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Episode 27: Gina Thorne with GTC Consulting
56 Plays6 days ago
Gina Thorne brings three decades of expertise in behavioral health, specializing in business development and marketing. Her extensive background spans private and public sectors, working with in-patient treatment centers, psychiatric hospitals, and educational institutions across several states, including Florida, New York, and Colorado.
Gina has been instrumental in leading marketing, alumni relations, and admissions efforts for prominent treatment programs on both coasts. Her achievements include co-founding the Colorado Professional Liaison Association (CO-PLA) and serving in key roles like Board Co-Chair for Treatment Professionals in Alumni Services (TPAS). With a deep understanding of mental health and substance use disorder treatment, Gina excels at collaborating with revenue-generating departments to drive sustainable census growth. In 2021, she launched GTC Consulting, focusing on overcoming barriers to growth and enhancing organizational visibility within the behavioral health landscape.
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Transcript
Introduction and Background
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome to Destination Change, a podcast where we talk recovery, treatment and more. I'm your host, Angie Fieber-Sutton with the National Behavior Health Association Providers, and I use she, her pronouns. My guest today is Gina Thorne. Gina brings three decades of expertise in behavioral health, specializing in business development and marketing.
00:00:29
Speaker
Her extensive background spans private and public sectors, working with inpatient treatment centers, psychiatric hospitals, and educational institutes across several states, including Florida, New York, and Colorado.
00:00:40
Speaker
Gina has been instrumental in leading marketing, alumni relations, and admissions efforts for prominent treatment programs to on both coasts. Her achievements include co-founding the Colorado Professional Liaison Association, COSLA, and serving in key roles like Board Co-Chair for Treatment Professionals and Alumni Services, TPAS,
00:00:57
Speaker
With a deep understanding of mental health and substance use ah disorder treatment, Gina excels at collaborating with revenue-generating departments to drive sustainable census growth.
Gina's Journey into Behavioral Health
00:01:06
Speaker
In 2021, she launched GTC Consulting, focusing on overcoming barriers to growth and enhancing organizational visibility within the behavioral health landscape.
00:01:14
Speaker
Thanks for joining us today, Gina. Thanks, Angie. It's good to be here. Now, ah for regular listeners of this podcast, they know what my first question is, because it's always the same. I always like to hear origin stories, how you got into the industry, why that versus all of the other job possibilities that are out there. So why how did you get into it?
00:01:32
Speaker
Yeah, it's a good question to ask. Well, so it's funny. i always tell people that I didn't actively go out and look to be in the behavioral health space. It was something that I think picked me. It became more of a calling in many ways.
00:01:45
Speaker
I was working in community organizing the first 15 or 16 years of my career in the nonprofit sector, primarily on the prevention side and wrote a lot of grants, was really involved with the American Lung Association. i I focused very closely on, but way back in the day, people remember there was an initiative being done on trying to eliminate smoking with teens. And it was called the Smoke-Free Class of 2000. And the goal was to try and get young people to decrease their smoking. And I was actively involved in that campaign from an advocacy standpoint. So I was really involved on the prevention side and intervention side for a long time. And I really loved it.
00:02:23
Speaker
But I will say that after being involved in doing grant writing and focusing on board engagement that I got a little burned out and crispy. And so happens that I was running a coalition, managing a coalition in Virginia, and the coalition had a couple of people on the board that were affiliated with treatment facilities.
00:02:42
Speaker
And the senior director approached me and said, how do you feel about coming and working for us as a director of outreach and working for treatment?
Challenges and Misconceptions in Treatment
00:02:52
Speaker
And I said, I don't know anything about treatment.
00:02:54
Speaker
And honestly, I don't even know if I would be a good fit for that role. And they were throwing out all of these things like, well, you could work with this referral partner, and we've got census and all of that felt so foreign to me. I was like, i don't even know what any of that means. But if it doesn't mean I have to write a grant, I'm in ah So I was, I was walking into a complete unknown field in many ways, because it wasn't it wasn't familiar, I had spent most of my years on the prevention side. So, so I worked for a facility in in Williamsburg, Virginia for six years. and cut my teeth with working with people in recovery was deeply moved by the ability to work with people in a space that was very foreign to me. I've had family members affected by the disease and who have struggled with, you know, sobriety and and mental health issues, but never in a standpoint of, you know, being in the mix with treatment. and so I literally became a student and spent a lot of time sitting in on clinical team meetings and
00:03:52
Speaker
being a part of conversations with clinicians, going to workshops and conferences and sitting in on the actual workshops ah because I wanted to really understand this whole world of treatment that was really quite foreign to me. And so I was really glad that I did that because, and I actually tell new people coming into the outreach role that they have to do that as well. Don't don't assume that just because you're two or three years sober and you went to treatment, that you're an expert you and you know enough about treatment that you can go out and sell it.
00:04:22
Speaker
You really do need to be sitting in those rooms and listening. I would go to 12-step meetings. I would sit in open 12-step meetings. I would ah attend alumni events. I really did want to learn and become a student of the field.
00:04:35
Speaker
And honestly, while I was doing that, I found myself becoming much more educated and compassionate in working in this space because I didn't, I'd never worked with people who struggled with addiction before. I was always on the front end side of it. So for me to be able to work side by side with people in recovery, it really taught me a lot. And it helped me see that this recovery journey concept is beautiful. and when people are working the program and They're, you know, trying to give of themselves in service to others.
00:05:05
Speaker
We have a lot to learn. And that was a that was a great way for me to build myself into the field. Now, if you had asked me in the early days, if it was something I was going to stay in for the next 20 plus years, I probably would have said no.
