Ken Huey 0:00

Welcome to The Voice of Hope, where bold leaders and healers share how they're building hope, not just talking about it. I'm Dr. Ken Huey. Let's meet the changemakers transforming lives from the therapy room to the boardroom. Today's guest is Melanie Dallas, CEO of Highland Rivers Behavioral Health, with over 37 years of experience leading behavioral health organizations. She's recognized for her expertise in clinical operations, organizational growth, and shaping state-level behavioral health policy to improve outcomes across Georgia. Melanie, welcome.

Melanie Dallas 0:34

Oh, thank you, Ken. I'm I really appreciate being here.

Ken Huey 0:38

Well, fantastic. Well, I'm always interested to know how people land where they are. What inspired you to combine your love for service and dogs into a crisis response program like Hope, AACR?

Melanie Dallas 0:50

Uh, that's actually a great question. So I've had dogs, I think I've had 33 dogs in my lifetime. And I think just the what dogs offer through connection and just their willingness to really get right in there and love us in a very meaningful way. And it's kind of like a marriage of two passions, right? So being a licensed counselor, working in behavioral health. And then when I started to understand the impact that dogs could have, it just was a marriage that I said, I have to do this. When I first even understood that this was a thing, I was just like, gotta do it, gotta go there. And fortunate for me, I actually had a dog that is an absolute amazing. My husband calls her a GOAT, greatest of all time. She's a great peer niece, sweet pea, and she's just a master at it. So just being able to stay on the other end of that six-foot leash and just watch her work is really rewarding.

Ken Huey 1:41

That's fantastic. You may or may not know, have you ever heard of Kalo in Missouri?

Melanie Dallas 1:46

I have not.

Ken Huey 1:47

A residential treatment program that uses really all golden retrievers and golden duels now to help the teens in residence there learn kind of attachment and how to have a productive relationship with a more safe being than a person frequently. Anyway, I founded that program and sold my ownership and left a number of years ago, but it was near and dear to my heart to also have dogs in the program. It was great.

Melanie Dallas 2:13

Oh, that is wonderful. And go I have two golden doodles, so I totally get it. Yeah, if you can't connect with a golden doodle.

Ken Huey 2:19

Yeah, that's right. Well, great. So tell us a little bit about your experience on the front lines and how that shaped you to lead Highland Rivers behavioral health in a particular way.

Melanie Dallas 2:29

That's a great question as well. So I started in crisis. Actually, I had graduated with a marketing degree, got a job on a crisis unit, a crisis stabilization unit. And I would say that one of the ways it really impacted me is I became a much more patient listener, just really being able to stay present in a really meaningful way with people and whatever they were experiencing in that moment. And I think where it sort of impacted me as a leader is I became a more impatient bureaucrat. And so just being able to sort of retain that support and connection and being able to be present and with people and what they need and whatever pain or suffering they might be experiencing in the moment, and then knowing that we have to somehow go in leadership and change policy in a way that supports those activities and supports that ability for people to engage meaningfully, make a connection and really thrive in what they want to do with their life. So I feel like that's kind of how I sort of led into it. And I had a couple of what I call probably some tenderizing moments in life that I think sort of really fed a lot of that as well.

Ken Huey 3:36

And can you share a moment with a small act in crisis response had a profound impact maybe on you or you someone's life?

Melanie Dallas 3:43

Yeah, trying to think through one where I wouldn't portray any confidentiality. I think one place I would say, particularly in our co-response program that we have done, is there was a family that was having a lot of difficulties, and one of the family members was a veteran. And we know that can be a sometimes a very volatile situation. So even with co-response, where we've partnered law enforcement and clinicians together, what is the most appropriate response to keep everyone safe, but to engage and try to bring this very volatile situation to a close? And so I think that's one of those examples where just kind of following that direct line of what you're supposed to do or what is by policy, you know, you have to sort of take a left turn and say, okay, how are we going to keep everyone safe? How are we going to manage the situation to a really good outcome? Because we know that could be a bad outcome. And it took us three days in working with the team. And I think that's one of the things I love with my team is they'll still allow me to get involved in what sort of direction are we taking and what are we doing and how are we going to problem solve and look at this creatively, which also really helps me keep hold their back, right? I mean, protect them if it doesn't go positively, right? I can say I was a leader. I was involved in the decision that we made and the risk that we took. And it took us three days to engage in a very, very different way with this person. But we're able to get to a really, really good outcome and to some resolution for that family that I'm not so sure it would have gone so well if we had taken more the traditional route of either calling in law enforcement or judges or whoever else could have actually been involved in a say in a case like that.

