Behavioral Health
From Escort Translator to Peer Specialist: How Waldina Palacios Found Her Dream Job
April 9, 2024–As a peer specialist with VNS Health’s Intensive Mobile Treatment (IMT) team, Waldina Palacios provides help to vulnerable, unhoused New Yorkers who are navigating severe mental health challenges. This means meeting them wherever they may be living—in a shelter, a single-room occupancy residence (SRO), a hospital, or on the streets. Over more than two decades, Waldina has held many positions at VNS Health, including escort translator, home health aide, and HHA coordinator. During this time, Waldina also experienced VNS Health as a family member – her grandmother was a patient in the Shirley Goodman and Himan Brown Hospice Residence near East 96th Street. (“The place felt like home,” says Waldina. “So cozy and comfortable. Everyone there gave her such good care.”) Waldina’s current role with the Behavioral Health team, she says, is her dream job. It’s also one she didn’t even know existed until recently. Here, in her own words,
Latest Behavioral Health News
Jessica Fear, Esther Conteh, Among Industry Leaders Honored at McKnight’s Pinnacle Awards
March 25, 2024–
BronxNet Spotlights Bronx ACT Program Coordinator Amy Amadasu for Social Worker Month
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Annmarie Franco, BH Program Manager, Speaks with Next Avenue About Mental Health Outreach and Older Adults
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VNS Health Gets $34M Contract for Intensive Mental Health Treatment
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Jessica Fear, SVP Behavioral Health Speaks to Behavioral Health Business on Evolving Approaches to SUD Care
January 30, 2024–
Bronx Children’s Mobile Crisis Project Coordinator Joheily Gonzalez Joins BronxNet to Speak About Youth and Mental Health
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Helping Bronx Students: A Day in the Life of Social Worker Keshia Lewis!
January 9, 2024–Welcome to “A Day in the Life”—the Frontline series that follows team members from different parts of VNS Health as they go about a typical day fulfilling our organization’s mission—to improve the health and well-being of people in the home and in the community. Today, we feature a day in the life of… psychiatric social worker Keshia Lewis. Keshia oversees the Promise Zone, a program that provides short-term crisis support for children and adolescents with emotional and/or behavioral needs in nine Bronx elementary and middle schools. She sees clients for the Bronx FRIENDS Clinic in the afternoon as well. We asked Keshia to walk us through a typical day. 5:00 a.m. My days are busy and start early. I wake up between 5:00 and 5:30 a.m. in order to get to the gym and work out, or just to use the time for some mindfulness before I start my day.
Geriatric Mental Health Specialist Beth Glick Joins BronxNet to Speak About the “Holiday Blues”
December 20, 2023–
Esther Conteh and Jessica Fear Named as McKnight’s Pinnacle Award Finalists
December 11, 2023–