00:05:17
Speaker
But here I am now 20 years later, still working actively in the field working. have honestly tried different things and never felt as ah compelled to continue working in in an area where I feel like I can make a difference. And so that's really how I got into the field. i i didn't I didn't actively go out and look for it. I didn't go to school to get a degree in it. I am not a person in long-term recovery, although I struggle with other isms. But my my issue right now is You know, how can I be a resource for others? How can I help provide access to care in a way that will make a difference for families and individuals who are struggling with behavioral health issues? so
00:05:55
Speaker
Yeah. Well, something you mentioned, the reason this is, this podcast is called destination changes because, you know, we look upon a treatment as a journey and a, not a end result that it can go. There's no street line. It can go backwards. You can go forwards. You can sometimes veer off.
00:06:11
Speaker
And you mentioned that as part of, you know, like what drew you to it in your personal opinion, what does it mean to go through treatment recovery? What are some of the hurdles that people and that you've seen people come across?
00:06:21
Speaker
Getting into treatment specifically, the biggest challenges I think people face are, there's a lot of misperceptions of treatment still. I think you've got a lot of people that are still thinking that it's a it's like the the concept of one flew over the cuckoo's nest where they're in inpatient psych, white walls, limited freedom and resources available to them, people telling them what to do all the time.
00:06:43
Speaker
And I think that that that paradigm there needs to be a paradigm shift there in education with folks about that that's not what treatment's about. It really is. If you're working and you're a part of the right treatment program, it's really about partnership, being in partnership with the program that you're with.
00:06:57
Speaker
So I think that's probably the first thing is the fear of, you know, this is what I think it's like. And so when I'm on the phones with families or in the individuals, they ask a lot of questions, some that might seem really basic, like how comfortable are the beds? Is the food good? um Am I going to be able to talk to my loved one? You know,
00:07:14
Speaker
When you think about individuals who have to make this decision to go stop their life, if they're going into inpatient, stop their life, pause, and go somewhere to work on an area of their life that needs help because they have this maladaptive behavior, that can feel very scary because there's so many things that we're responsible for, who's going to take care of it?
00:07:34
Speaker
And so they need to know that there's going to be something there that's going to help them feel at ease. And I think a lot of times we don't do a good job of educating people about that. And we need to do ah better job of letting people know that, you know, we're here to help ah support you without shame, without guilt. You do that all on your own. We don't want to contribute to that. We really want to remove that stigma.
00:07:56
Speaker
And so when people arrive at treatment, we want them to feel like this is an opportunity for them to get well. I think the challenge that we face also today, especially, is the cost.
00:08:07
Speaker
There's a lot of very expensive treatment out there that many people can't afford. And access is difficult, not just access financially, but also access from physical, you know, just geographic region.
00:08:19
Speaker
You know, we've got people in small rural communities that are struggling with this disease and struggling with mental health issues that can't get the quality care that they need. And I think that the value of, you know, virtual now today has made a huge difference in helping to reach people who have typically been unreachable.
00:08:36
Speaker
So in regards to this idea of barriers that, you know, physical location, geographic region, and then also just the nature of the financial aspects of it can play a big part in people not being able to get into treatment.
00:08:50
Speaker
There's also, it's interesting because, you know, one in seven are affected by this disease. And we find that a lot of people, think that, you know, there's there's one that's some infected by this disease, but only 10% are actually accessing treatment.
00:09:02
Speaker
But where you everywhere you turn, there's new treatment centers popping up. So the question is, how are we not getting more people in the door? You know, why are we not seeing more people come into treatment? And some of it is that I think as an industry, we have also contributed to some of those barriers.
00:09:18
Speaker
with some of the bad press that we've heard in the media over the last 10 or 15 years. I think consumers are a little scared about treatment because of the things that they've heard and seen.
00:09:28
Speaker
And that's made it much more difficult for them to pick up the phone and determine if you know they need help or is the place that they're calling the right place to go.
Ethical Practices in Marketing and Outreach
00:09:36
Speaker
So I think those issues are typical kind of barriers that we're seeing in people getting access to care, whether it's inpatient or outpatient.
00:09:44
Speaker
Well, you kind of touched on this, but you've been in the industry for for you know three decades, according to based on your bio. You mentioned the cost is one of the big things today. What are some of the bigger, big things that you've noticed, both bad and good, that have changed in the industry?
00:09:58
Speaker
I think good is the evidence-based clinical programming that's now being offered. I think that as an industry, we're still fairly young, but I also know that from a standpoint of the science of addiction, the science of, you know, how treatment is being done, it has evolved tremendously.
00:10:14
Speaker
i think in the years that I've been in working in the field, you know, MAT and using medication assisted treatment was not typical, it was not mainstream, it was actually coming on the cusp in the time that I was coming in. And so there was a lot of you know especially coming from programs that are very 12-step oriented. There was a lot of concern about, are we selling ourselves out by offering MAT? But I think that you know when you look at the evidence of how MAT has made a difference and an impact on people's ability to stay in program and work on life skills issues while also addressing their addiction, I think that there's a lot of compelling new science out there to support you know the nature of what's happening with this brain disease. And so
00:10:55
Speaker
I think from a science-based standpoint, there's a lot of amazing cutting-edge modalities that have been put in place over the last 15 or 20 years. New types of expectations from our clinical teams, licensing and accreditation expectations from our licensing bodies and programs.
00:11:12
Speaker
The fact that there's greater oversight now of how things are being done from a clinical perspective, whether it's outpatient or inpatient, where before it felt very much like it was organic and kind of grassroots, we've now started seeing much more guardrails being put up around patient care and patient safety.
