By Kalin Krohe, Panhandle Post
A former Western Community Health Resources (WCHR) employee in Chadron recently won the Behavioral Health Education Center of Nebraska award.
"Honestly, it was quite a shock," Chelsea Turner said. "I've known about the nomination for a few months. When Sandy [Sandy Montague-Roes, WCHR Director] called me and said we have your award, I was like 'What do you mean'? It's super humbling. It's the only word I can think of. I'm very excited. I'm very humbled. It's just such an honor to be recognized among all the other amazing mental health professionals we have in rural Nebraska. To be recognized as one of the champions in the mental health field, it's just overwhelming."
Turner worked for WCHS for a little over four years and handed in her resignation last week. She's been in the mental health field for 13 years.
"We are really proud of Chelsea and look forward to seeing her career advance," Chadron Community Hospital & Health Services Public Relations/Marketing Coordinator Lea Griese said.
Turner is currently a Therapy Intern at Pathways to Wellness in Chadron.
"Behavioral health is another word for mental health," Turner said. "All the work that I do is in the behavioral health field. I'm super passionate about mental health. I've worked everywhere from victim advocacy to memory care. I've seen a huge gamut of mental health. I've very passionate about it and breaking the stigma."
Turner said that the Chadron community can help others with behavioral health issues.
"I would say the number one thing is just to talk about it," Turner said. "We face such a huge stigma in the mental health world and people are so afraid to talk about it because it's a little bit stigmatized and stereotyped. The biggest thing people can do is not be afraid to have those conversations and to talk about the hard stuff, especially in light of COVID. We're seeing a lot more mental health issues kind of creeping out of the closet because people really haven't been able to distract themselves from it."
Turner said if people are looking for mental health help there are many options in Chadron.
"I'm biased a little bit, but generally if they're looking for case management services Western Community Health Resources is a great place to start," Turner said. "They have a lot of mental health programs for individuals 16 and up. They can help you get connected to all of those resources that you need. We have lots of options for therapists in the area. I'm biased because I worked with Pathways to Wellness. We have two of us interns and three clinicians on staff. We see people in Crawford, all the way up to Gordon. We see people from all over Nebraska. One of our clinicians is licensed in South Dakota."
Turner said there have been challenges because of the pandemic.
"The biggest challenge I think we saw was when everything got shut down and we had to do everything via telehealth," Turner said. "It is incredibly difficult, not impossible, but incredibly difficult to really engage someone in talking about their mental health over a screen. There's just a lot of work we do looking at nonverbal cues and getting comfortable with somebody. It's hard to really establish a relationship with someone through a screen. So that was probably our biggest hurdle initially."
