Florida Parishes Human Services Authority (FPHSA) recently entered its 20th year of lighting the path forward providing person centered behavioral health and developmental disabilities services to the Florida Parishes region. To commemorate this milestone, FPHSA hosted an Employee Enrichment and Staff Development Day on July 31st, at the Castine Center in Mandeville. Over 200 staff members attended and heard from various FPHSA leadership team members on how grateful they are for the staff that make the organization successful and make a difference in the lives of so many individuals and families, as well as from external speakers including Dan Schneider, known from the Netflix docuseries, “The Pharmacist”, who shared his personal experience leading up to his advocacy efforts and he thanked the FPHSA staff for their contributions on a daily basis towards helping others manage their substance use disorders; Emma Benoit, Advocate and True Life Story Speaker from the “My Ascension” documentary film outlining the recovery journey after an attempt to end her life by suicide as a 16 year old girl while addressing the youth suicide epidemic with staff and stressing the importance of suicide assessment and prevention efforts; Mark Reynaud, Clinical Director for Hidalgo Health Associates, on working with Co-Workers and the fundamentals of human connection; Katy Penton, FPHSA Peer Support Specialist, on the stigma surrounding behavioral health; Speakers Rachael Sykes, Katie Corkern, and Jennifer Johnson who shared experiences about living with a developmental disability either directly or as a caretaker/advocate and how valuable the services that FPHSA provides can affect positive outcomes within our community; and Rebecca Marchiafava, Culture Work LLC, who discussed her partnership with FPHSA on leading a culture assessment of the organization by applying a person-centered and systems-focused approach to develop environments that enhance collaboration, engagement, effectiveness, and well-being.