00:11:30
Speaker
And so I think those things have absolutely changed the dynamic of our field pretty substantially. Obviously, you know, when part I was, you know, in the throes of the whole parity issue that came up in 2008 and the fact that we're now starting to see more people getting access to care because insurances are being required to cover treatment.
00:11:50
Speaker
where When I started, that was not the case. And it felt very much like it was a selective process and not treating it as a chronic disease as it as it currently is seen today. So that that was a huge game changer for us in our industry when we were able to do that. Upping the age of you know young people being able to get access to treatment because they're on their their parents' insurance until the age of 27 or 28. All of those legislative issues, I think, have made a huge impact on our field in creating good quality care for our clients.
00:12:21
Speaker
I think if we want to talk about sort of the unsavory part of what's happened in our industry, We are definitely subject to people who will look at our business as a margins-based business, and they may come from the outside and not have a lot of experience working in this field. And so they will utilize business practices that are counterintuitive to the nature of how we work. And when I say how we work, I mean, we are an industry based on relationships, an industry based on building compassionate care and making sure that we're finding the right place for the right individual.
00:12:55
Speaker
and i think that We've got folks that are coming into the field who don't have an understanding around that. And so they're trying to utilize business practices that they used in other industries um and finding that it's disrupting yeah know the kind of way that we operate as a field. I had a conversation the other day with someone who comes from outside the field and he was like, you know, when somebody leaves a treatment program, everybody makes a big deal about it.
00:13:20
Speaker
And we I don't really understand that. I come from a field where somebody leaves, and it's in a you know construction business, it's like, you know okay, they're gone, no big deal, we'll move on. But for whatever reason, when somebody leaves a treatment facility and there seems to be some turnover, it feels like we have to treat everybody with kid gloves. Why do we have to do that? and And I think a big part of that is because um in our field, there's a lot of treatment and there's a lot of people coming into this space and there's a feeling of competition.
00:13:49
Speaker
And so when there is an upheaval and referral store sources start to feel that they start to question, you know, is the, is the program solid? Is the clinical leadership solid? Is the leadership as a whole solid? And if not, should I be sending my client there? And,
00:14:05
Speaker
What we've, you know, want to do is we want to make sure that we're communicating that when change happens in an organization, that that's normal, but it doesn't mean that the clinical program is bad. And so, so again, we've got outside people coming in who don't necessarily take the time to really learn and understand the nuanced nature of the field.
00:14:23
Speaker
And so I think that has created some disruption around how we do treatment or how we do marketing and outreach. Obviously, you know, Key states in our country have struggled with unethical behaviors that have really caused the industry as a whole to really look at ethical practices. And I believe we have a responsibility to police ourselves and to hold each other accountable and to those new people coming into the field. I think the new people who are coming in need to be held accountable to some of the behaviors and practices that they're bringing in that might be good outside of behavioral health, but bringing them into our field doesn't apply.
00:15:00
Speaker
And so how do we help educate them to say, no, we do not use contract language to supplant people. so If we hear in the field, hey, I've got a Cigna for you, if you send me your Blue Cross Blue Shield, that's not appropriate language. We don't use that language in our field because people are people, they're not contracts.
00:15:20
Speaker
And so it's those little nuanced languages and behaviors that have, I think, disrupted some of the trust that consumers have for what we do. And then I can get into a whole conversation with you about...
00:15:34
Speaker
Just the marketing practices and the unethical marketing practices that we've seen online and how people have been bait and switched into treatment, some directory listings that are not transparent. We don't know who owns them.
00:15:45
Speaker
And then people are being funneled to programs without any clear understanding of whether or not the program is safe or sound. So all of those pieces, I think, because we become more visible, because the margins are so great in this industry, and a lot of people look at the financial impact of what they can make from a finance, that it has contributed to a greater depth of competition in the field, which my language is always the only competition should be the disease. it shouldn't be each other. so yeah Well, I mean, that bleeds perfectly into speaking of marketing, just for those who are unaware or and for those who are aware of a reminder that NBHAP has the CATM, the Certificate in Addiction Treatment Marketing, and the CAMS, the Certified Admissions and Marketing Specialist, which is a sort basically a certificate that teaches you how to market ethically your addiction treatment program.
00:16:34
Speaker
We do talk about you know ethical practices as well as consumer health care and that kind of stuff. So in your opinion, what is the biggest problem, I guess, in the marketing side of things?
00:16:47
Speaker
The biggest problem. Okay. So there's two, there's two ways of looking at this. You've got people have, you know, use this language kind of interchangeably between, you know, you've got your outreach professionals. These are individuals that are sort of your boots on the ground ambassadors, the ones that are out in the community talking about your program, they're meeting with referral partners. They're, you know, really engaging with high profile referrals that have the ability to send clients to your treatment facility.
00:17:13
Speaker
And so those are typically your outreach slash business development liaisons. And then you have the marketing side. And the marketing side is really your online website presence. You know, it's anything that you do from an online standpoint. It's any kind of branding that you're doing.
00:17:28
Speaker
could be social engagement. It could be email campaigns. I think what people are most known for in our industry around what we do from a marketing side is the website SEO and PPC campaigns that are going on. So that's that's your marketing strategy.
00:17:42
Speaker
sort of avenue. If we're talking about marketing specifically, it's gotten better. It's not exactly where we want it to be. it's still We still have you know ways to go. But I would say that 15 years ago so plus when I came into the field, it was really like the Wild West where you had people that were opening up SEO boxes around the country and they were telling everybody that there was treatment in You had a program in Florida and there was a treatment, you know you'd open up SEO box in Charlotte, North Carolina, and you would tell people, hey, if you're looking for treatment in North Carolina, and give us a call. And then when they would call that number, it would reroute to a call center in Florida.
