The Crisis Podcast

Becky Stoll is the Senior Vice President of Crisis Services for Centerstone, a nonprofit health system specializing in mental health and substance use disorder services. 

In this interview, Becky shares her early experiences of serving people, from the hospitality industry to hospitals and crisis services. Becky is a wealth of information, with clinical and consulting experiences that span the globe!

Wendy Martinez Farmer, LPC, MBA, is the Vice President of 988 Strategy, Grants and Clinical Standards. Wendy is a pioneering mental health advocate and has dedicated her career to breaking down barriers and fostering positive change in mental health care. 

Wendy has over 25 years of experience in the public and private sectors.

Wendy is is a Licensed Professional Counselor with a Master of Science in Clinical Psychology from Marquette University and an MBA from Georgia Southern University.

As a distinguished suicide prevention leader, Wendy has made significant contributions to the field. She sat on the Standards, Training, and Practices Committee for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline from 2016 to 2019 and was a member of the Care Transitions Work Group with Georgia from 2020 to 2023. In January 2022, Wendy was elected to the Board of Directors for the International Council for Helplines, where she currently serves as treasurer.

Preston Looper is the founder and principal of Full Tilt Strategies, a crisis consulting organization serving clients across the country. I sat down with Preston to learn about his early days in the behavioral health system in Texas, his motivations for making the world a better place, and his intriguing findings from a recent national survey of mobile crisis teams.

Adam Graham is a licensed professional counselor, consultant, advocate, and author of the book "Turning Point: How to Make the Most of Mental Health Conversations." Adam has helped communities across the country to improve their threat assessments, develop mobile crisis teams, and assess the safety net of care. He has consulted for Google and the FBI, and he is passionate about training and helping others in crisis.

Cherene Caraco is the CEO of Promise Resource Network, a peer-run organization operating over a dozen services in North Carolina. Cherene has grown up in the behavioral health system, both as a provider and as a service recipient. As a suicide attempt survivor, Cherene leverages her experience to develop and operate trauma-informed treatment options to people experiencing emotional distress or mental health crisis. 

Learn more about Promise Resource Network at www.PromiseResourceNetwork.org. 

ANNOUNCEMENT! The 2023 National Crisis Services Conference is coming to Charlotte, North Carolina! Learn more at www.crisiscon.org. 

Jennifer Battle, MSW, is the Vice President of Community Access and Engagement for The Harris Center in Houston, TX, one of the 37 Local Mental Health Authorities in Texas. The Harris Center is one of the 200 crisis call centers in the country answering the 988 crisis and suicide prevention line.  

Jennifer is a Mental Health First Aid, ASK about Suicide to Save a Life, and SafeTalk Trainer and supervises the Community Training Department for The Harris Center.   In collaboration with the Houston Police Department, Houston Fire Department, and Houston Emergency Communications Center, Jennifer supervises the Crisis Call Diversion Program.  This team routes people calling in through emergency services who have stated they have a mental health concern away from a law enforcement or EMS response and to a more appropriate level of care through local behavioral health options.

Jennifer is the past president of the National Association of Crisis Organization Directors. 

Jennifer is a proud Social Worker and teaches as adjunct faculty at her alma mater the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work.  She also enjoys teaching Bachelor level social work classes at the University of Houston - Clear Lake and University of Houston – Downtown

Follow Jennifer on Twitter at @Battle4Justice

Justin Chase is the CEO of Solari Crisis & Human Services, a national crisis call center provider based in Arizona. Over that past 7 years, Justin and his team have made amazing strides in delivering high quality support and care to those experiencing one of the worst days of their life. 

Justin's journey is an incredible one--from working with people discharged from the state psychiatric hospitals to macro social work adventures to save funding for behavioral health services, and from working for a health plan to working at some of the leading behavioral health crisis providers in the country. 

To learn more about Solari, visit www.solari-inc.org. 

To learn about the National Association of Crisis Organization Directors, visit www.NASCOD.org. 

To learn about the International Council for Helplines, visit www.CouncilforHelplines.org

to Learn about the American Association of Suicidology, visit www.suicidology.org. 

In this episode Travis interviews crisis consultant Myranda Green. Myranda has spent much of her career working in crisis residential services as a direct support professional, case manager, and director, opening new programs across the state of Michigan and adding first-of-their-kind co-occurring services to existing programs. Myranda talks about the critical place that peer supports have in the crisis workforce, the importance of preserving agency and choice in treatment, and the ability to carry a vision forward in even the most dire of circumstances. 

To learn more about the Crisis Residential Association, visit www.crisisresidentialassociation.org. 

Beverly Ryskamp is the Chief Operating Officer at Network180. During her career in public behavioral health, Beverly has led conversations around system improvements and been a contributing author to legislative advocacy. In this episode, Beverly talks about the public behavioral health system in Michigan, the story of HB5832 that authorizes Crisis Stabilization Units in Michigan, and other efforts to enhance crisis services.