Building Bridges With Medication for Opioid Use Disorder

Prairie Ridge Integrated Behavioral Healthcare

Description: This program will discuss the current state of the opioid crisis and new opportunities in North Iowa to improve access to care.

Learning Objectives:

Brenda Tyrrell spent the first 20+ years of her working life as a Certified Nursing Assistant and, later, as a Registered Nurse. During her nursing tenure, her area of expertise was cardiology and gerontology. When Brenda returned to school at the age of 43, she started a journey that ended with a Literature PhD and a Women, Gender, & Sexuality Certificate from Miami University in Oxford, OH. She worked briefly at Iowa State University before coming into her current role as the Mental Health & Wellness Education Coordinator at YSS in Ames, IA. She has multiple publications and presentations from her PhD experiences and hopes to eventually grow this current experience into her own Youth Mental Health & Wellness Curriculum that includes building resilience, self-care, managing stress, recognizing factors that influence mental health that are out of our control (Social Determinates of Health) and those that are in our control, as well as a built-in suicide prevention program. She is also an avid birder and is often (lovingly) teased about being “easily distracted by birds”!

Katie began her work at Prairie Ridge as an intern and continued her work with the agency after graduating from Buena Vista University with a Masters of Science in Education in Mental Health Counseling. While a graduate student, she served on the American Counseling Association of Iowa board in the Graduate Chair position. Katie is certified in EMDR and trained in PCIT, and uses these as well as other evidenced based practices to treat trauma and related co-occurring patients.

As a Doctor of Nursing Practice, Deb Groath has experience in both primary and specialty care with a holistic relationship centered focus. She currently integrates primary care into behavioral health care at Prairie Ridge. Deb has had diverse interests throughout her career and has worked in both large and small health care communities. Her career started at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in neurosurgery, re-locating to North Iowa for opportunities as the Director of Education, Director of Nursing for a small rural hospital, Director of Quality, advanced nursing practice in palliative care and hospice, and now focusing on the needs of patients with substance use and mental health concerns. She also has interest in moving legislative initiatives forward allowing improved access to care for the mental health and substance use population of North Iowa.

Kelsey Wood is the Psychiatric and Medical Clinic Director at Prairie Ridge.  She has been employed with Prairie Ridge since 2017 and has served in multiple capacities within the agency.  In the past, Kelsey enjoyed serving as the Inpatient Residential Nurse and IHH Nurse at Prairie Ridge.  She strives to support patients with both their physical and mental health needs.  

Christine L. Riggert is a Certified Prevention Specialist and is currently the Prevention Supervisor at Prairie Ridge Integrated Behavioral Healthcare. Combined, she has over 12 years of experience between her time in treatment services and her current prevention work. She enjoys being able to interact with an audience when presenting information and encourages discussion over lecture. Her goal in every presentation is that everyone learns something new.

Frank came through the California system as a child adopted into a family challenged with mental health and substance abuse issues. Raised in the East Bay area of Northern California, Frank attended nine different schools in his first nine years. Raised in a challenging home in a challenging environment both geographically and historically, Frank has a unique perspective that translates for many of our most traumatized communities, families and children. Frank negotiated his way into the military and his first professional training was as a special warfare diver attached to the Marine Mammal program of the United States Navy where he spent eight years honing behavior modification skills, stress management and understanding the dynamics of nonverbal communication. Later, as a stay at home dad for two kids and a student of psychology he became aware of and struggled with development, his own trauma exposure, and behavioral progressions and sequencing. This led to a journey of self-exploration and an academic focus on psychological trauma.

Frank has worked with the International Trauma Center since 1999 and deployed to Ground Zero to manage a team of clinicians working with a federal agency in “the dig” to stabilize them ongoing as they did their difficult work. Frank also worked extensively throughout Louisiana and Mississippi in the aftermath of Katrina. Frank has worked abroad in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, Nepal, Jordan, Haiti and several other countries for agencies like Save the Children, USAID, the World Bank and the International Center for the Protection of Victims of Torture to develop interventions and train clinicians working with children.

As Director of the Midwest Trauma Services Network and senior vice president of programming for the International Trauma Center he has spent the last several years introducing and training selected trauma informed evidence based practices as well as designing and implementing innovations specific to people from at-risk environments through the OJJDP. Frank currently consults, trains and speaks in several states for trauma in schools, foster and adoptive parents, community change through trauma informed care and provides direct psychoeducation and coaching to complexly traumatized children and families. Frank has a BS in disaster psychology with an emphasis on mental health, an MS in Public Health with a focus on child mental health and an MS in clinical counseling with trauma theory as the primary theoretical framework. Frank is the proud father of two gifted and resilient children who contribute in significant ways in their chosen professions. His mission is to create a world that understands the impact of trauma and abuse on children, families, communities and culture by teaching, challenging and learning everywhere he goes.