00:18:19
Speaker
And then that particular person answering the phone would do their darndest to say, oh, there's no availability down in North Carolina. You need to come to our program here in Florida. So this whole kind of bait and switch concept was happening where, you know, you had Google allow all these SEO boxes being opened up where people could actually go from a regional perspective.
00:18:39
Speaker
And then it would redirect to, ah you know, a call center in another part of the country, which was unethical. You know, you want people to be able to get treatment. They need to know when they pick up the phone and they're calling that they're calling the right place.
00:18:51
Speaker
So that's really kind of gone down substantially. We don't see that as much anymore. Directory listings, of course, have also been a big issue where you pay to have your name and your program featured on directory listing and you get to pay for X number of calls that come into your facility.
00:19:05
Speaker
It goes to, again, a routing call center. And then that information gets dumped into your call center with the hope of it transitioning or converting. And again, some of those directory listings are not legitimate. Some of them aren't even in the U.S. And so those challenges that we face there is that we don't know where these calls are being routed to. We don't know if the person is getting to the right place and if those particular programs are even licensed or credentialed licensed.
00:19:31
Speaker
have accreditations with drink commission or CARF. And so, and again, we're dealing with people's lives. So if we're not doing this the right way and we're not educating consumers the right way, it could be fatal in some cases. And so, you know, you've got those two pockets that happen.
00:19:45
Speaker
The other thing that we just found out about recently through Google is this idea of what we call conquesting, which is very normal in, you know, sort of the big world outside of behavioral health where,
00:19:57
Speaker
if you're doing any kind of digital campaign or especially paid search, that you would conquest your competitor. You would basically use your competitor's branding and contact in your campaigns to direct traffic to your particular program.
00:20:12
Speaker
Google's just come out and said they're no longer going to allow for that. And we've been able to work collaboratively to say, this isn't okay for you to be conquesting your competitors to redirect traffic away from you know other people's programs into your program. And so we still see a lot of this happening. We still see a lot of people, if you go on and you put in your brand for your company and it pops up to the top, but you are not the primary person that's you know paying for that you know above the fold listing, it's coming from someone else, then they're conquesting your name and your brand and they're trying to redirect traffic away. So there's still a lot of that happening.
00:20:49
Speaker
I think also the other thing that we have to be cautious of and we need to talk to our consumers more about is when you go to a website and the website says, for example, we offer surfing and, you know, and writing sailbo mean we have a sailboat on our website, but we're smack dab in the middle of, you know,
00:21:09
Speaker
the state of Florida, we're not even near the beach or the ocean, but we're showing pictures of the beach, we're showing pictures, all of those misrepresentations can also lead to consumer distrust. you know So when they finally call and they say, hey, i I saw on your website that you allow us to have cell phones, and the admissions team is like, oh yeah, we we let you use your cell phone while you're in treatment, but when they arrive, they're not allowed to have their cell phones.
00:21:33
Speaker
So it's, you know, making sure that the information that's being communicated out externally is actually reflective of what's actually happening in the clinical program. And a lot of times treatment facilities will find themselves, you know, over inflating their services, offering things, maybe even posting things that they have articles on their website about gambling addiction, but when they arrive, there's no gambling addiction treatment services being offered. So it's really making sure that there is consistency in content and that it's aligning with what your clinical team is actually doing.
00:22:06
Speaker
And I would even argue to say that in some cases, It's really important for you to sit with your clinical team and have conversations with them and talk to them about what are we currently doing clinically? What has changed?
00:22:18
Speaker
And then how do we reflect that online so that it's accurate? And then how are we communicating that same message to our outreach team so that our outreach team who are ambassadors are saying the same thing because you want whatever is external to be carried through all the way through to the other side.
00:22:33
Speaker
yeah
Future of Treatment and Industry Support
00:22:34
Speaker
Now we talked about, you know, what is, what has changed in the industry now is kind of the opposite. Where do you see the industry going and say like the next five to 10 years? Well, i do think we're going to continue evolving on the science side. There's a lot of brilliant people out right now that are publishing and capturing outcome data that's allowing us to really look at you know what best practices look like.
00:22:56
Speaker
I know that in the world right now, especially in what we see like back in the day, when you looked at treatment, treatment facilities focused on episodic care. you know It was all about acute care. We're going to triage the client, get them stable and then move them to the next level of care.
00:23:12
Speaker
What we've seen, obviously, over the last 10 years is now this idea of a continuum of care model. So we're not just looking at this one and done, but we're now saying as ah as a program or as an industry, we're connected to people from the moment they arrive into treatment, when they discharge from treatment, and then now.
00:23:30
Speaker
the nuanced nature of recovery capital, peer coaching, and recovery support services has become even more of a valuable asset to our industry because we know that that's really where the rubber meets the road.
00:23:42
Speaker
How are we really connecting with clients after they leave and keeping them engaged in a recovery safety net so that their remission rates get longer? you know We want to see, we know that this disease you know has a 40 to 60% relapse rate after the first you know the first time going and that we know sometimes people need three or four.
00:24:00
Speaker
for treatment episodes in order to feel success. But those successes happen also even during the relapse periods. And so I think as an industry, we're starting to recognize that this is a kind this is a chronic disease that needs to be managed and we need to do more to help support the client long-term. And a big part of that involves really extending the responsibility of our role in keeping the client in a recovery continuum. And so I think more efforts are going to be placed into peer recovery support services and RCOs.
00:24:32
Speaker
I think recovery community organizations are highly influential in maintaining sobriety and and keeping people in a space of wellness. I do think that there's going to continue to be more discussion and in and around how managed care happening.
