therapies with approved medications (such as Vivitrol or buprenorphine) to treat addiction disorders. Using controlled levels of medications to help relieve withdrawal symptoms and psychological cravings can assist some individuals struggling with an addiction disorder to sustain recovery.
Medication Assisted TreatmentJustin Mynatt, DNP joined the McNabb Center in 2012 and has provided clinical services for over ten years. He currently serves as one of the Center’s medical directors. In 2016, the McNabb Center expanded services…
In 1997, the Detoxification Rehabilitation Institute (DRI), a regional non-profit provider, merged with Helen Ross McNabb Center. Under the direction of Patti Hall, DRI opened as a 14-bed, non-medical alcoholic detoxification and rehabilitation program through a State grant. Soon, services for drug abuse were offered there as well.
Two of the DRI facilities were in dire need of improvement. A capital funds campaign raised $3.3 million in Knox and Blount counties to renovate an existing building for the adult program and build a new facility for the adolescent center. CenterPointe Adult Services opened in 1998 and now offers residential treatment, intensive outpatient care, social detoxification and medically managed detoxification. Individuals in need of treatment for substance use disorder can stay for up to 28 days and receive services from McNabb’s team of clinicians and counselors.
In 1997, the Detoxification Rehabilitation Institute (DRI), a regional non-profit provider, merged with Helen Ross McNabb Center. Under the direction of Patti Hall, DRI opened as a 14-bed, non-medical alcoholic detoxification and rehabilitation program through…
The McNabb Center was awarded a $5 million grant by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Agency (SAMHSA) to create a crisis continuum of care for children, including the Children’s CSU at East Tennessee Children’s Hospital. The CSU is one piece of a comprehensive continuum of care to address the increasing mental health crisis in children and teens in East Tennessee.
Sometimes a picture is truly worth a thousand words. This note was found under the pillow in this client’s room after she had discharged. We believe we at CCSU are making a difference in pediatric…
Mitch & Debby Steenrod were vital in the Helen Ross McNabb Foundation’s Military Services Campaign, which raised $2.5 million. Their dedication and tireless efforts helped launch the innovative program in 2016. Since its launch, the program has continually expanded and serves military families throughout East Tennessee.
The Military Services program is available to anyone who has served in the military and their family or caregivers. Specially trained military services therapists assist individuals facing post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, substance use, co-occurring disorders, thoughts of suicide, and other invisible wounds incurred from service, regardless of discharge status.
In memory of Brandon Hall
Opening of Military ServicesMitch & Debby Steenrod were vital in the Helen Ross McNabb Foundation’s Military Services Campaign, which raised $2.5 million. Their dedication and tireless efforts helped launch the innovative program in 2016. Since its launch, the…
The Program for Assertive Community Treatment (PACT) is designed to help adults with severe mental illnesses reduce or eliminate their symptoms, function in the community, live independently and reduce hospitalization. Sherry Light, LSCW recalls the start of the program at McNabb:
“I remember fondly the year the initial PACT staff went to Nashville to learn about the program in order to bring it back to Knoxville. I remember riding down with Jerry Vagnier talking about how much excitement there was about implementing this new program. Staff that started the program in Wisconsin trained us. I recall the large manual that went through each responsibility of each team member. Importance was placed on treatment team daily, where we all gave updates and interesting stories we encountered with medication deliveries. I had to be on call and get up in middle of the night to go meet a client to deescalate, try to hospitalize them or get them to the office first thing the next morning to meet with staff.
The PACT staff were all like a family. Candace Allen was our leader; we had a wonderful staff of nurses, vocational rehabilitation professionals, therapists and psychiatrists Dr. David Manning and Dr. John Schulte, all working for the same goal. I am proud to be a part of the birth of PACT at the McNabb Center and be a part of the success it has become over the past 21 years.”
Last year, PACT served 140 clients in Knox County.
Program for Assertive Community Treatment (PACT)The Program for Assertive Community Treatment (PACT) is designed to help adults with severe mental illnesses reduce or eliminate their symptoms, function in the community, live independently and reduce hospitalization. Sherry Light, LSCW recalls the…