Ken Huey 5:27

You collaborate quite a bit with first responders. What have you learned from first responders that you apply a leadership?

Melanie Dallas 5:36

So I would say probably that trust is actually built in the little moments and in the training and in the time together. Trust isn't necessarily built in a crisis. And so when you think about looking at first responders and watching first responders, the time that they dedicate into training, into just gathering together and just really knowing each other, they are trained to know who on the team does what well. And they arrive on a scene, they can actually just work that scene really, really well to a positive outcome generally. So because they know each other, they trust each other, they've trained together, they know who each other's strengths and weaknesses. And I think when you start to take that and you sort of say, okay, how do we do that as a team? How do we build those moments that create trust? How do we train in a way that we know exactly what to expect out of each other so that when we are dealing with an issue, there's the trust and the foundation there that says, we pretty much know where we're going in terms of an outcome? And I feel like first responders do that really well. And I feel like that's one of the things you can bring into leadership to say, how do we look at that, even though we're not always responding to a 911 or a crisis or a three-alarm call? How do we sort of take that and bring that into leadership and build that trust that is the foundation that's going to get us through?

Ken Huey 6:56

Yeah. So you're in really high-stakes environments, you know, that's where you live and breathe in your career. How do you foster a safe culture so that staff feel empowered and heard and can really do good work?

Melanie Dallas 7:12

So I think again, it kind of goes back to the trust. I think it goes to allowing people the opportunity to make critical decisions. And by that, I mean they have to have a chance to make some mistakes. You know, mistakes have to be allowed as long as they're not mistakes that are going to take on such an incredible amount of risk. But let's make little mistakes and learn and make adjustments. And then being able to, as a leader, not engage in a really punitive culture around mistakes. You really, I mean, I think we all know we learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes, right? And so, how do we translate that into providing care, being part of a team that's actually trying to work critically together and to support each other? So I think for me, that means one, being able to be available and involved, but also looking, what is it that happens at 115 in the morning when you get a call? And like at 115, I might not remember every word to that policy. But what I have is I've got a CEO who's got my back. I've got a CEO who has modeled and supported critical decision making. And I know that if I'm doing everything I can to keep people safe, that's a CEO is going to have my back. So at the end of the day, it's really about like, let's just do the right thing. If we do the right thing and we keep people safe and we provide the level of care, we'll work everything else out. Those are really the critical things that are actually happening when you're in a high risk, high stakes kind of game, like we're playing, right? I think that safety is paramount to how you do that. And then I think what's called upon as a leader is I got to be involved in that. They have to know that I'm there. They have to know what my thoughts are, how I've supported that whole process, and then they have to know I've got their back.

Ken Huey 8:57

Right. What's what's one policy or a systemic change in Georgia behavioral health that you are most proud of influencing?

Melanie Dallas 9:06

I would say when people are in crisis, not everybody has to go to a bed, right? I see I think all of us end up in a situation where we may be a little emotionally dysregulated, we may have a crisis in our life. I think sometimes our system is very quick to say, you're in a crisis, you say the right words, we're gonna put you somewhere for a week. We're gonna take you away from your family, we're gonna take you out of your community, you're gonna be locked behind closed doors, we're gonna take your shoestrings and anything that would be considered valuable or dangerous, we're gonna hold all those things and we're gonna do that for about a week until we know that you're stable. That's a very quick decision, I think, that happens sometimes. And there's times when that decision absolutely has to be made. But what we have found is that also if you can actually engage really meaningfully with a person in a present state, where they are in their life at that moment, we can find that thread that says, how is it that I can help you and support you in the best possible way, but also keep you stable? Right. We can do the both of those things. And so I think some of the work that we have done, I would say over the last almost 10 years now, we have been doing assessments in the emergency departments in several of the hospitals in our area. And we have found routinely from day one, about 50% of the people, they don't need to be in a crisis bed. They just need someone to listen to them, to help them with a plan that they can't think through at the moment, and to provide the level of support and need they have to execute that plan as a follow-up. And so I'm really proud of that work. So I don't think everybody needs to be in a hospital bed. Some do, but not everybody.