00:24:48
Speaker
going to be offering support and services. Obviously, Medicaid and the recent movement of Medicaid now taking on more of an active role and more and more treatment centers are actually going in into network with Medicaid where before they wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole.
00:25:02
Speaker
We're finding that you know they're looking at ways to provide access services better to more people, even through you know using Medicaid and other types of managed care providers. And so,
00:25:13
Speaker
I also think that COVID taught us a lot about virtual care. And I think that we're in a place now where before it would not have been considered you know appropriate to offer virtual care. We're going to start seeing more data coming out that virtual care is highly successful for some people and that they do quite well. And I think, again,
00:25:34
Speaker
It can be incredibly powerful for those that are in untouched areas of our country that can't get to ah treatment program or an IOP program because the distance is great. So when you're looking at rural and underserved communities that often are hit by the opioid crisis and they really need access to services, this the the new community.
00:25:53
Speaker
movement around virtual care is making a difference for people to be able to access services more readily and get quality services. And so I think more of that is going to be a part of our forefront in our conversations moving forward.
00:26:06
Speaker
Yeah. i grew up in a fairly rural ah town myself. 5,000 people is an hour and a half to the nearest actual city. I would have loved to have internet back then. yeah Yeah. I mean, it's interesting how we make a lot of assumptions that people can access just basic primary care services in our country. and And there are networks out there that are working hard to be able to provide that. And Some of those primary care places are now serving as mental health facilities as well. And so having access to virtual services, I think, is going to be a game changer in the behavioral health and mental health space for sure.
00:26:45
Speaker
Now your bio mentioned that you co-founded the Colorado Professional Liaison Association. Let's talk a little bit about that. How did that come about? yeah Give me the elevator pitch about what they do, that kind of stuff. Sure.
00:26:57
Speaker
So COPLAA, or Colorado Professional Liaison Association, is an organization that was birthed from bringing outreach professionals, admissions, and marketing folks in the behavioral health space together to discuss. And and honestly, it was really designed to try to reduce any possibility of unethical behavior.
00:27:15
Speaker
It was really about holding each other accountable, sharing resources, networking. It's funny. I moved from Florida to Colorado in 2017. And I don't think it's you know ah stretch to say that in Florida,
00:27:28
Speaker
you know There are a lot of treatment programs and there are there does tend to be a more of a I'm going to hold my cards close to my chest kind of approach. There's not a lot of sharing that goes on, ah maybe in some pockets, but maybe not across the board. And so moving to Colorado at the time, there was nothing in place for their outreach professionals and there was nothing...
00:27:48
Speaker
they all liked each other. Everybody wanted to talk. Everybody wanted to get together. And so I had a conversation with a colleague and said, we should start a PLA group for this particular group. So if you go around the country, you'll see there's a lot of PLA groups that have formed. There's you know the upper New England, there's Boston, there's Connecticut, there's the Tidewater. mean, there's a whole bunch of them. And a lot of them are really geared more clinically. You have a lot of clinicians that are a part of it, but we wanted to be very intentional about this PLA group being specifically for this unique market for professional development. We wanted to help train and offer training and education to the outreach professionals around how to do this job.
00:28:28
Speaker
You know, what does best practices look like? How do you develop talk tracks? How do you, you know, build a strategic plan? All of these pieces started to become part of the conversation. And then in addition to that,
00:28:38
Speaker
get to know everyone so that we can learn from each other and learn about our resources. And so when we did the first meeting in 2017, it really was, if you build it, they'll come. So we offered it out to the community and we ended up with like 25 or 30 people that showed up for the first one.
00:28:55
Speaker
And here we are almost 10 years later and they're still going strong. You know, the goal was to have a ah voluntary board. They meet once a month. We offer professional development workshops once a month.
00:29:07
Speaker
The focus is really about engagement. And it's also about holding each other accountable. I mean, we've utilized that that particular group as a way to say, hey, we heard so-and-so was doing this, which we know isn't the way we want to work in here in Colorado.
00:29:23
Speaker
We would sit down and have a conversation with them. We would say, do you know that this isn't okay? um And they were like, no, we had no idea. Thanks for sharing it with us. And Yeah, we'd love to be able to like do things the right way. And so that that accountability piece was a big part of the reason why we started Coppola. And and now would they meet once a month on the first Wednesday of every month with different workshops and trainings that are available to outreach professionals.
00:29:45
Speaker
Obviously, clinicians are invited. We don't have any kind of exclusionary criteria except for the fact that it's really the professional development piece is really for the outreach professional, the marketing professional, the admissions professional.
00:29:58
Speaker
Great. Speaking of achievements, ah you're also the co board co-chair for TPAS, Treatment Professionals Alumni Services. You've brought up alumni a couple of different times. So again, ah so as with the other one, kind of tell me how you got involved with that and the basic elevator pitch about what they do and the importance of alumni.
00:30:16
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So TPAS is a nonprofit organization. It's a national organization that started in 2010. And its focus is to work with alumni professionals in the behavioral health space to help grow strong alumni networks.
00:30:30
Speaker
So many treatment facilities years ago started looking at alumni programming as an additional resource for clients after they left treatment. but they didn't really know how to do it. If you talk to most alumni coordinators today, they'll say, yeah, I was just appointed into this position, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do.
00:30:46
Speaker
And so we we built a program that was designed to help support alumni coordinators in working with other alumni coordinators from around the country and sharing resources and ideas and you know, looking at what best practices look like um so that we can engage alumni in an intentional way.
