Please join me in congratulating Danielle Wright, Anita Speed, and Pamela Williams as our newest CSBMG Peer Specialists! Pamela Williams is our newest CPS-Y and both Anita Speed and Danielle Wright are our newest CPS-P.  These ladies do an awesome job for the CSBMG Child and Adolescent Program.   Congratulations, again, on this outstanding accomplishment!

“There is tremendous power, tremendous healing in giving voice to stories of recovery,” says Cassandra Price, director of DBHDD’s Office of Addictive Diseases (pictured above).

Please click on link below to check out some of these powerful stories:

Stories of Recovery Have the Power to Heal

Six of our SOAR Clubhouse kids participated in filming a  video with the GBI to help with Suicide Prevention. We were one of two CSBs asked to participate.  Please check out the full video below:

Youth Suicide Prevention: “Georgia’s Children in Crisis”

Please join me in congratulating Joanna Crews as our newest CPS-Y for CSBMG, and our first for our Ogeechee Division!  Joanna attended the training in January 2018 and was notified this week that she had passed her test.  We are proud of you for this accomplishment!

Community Service Board of Middle Georgia strives to be on the fore front of what is expected of us in every direction.  We are proud to announce the new and up-coming integration of Valant as Electronic Health Record (EHR).  Valant uses cloud base technology.  For those of us who are not so “tech savy”, it simply means that the software for this EHR platform uses a secure link to the internet.

Another exciting thing pertaining to Valant will be the unification of records across our 16 counties. This will help our organization be more efficient in accessing records and all other information that is needed for the individuals that we serve.  From the initial visit, to the daily notes, to the authorization and billing for our services will be managed through a seamless system.  Capability of E-Signatures, ability to create groups, manage rosters, and track attendance at a glance are just a few enhancements with this new EHR.

Valant is being tailored specifically for the needs of our program.  We have a team that is working and meeting weekly to build the system for the needs of the CSB of Middle Georgia, as well as to confirm and reaffirm this software to be user friendly for our program in every aspect. This project has been ongoing from the ground up for over a year.  Clinicians have been able to weigh in on aspects of the clinical side of the record; and billing/authorization information has been shared from the support side of the house.  Physicians have had input, but will be called upon to provide other expertise as we continue to move forward with the development of the new system.  Our target for go-live with Valant is early to mid-2018.

-R. Hullander 1/2/18