Ken Huey 10:39

Yeah. You've got a background, of course, in you know, behavioral health and mental health, and also in marketing. Can you talk to us about that marketing background and how that's shaped the way that you communicate in this behavioral health space?

Melanie Dallas 10:52

Yeah. So, you know, I think marketing is really to me about understanding consumer behavior, right? And that's actually part of what got me very interested in behavioral health, is all of those consumer behavior classes that I had to take when I was actually in my marketing degree, right? It's like that behavior piece of it really hooked me. So I think that and also the movement that Georgia has had towards peer support services have really influenced me. So one of the ways I think about that is being very intentional. I feel like I'm also trained in appreciative inquiry where we say words create worlds. And so I've always wanted to be very intentional about my words. So, for instance, if we want to talk about how people with behavioral health issues or challenges are perceived or how they are welcomed into our community, what we need to talk about is inclusion. Can we create communities that are very inclusive and provide a much greater understanding of what is being experienced by those with behavioral health needs? If we do that, we don't ever have to talk about stigma, right? Because stigma isn't something that I want to perpetuate. So I'm not going to talk about stigma. What I want to perpetuate is inclusion. And so I think it has been some of my marketing background that has sort of influenced like how do we actually communicate that in a way? And how do we communicate in ways that are very dignified and respectful for the people that we serve? You know, I've always kind of had this saying that, you know, sometimes the only thing that separates us in an agency is who has the keys because we all have challenges that we're dealing with and working with every day. It's just some of us go home in the afternoon and some people stay. And so how do we actually just normalize that some of these experiences are very similar and almost universal? I would say even in the last probably six to eight years, they've become much more universal, I think.

Ken Huey 12:38

Yeah. You lead a major organization, but you stay very hands-on in some volunteer work. What about compassion fatigue? What keeps you motivated and working towards that?

Melanie Dallas 12:48

You know, I actually think it is some of that work that actually keeps me from getting compassion fatigue, right? And so to me, compassion fatigue is really about just not being able to manage the stress or not feeling like we can reach a particular outcome. But it's important to me to stay really close to the work and really present with the people that we serve. I don't ever want to lose sight of the challenges that folks are bringing to us and being able to stay present in that really moment. But then I will also say it takes a lot of self-care, right? And so I think all of us in this field have to have some self-care discipline around how we care for ourselves and staying active, volunteering, doing the work with hope. I'm also a certified sound therapist. I mean, some of that kind of stuff is just ways in which you feed yourself and you fill your cup up. And sometimes I think that's just about perspective. So it may look like I'm always helping people, but sometimes that very help is filling my cup up.

Ken Huey 13:47

Fantastic. Tell us a little bit about a challenge. This is not an easy work that we do. What have you had in terms of a challenge that tested your leadership and what did you learn from it?