00:31:04
Speaker
Subsequently, since 2010, the organization has over 100 members. It's a membership organization where they offer member benefits to alumni professionals. They give them the opportunity to do one-on-one coaching with alumni experts. They provide them with marketing materials. They offer them professional development workshops and trainings once a month.
00:31:25
Speaker
We do two in-person events a year, one in Jacksonville, Florida, and one in Malibu, where alumni coordinators from around the country and in Canada get together and build out resources and materials to help support them when they go back to build strong alumni programs.
00:31:41
Speaker
And a lot of people are like, well, that's really great. You're going to build a really strong alumni program. What does that really mean for me and my company? um And a big part of what we've learned over the years is that alumni actually is a revenue generating department.
00:31:53
Speaker
um Many of our treatment programs are seeing now that when you build strong alumni programs, you're keeping your clients sticky to your facility so that if they do need extra treatment or they need need extra support, you can help usher them back into your program.
00:32:06
Speaker
ah We learned in 2018 when we did a white paper study that our alumni, when you're doing a good strong alumni program can represent up to 50% of your referral base.
00:32:17
Speaker
In addition to that, your cost per admission for an alumni referral averages anywhere between $800 and $1,200 per admit versus your marketing and outreach referral, which today is upwards of $3,500 to $10,000 per So from a business model standpoint, it's the right thing to do for your clients. It's the right thing to do to engage long-term recovery support, but it also does have it does have a benefit from a revenue standpoint for referral engagement.
00:32:48
Speaker
And then the last thing that we you know we really talk to a lot of our leaders about is that value-based outcomes are becoming a huge conversation piece in our industry. People want to know what those outcomes are. Our providers, are our contract providers want to know, is our treatment working?
00:33:03
Speaker
And oftentimes, if you don't have a large research institution that's collecting that data, it falls to your alumni team. And your alumni coordinators are now using tech-based solutions to capture data on your clients after they leave.
00:33:16
Speaker
That data can be utilized to help renegotiate contract rates for insurance. It can help provide extra trust factor and credibility for your treatment program to consumers who are looking for treatment. So our alumni programs have really evolved into more of a professionalized role. And TPAS's job was to help create a space for our alumni coordinators to go and receive the basics, the basics, the basic kind of building blocks of building a strong alumni network.
00:33:45
Speaker
perfect And then along the same lines, let's talk a little bit about your GTC consulting. It says it's focused on overcoming barriers to growth and and enhancing organizational visibility. That overcoming barriers to growth is obviously one of the things Destination Change covers. So it's a great partnership there. So let's talk a little bit about that and you know what made you decide to take the step of of doing your own business, basically.
00:34:09
Speaker
Well, it's kind of funny because I didn't look to start my business. It was one of those things that happened organically. In 2021, my husband and i walked away from our professional careers and decided to travel full-time. We were only going to be on sabbatical for a year. so the goal was just to take a break. I think COVID made us a little tired and we were empty nesters. And so it was very scary. Truth be told, you know, when you think about destination change, this was a big change for us.
00:34:34
Speaker
to let go of everything that we owned and to throw a caution to the wind, including our careers and say, we're just going to take a year off and travel around the world. It was a really amazing experience that went from one year to three years.
00:34:47
Speaker
And in honestly, in that first month I was gone, i started getting called from people asking for help, asking to help with their outreach teams, asking for training, asking for building out marketing plans,
00:34:58
Speaker
And at the time I was like, yeah, I can do 10 or 15 hours a month. You know, I'm traveling in a trailer around you know California. Why not? And so and it kept growing from there. Quite honestly, it was a very organic experience. It wasn't something that I was looking to do right away.
00:35:12
Speaker
But subsequent to that, it's been a really you know amazing opportunity for me because I've been able to work with individuals from all walks of life, programs, small, large programs, you know, really helping them and supporting them around census.
00:35:26
Speaker
There's a statement that people used when I was working actively in the field where people would say, well, census cures all. If you've got a good census, everybody's happy. And I guess that's true. But then it also felt like they were always looking at three primary departments. They were looking at outreach, marketing and admissions.
00:35:44
Speaker
And so if census wasn't doing well, it was because of one of those three departments. And what I've learned over the years working at the leadership level, being a part of programs for the last, you know, 15 or 20 years is that oftentimes it's not about those departments. It's about a small sort of micro tear that could be going on within the organization.
00:36:05
Speaker
that if repaired can make all the difference. Do people need continual training? Yes. Do we need to be on top of making sure the messaging is correct? Absolutely. Do we need to be hiring the right kind of outreach professionals to do the work we're doing? Absolutely. Do we need to be training them correctly?
00:36:20
Speaker
Yes. But it's more than that. It's also about leadership expectations. It's about how are we teaching our leaders to learn from the people in the field about what the challenges are. So if you're setting an expectation that your your census has to be 60 month,
00:36:35
Speaker
and you're not talking to your outreach professionals about the barriers, then your outreach professionals are going to feel like they're set up for failure because they're not going to have the resources at their disposal. The metrics will be too high.
00:36:47
Speaker
And so you have to start looking both externally and internally at what those barriers are so that you can reach a greater success. And I think a lot of times what happens is those departments are not communicating well with each other.
00:36:59
Speaker
There's a lot of friction that can happen within organizations that creates that kind of breakdown in communication. and then ultimately can lead to your census not doing well. So big part of what I do in my business is I work in doing due diligence assessments. I spend time looking at the full picture, both internally and externally. We do stakeholder interviews.
00:37:19
Speaker
We do ah ah an audit on websites. We do an audit on your outreach team. We learn about what your admissions team is talking about on the phone. We make sure the information is being collected correctly.
