NJAMHAA News Winter 2023

15 Winter 2023 Our Board of Trustees is comprised of the most passionate lay leaders I’ve interacted with throughout my career. They love this organization. They are very actively involved and always ask what else they can do. NJAMHAANews: What are your vision and specific goals for the agency? Shaina Sherman: During my first six months in this role, I focused on settling in and getting to know the team and services. We identified the most pressing needs our clients have and on what therapists and other professionals see as the most urgent needs and expand on those services. We are also working to elevate our profile in the community across the three counties we serve to ensure referral sources, community partners and individuals know about the resources we offer. We are building familiarity with our mission – to preserve and strengthen the quality of individual and family life for those of all faiths and beliefs in our tri-county community – and our values to the greater community. These values are integrity, reliability, humility, gratitude, hope, inclusion, renewal, and service, and they serve as the foundation of the culture of JFS. Robert Szapor NJAMHAANews: What inspired you to pursue a career in behavioral health and neurosciences? Robert Szapor: I’ve had personal experience with behavioral health challenges, so it’s my passion. I also worked as a nurse in a trauma and neuro-critical care unit prior to my current role at AtlantiCare. During my time in that clinical setting, I saw victims of assault, patients injured in vehicle accidents related to their own or others’ substance use, suicide attempts, and more. During my clinical time in the ICU, I witnessed the clinical sequelae of events like this, including traumatic and neurological deficits. This drove some of my passion to help prevent medical illnesses through timely, effective mental health treatment and additional supportive care. There’s still somuchwe don’t know about the brain. There is a vast undiscovered landscape of the mind vs. the brain, behavioral health vs. neuro-health, and the intangible vs. the tangible. These unanswered questions drivemy passion for advancing clinical care by taking a comprehensive, patient-centered approach to addressing, preventing, diagnosing and treating all illnesses. NJAMHAANews: What attracted you to your current position and to AtlantiCare? Robert Szapor: I started at AtlantiCare as a volunteer whenmymomwas a nursing executive here. I worked in radiology as a transportation technologist while I was in nursing school. My passion has been further fueled in part as I’ve experienced how deeply mental and physical health impact individuals and the increased need for resources for mental health and substance use care locally and nationally. This has included seeing the impact of the continuing opioid epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic on the behavioral health needs of the community I grew up in and live in – and the broader communities AtlantiCare serves. NJAMHAANews: Has your new role prompted more interaction between AtlantiCare’s behavioral health care and neurosciences departments? If so, howhas this changed (or will this change) andwhat are the benefits (or anticipated benefits) for the staff and patients? Robert Szapor: Neurosciences and behavioral health are — and should be — intertwined. These specialties and others, including primary care, are essential parts of the multidimensional care team that is so critical to providing an effective continuum of care for patients. Behavioral health/psychiatry and neurology can work together on a number of different medical diagnoses to ensure a smooth treatment path for patients and improve clinical outcomes. My background before coming to behavioral health was primarily in stroke care when I started in AtlantiCare’s Neuroscience Institute. My experience and knowledge in this field, along with my new engagement in behavioral health, is very useful for helping individuals with post-stroke depression, fatigue and self-image, as all of these issues are common among stroke patients. Our team is focused on subspecialty integration tomeet patients’ needs across the entiremedical spectrum. Patients with a number of different primary medical diagnoses can and will