Melanie Dallas 13:58

Oh, goodness gracious. You know, I say that if I ever write a book, this is not going to get a chapter because I don't want to relive it again. So our agency did two mergers at the same time in the middle of the pandemic, actually, very the beginning of the pandemic. So two mergers is a challenge, is a heavy lift for a publicly funded agency where we don't have the money to go out and hire consultants to sort of help us with all of this. It's just, we're just figuring it out. So for 18 months, my team had to essentially manage all separate platforms until we could get everything integrated, working with two different governing boards, two different legal councils to make all of this happen. Nothing I would ever suggest to anyone to do. Just don't do it. Okay. But what I learned through that is that you can do just about anything for a season, right? I mean, I knew that there would be an end. There was no way that we could continue at the pace with the amount of work that we had to do. But it was also important with my whole team. And you know, in leadership, it is never a one-person job. It is you can only move as fast as your team can go with you. And leadership is about not getting so far out ahead that your team can't see you or is not connected to you or connected to the vision anymore. And so there were some things that we just had to decide that's a good idea, but it's going to have to sit on the back burner. We're just going to have to wait. We've got everything that we can do to fill our plate right now, and we need to do it well. And so I think we had to really develop some discipline around that and really move strategically through how are we going to do all the mechanical aspects of these two mergers at the same time? They were within six months of each other. And then how are we actually going to bring the culture along? And if you've ever been involved in a merger and acquisition, the culture is always the piece that's going to be dragging behind. And so we had to be very intentional about those mechanical aspects at the same time. How are we going to bring the culture along? And we were absorbing an agency that was not doing well. As a matter of fact, it's probably one of the worst situations I've seen in my whole entire career of behavioral health. I don't know how they were keeping the lights on. And so being able to manage that process and also maintain a high level of dignity and respect and support for the staff that we were absorbing and bringing over was really, really critical. And so I feel like I learned how do we pace the work? How do we not get out in front of our whole entire team? That is so critical, right? Because we've got to move together. And so everything has to be lockstep, sort of moving together. And then how do we stay connected in a meaningful way and supporting each other through it? And so that to me feels like probably that was the big lesson that we actually took home.

Ken Huey 16:42

Talk to me about what might be a major misconception that people have about behavioral health and the work that you do at Highland Rivers.

Melanie Dallas 16:51

So I think behavioral health as a whole come some is the last resort. I think folks think of it as the last resort. And so if we have somebody who corn of presents with a physical health issue, we don't always consider behavioral health as maybe the top fourth. Could their emotional state, psychological state, could their life situation be contributing to this? We try to rule out all those physical health. And then when we can't explain it, then we'll say, hey, let's maybe there's something emotional or psychological here. So I would love us to get to a place to say, let's consider that first when someone presents. But I think there's a piece that we need to go further. We've been saying for years that folks with behavioral health or mental health challenges die sooner than their peers, mostly based on physical health issues. So when we really start to dive into that and understand it, I think we have to ask the question: why is it that people with mental health challenges, behavioral health challenges are so late at getting screenings and any of the preventive care that they need? What is it about our health care system that they don't feel comfortable accessing health care to get those screenings? So, for instance, cancers get diagnosed much later, right? In much later stages than those counterparts. So, how do we take some ownership to say, if we really want to invest in how people thrive, then let's identify ways to get them in for those screenings that are so important so that we can find physical health issues much earlier in a process where they're treatable and maybe even curable. And we don't do that very well for folks with behavioral health issues or mental health issues.

Ken Huey 18:39

Looking back over your career, what moment made you feel like your work really matters?

Melanie Dallas 18:45

Oh, that's probably the easiest question that you've asked. When I had my private practice, there was a young man who was referred to me. And, you know, I think this kind of goes down, you never really know exactly what somebody's going through. And so, of course, I, you know, engaged in a meaningful way in counseling, work, helping him working through his issues. And years later, he had already terminated our therapy, but he had stayed in touch and his mom had stayed in touch. He was getting married, and he had invited me to the wedding, and I really was struggling with whether to go because I felt like those professional boundaries really need to be maintained. And something just said, you know, go just attend the wedding, be able to just support and see that as an opportunity for him. After they had the wedding had been conducted and everybody they were up there taking pictures, he asked for me to come up and get into the one of the pictures. And I was like, oh, I don't know. And I walked up there and he said, he looked at his new wife and he said, I want you to meet Melanie. She's the reason I'm here today. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be alive. And that wasn't evident or paramount in some of the work that we were doing. And so he was in that very dark place. I think it speaks to the fact that when folks come to us, sometimes we don't know how dark it truly is. And they may not share exactly how dark it truly is. But staying present and really working on that engagement and really helping them with whatever they're bringing in on that day is really, really important. And some days we never know how important that was.

Ken Huey 20:29

If you were inspired, share the light. And remember, hope's not just a feeling, it's a force. We'll see you next time.