00:37:29
Speaker
We also make sure that you know our clients or our our treatment facilities are actually meeting with the right kinds of clients. know Sometimes we think we know who our ideal client is, but we don't. And so ultimately, the goal is to really look kind of at the health of the whole organization from a leadership perspective, from a communication perspective.
00:37:48
Speaker
And then I end up working with the forward-facing departments. So all of the departments that touch the community that we make sure that the messaging is correct. We make sure that people are trained appropriately, that the talk tracks are in place, and that people feel like they have the resources at their disposal to do their job.
00:38:05
Speaker
So a big part of what I've done over the years is a lot of just sort of internal support for programming and helping build out teams and leadership. Another part of my work that I've done over the years is leadership consulting and really helping with executive coaching.
00:38:20
Speaker
We have a lot of people in leadership positions now in behavioral health that are in mid-level positions that want to move up, but need support and guidance and honestly confidence in knowing that they can do the job.
00:38:30
Speaker
We have a lot of people exiting and retiring out of behavioral health and people that are moving into executive leadership roles that need extra support and training. And so big part of what I do is one-on-one coaching.
00:38:42
Speaker
in helping executive leaders. And I've been where they're at. i know what it's I know what it's like to be a part of a highly dynamic organization where there's a lot of change happening and needing that extra
Advice for Newcomers and Personal Reflections
00:38:53
Speaker
support. You know you can talk to probably a dozen different leaders in the field and they'll all say it feels very lonely up here. you know I don't have a lot of people that I can confide in when I'm struggling with all of the demands that are happening internally and externally.
00:39:06
Speaker
And I spend a lot of time working with executive leaders, just you know being a sounding board, reassuring them that the decisions that they're making are correct and helping to support them in you know their company's growth.
00:39:16
Speaker
For those who are in the audience listening, she does have a blog and a YouTube channel that are going over her travels ah through the world with her husband. The link is on our show notes.
00:39:27
Speaker
Now we're getting close to the end, but I always like to have have a segment devoted to advice. If you could go back in time to when you were first starting out, what would you tell yourself? What's your biggest lesson learned? Well, I think I didn't have to have it all figured out.
00:39:40
Speaker
You know, again, i i was so worried about because I wasn't a person in recovery. i was and I do have this conversation a lot with people. I was afraid that I couldn't be a help or a support for someone because I hadn't walked in their shoes.
00:39:53
Speaker
And so big part of me had to get through this kind of mental capacity of like, well, I'm not a person that had to go to treatment and I didn't I didn't go to 12 step meetings. So what can I actually contribute in a meaningful way?
00:40:05
Speaker
And I think if I were to go back, I would tell myself that it's okay that you don't have that personal firsthand experience, but what you have is the ability to be a wayfinder and to help people get to the right place and to be able to step into a place of compassion and empathy and know that this isn't a moral weakness. And that in fact, it is a brain disease that needs to be managed. And how do we help people get the support they need? So I think I would say to anybody coming into this field,
00:40:33
Speaker
whether they're in recovery or not, that the skills that you need to bring to the table is the fact that you're coming with a willingness to help make a difference in other people's lives and that you don't have to have all the answers and that you can learn. This is a big one that you can learn from the people around you.
00:40:49
Speaker
It's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to not have the answer and to be able to say, I'm going to surround myself with people that are going to help teach me and coach me so that I can be the best in my work and be a resource for others down the road.
00:41:01
Speaker
There's a great quote from the TV show Sports Night. It was a show in the 90s from Aaron Sorkin. If you're dumb, surround yourself with smart people. If you're smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you.
00:41:12
Speaker
i love that. I've always loved that as ah as a leadership attitude. Along the same lines with advice, what kind of advice would you give to those who are starting out? Our audience is kind of a wide range of people. So I'm always assuming that we have people who are just starting out as well as people who've been in the industry for decades.
00:41:31
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, i think the the biggest thing I can say to people is to find a mentor, find someone that you know and trust, ask around people who are ethical. people who you trust and know are going to help be a good mentor and guide you. There are some people in the industry that are not, and you find yourself kind of following the leader of people that are doing things in it you know unethically. We want to avoid that. So you know really start getting curious and asking who are the best mentors that I can be working with. That's how i initially started out. I was able to work very closely with some very seasoned people who are willing to take me under their wing and help support me in understanding how to do this work.
00:42:09
Speaker
I would also say, you know, again, be a student of the field. You may think you have all of the answers. There is a massive amount of information that comes in learning in behavioral health. There's a lot of acronyms and alphabet soup vernacular that most people, you know, don't even know what they mean.
00:42:28
Speaker
Don't pretend, really take the time to learn it, you know, really become a student of the industry, take the time to really understand so that you can have really good conversations with people and kind you know compelling conversations that are are challenging so that you actually know what you're talking about. And I say that a lot to outreach professionals because a lot of times they feel like all they have to do is have a talk track down about their treatment program, but they don't need to talk about anything else. And if you're sitting across from a referral source and you can't talk about EMDR,
00:42:57
Speaker
and the impact of EMDR on trauma and complex trauma. But all you want to talk about is the fact that you guys have, you know, gender specific treatment at your facility, most referral partners are going to stop and say, you're no different than anybody else that sits in my office.
00:43:11
Speaker
So having a conversation with a referral partner, because you've taken the time to really learn the industry makes a huge difference in your success. And then I would also say it's okay to not have all the answers.
00:43:22
Speaker
You know, just kind of like what we talked about before is, you know, surround yourself with people who are more savvy, understand the field more and sit and listen, you know, be, be an active participant in, know,
00:43:34
Speaker
Any training or workshop that you go to, even if you're there as an exhibitor, take a time to go and sit in on those workshops. Don't stand in the exhibit hall. You know, go in and and sit in some of these workshops and learn from what other people are doing because the industry is evolving and it's evolving very fast.
