2023 Annual Report

The 2023 edition of this message ended with a discussion of striking a balance between the “short” and “long” views related to our agency, our community, and our own lives. What we did not discuss was the rare time when those views converge to create unexpected opportunities. What we did not realize at the time was that FY2024 was going to one of those times.

December 2023 greeted CBH with the opportunity to implement a major expansion of our crisis services continuum. Governor Youngkin’s Right Help Right Now plan included the development of a Crisis Receiving Center and a Crisis Stabilization Unit on property that had at times appeared unattainable. We simultaneously were developing plans to implement Mobile Crisis Response services early in the next fiscal year. We were able to open our Permanent Supportive Housing program early in 2024 and began early discussions to initiate Supported Employment (SEP) services over the following biennium. We ended the year moving closer than ever to realizing the dream of bringing integrated primary care/behavioral health/dental services to our community. The rest of our service areas – clinical and administrative – moved on from the COVID days to undertake construction of a new future.

Some of the accomplishments of FY2024 were the result of 15+ years of advocacy and preparation, others due to more recent intersections of planning and opportunity. The net result of FY2024 was to set the stage for the most significant period of growth in the past 40 years. There is much work to be done, but the door is now open to developing the next generation of services needed by our communities, families and the individuals we support.

We all entered Fiscal Year 2022 with high hopes that the COVID pandemic would be over, and that we would all look back on the pandemic memories of the upheaval through our rear view mirrors. Once again, that was not the case! Certainly, we appear to be much closer to the end than the beginning, but the impacts of COVID are only diminishing instead of ending.

However, the primary challenges of FY 2022 were not medical, but generational. CBH has long enjoyed very stable leadership in terms of senior management at our agency, but nothing lasts forever. Between May 2021 and June 2022, we experienced either the actual retirements or retirement announcements of five senior and long-tenured staff. Those staff represented 192 years of combined experience at CBH.

We are pleased to report that each of these positions were filled with internal applicants, happily providing us with both continuity and fresh perspectives. Since 2019, another ten staff have also retired, representing another 273 years of CBH experience. Many of those positions were also filled internally. We could not have asked for a better outcome.

Like everyone else, we are faced with serious workforce challenges at a time when the behavioral health and developmental service needs of our community are becoming more demanding and complex. In preparing for that future, we stand proudly on the development of our staff as a strength of CBH. We have not been, are not, and will never be perfect – but we are honored to provide the strong array of services to individuals, families and our community. Your continued support makes it possible.

Fiscal Year 2021 was not the year we expected. We had hoped for the COVID-19
pandemic to fade out and have our world return to “normal.” We hoped to be
able to celebrate our 50th Anniversary with a large community event. We
hoped that some long-term strategic initiatives would come to reality in that
year. We hoped . . .

The reality of Fiscal Year 2021 was that COVID was far from ready to release us,
that we would have to wait to celebrate 50 years of community service, and
that long-term initiatives don’t always resolve on a strict timeline. We also
learned that many of the lessons learned during the stressful early days of the
pandemic were actually helpful in future planning. We learned . . .

The new service methodologies, technologies and facility needs initiated at the
outset of the pandemic became central to our core operational plans. We
consolidated office locations as the beginning of a new work reality that will
remain for years to come. We began to adjust our approaches to
administrative functions. We experienced the beginning of changes in our
senior agency leadership as the result of long tenures. We adjusted our
approach to agency governance. We changed . . .

Entering Fiscal Year 2022, we don’t know what direction the pandemic will take,
and what timetable we may face moving forward with long-held plans for the
future. We still want to celebrate 50 years with you, even if it may come a year
late. Our future plans remain in place. The foundations laid over the past several
years remain in place and are more than sufficient to support an exciting future.
So no matter what circumstances face us all in Fiscal Year 2022, we will continue
to hope, to learn and to change.

When we here at Colonial Behavioral Health thought about and planned for 2020, we did not include a pandemic among the possible scenarios. When the COVID-19 pandemic emergency arrived in March 2020, almost everyone was caught somewhat “off guard,” and we were no exception. We were all forced to modify our operation to a primarily telehealth model, have most employees begin to telework, and rethink the way we approached services and work in general.

Those first few days and weeks were admittedly difficult, and we found ourselves in need of friends and flexibility. Fortunately, we were provided with both. Local and state agencies, friends, neighbors, family members and private groups worked to donate masks and other Personal Protective Equipment. Flexibility in the use of some types of funding was provided locally and at the state level. Additional flexibility in support of telehealth services was (and still is) provided by Federal and state government, and also by insurers. All of this, coupled with support from our own staff and Board of Directors, added up to an operational model that has worked. We are deeply grateful to each of you.

So now we find ourselves in the middle of the pandemic, and are able to begin looking to the day when the COVID-19 pandemic emergency will be a memory. We are thinking about how healthcare will be reshaped, how behavioral health and developmental services will evolve, and how we need to adapt in order to thrive in that environment. What we are discovering is that our pre-COVID plans – for improved service mobility, integrated healthcare, consolidated facilities, and improved technology to enhance access to higher-quality services – have not changed. In some cases, COVID has accelerated change to a pace we would not have imagined.

Fiscal Year 2021 will be our 50th in providing services. We have been privileged to support our communities since 1971. As we anticipate our second half-century, we will remember COVID-19 as a devastating virus that disrupted the lives of individuals and families, brought loss to many, and changed our culture permanently. The need for improved access to healthcare for everyone has been clearly demonstrated, and we look forward to meeting that challenge head-on. Together, we will make it a reality.