00:43:49
Speaker
Now, we've touched on this a number of times throughout the podcast, but I always like to ask from a gut reaction, when all of a sudden done, why do it? Why do what you do? I do what I do because there's been a ah very important shift that's happened in our industry around perceptions of people who are struggling with addiction and mental health issues.
00:44:10
Speaker
But in the early days, it was so stigmatizing that people I wanted to be an advocate. I wanted to be able to stand up and advocate for people in a meaningful way so that I can get them to the right place.
00:44:22
Speaker
I also am tired of seeing families and individuals struggle and feel like they can't get the resources that they need to live a life in a place of wellness. And I wanted to help support people get there.
00:44:35
Speaker
I don't see myself ever being a therapist, but I do see myself being the information and referral partner to help people get to the right place. And so for me, the impact of working in this field has served me far greater than what I think I've ever been able to give it.
00:44:50
Speaker
I am who I am in part because of the people that I have been able to work side by side with over the last 20 years in the addiction specific space. People in recovery who have taught me about character defects, learning how to accept my failings, learning how to say sorry when I make a mistake, recognizing that I'm a work in progress.
00:45:08
Speaker
Selfishly, I feel like I stay in this field because I continue to learn from the people around me and it's um it's inspiring. And so I have yet to find that in any other part of any career I've ever been in.
00:45:19
Speaker
And I don't see myself leaving. I just really love it too much. It's great to hear. Now, before we wrap things up, I also always like to ask, what kind of resources do you typically use on a regular basis that you can recommend to others that help you do your job?
00:45:33
Speaker
So there's a few that I use for my coaching sessions. I would strongly encourage people to consider working with Peter Block. He is a organizational consultant. We work with him a lot in the work that we do through TPAS, where we do a lot of work with community engagement.
00:45:48
Speaker
It helps break down barriers. He has six different conversations that he does to help engage communities to have better conversations and dialogue with each other. And I'm a big supporter of working with his approach.
00:46:01
Speaker
of recognizing that we have to work more collectively to address this this issue of addiction, this disease of addiction and getting access to care. So I would strongly recommend the Peter Block, Six Conversations.
00:46:15
Speaker
I also work a lot with John Maxwell, Leadership, 21 Laws of Irrefutable Leadership. And my most favorite book, which I think everyone should read and should be on everybody's desk is Failing Forward.
00:46:26
Speaker
I think as an industry, we struggle with acknowledging our failings and we look at failure as a negative instead of looking at it as an opportunity to recognize data collection and how we can pivot.
00:46:38
Speaker
I also think it helps increase team engagement when you're working in a scenario and you say, I don't have the answer, I made a mistake. It gives people permission to make mistakes. And so we want to be able to like learn from those mistakes and grow and be better at what we do.
00:46:52
Speaker
And then there's quite a few others that I'll be happy to share in for the notes that I don't have at my disposal right now. But Michael Bungay is another one who does a lot of great work around asking questions and listening more. How do you become a better listener? And how do you not give as much advice and don't utilize and become an advice monster?
00:47:11
Speaker
I think a lot of times we spend a lot of time giving advice and not listening. um and letting people come to their own conclusions. And so he has a terrific book about how to ask the best 10 questions. And so I'll make sure to get that over to you as well.
00:47:23
Speaker
And you know there's there's others, obviously, a lot of people are big fans of Brene Brown. And I've worked a lot with her with Daring to Lead and her entire curriculum around Daring to Lead is really compelling as well. So Yeah, I mean, I would say that those are probably my go-tos that I've used a lot in my personal life, but also in the work that I do with development and coaching, with leadership and behavioral health, as well as with teams.
Conclusion and Contact Information
00:47:46
Speaker
Now, as always, those links to those items will be in the show notes for the podcast. Now, as we wrap up, was there anything that you wanted to talk about that we haven't or that you thought I was going to ask, but I didn't?
00:47:57
Speaker
No, I don't think so. I mean, this was really helpful. And thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I mean, I'm i'm really grateful to, you know, the National Behavioral Health Association and and the work that you all do.
00:48:09
Speaker
um i think the fact that you all are offering these credentialed courses for trainings is incredibly important and I clearly, I feel like we need more. There's still a lot more that we could be doing to help get people better prepared to be in this field because it's not going away.
00:48:22
Speaker
But yeah, it's been a it's been a real pleasure to, to work with you, Angie, and and with your team. Thank you. Great. For those who want to hear more about you or learn more about you, or even contact you, where can they find you? ah They can find me at GinaThorneConsulting.com. That's my website. And My contact information is in there, or you can reach me at Gina, Gina Thorne consulting.com. So I'm also on LinkedIn, Gina Thorne. So you just look for, look for the consulting flag and and you'll see my wayfinder logo and you can reach out to me through LinkedIn. You can reach out through, through my website. Happy to have a conversation and talk more about, you know, what your program might need down the road or what you individually are looking for from a leadership standpoint.
00:49:04
Speaker
You've been listening to Destination Change. Our guest today was Gina Thorne. Thank you for being here. Our theme song is Sun Nation by Keeps Up and used via a Creative Commons license by the Free Music Archive. Please consider rating and reviewing the podcast on Apple Podcasts so we can get more listeners. In the meantime, you can always see more about the podcast, including show notes and where else to listen, on our website, www.mbhap.org. If you have questions for the podcast, please email us at info at mbhap.org.
00:49:32
Speaker
Thanks for listening.