MEET KINGS VIEW OVER LUNCH

0:04 Well, hi and welcome to the Lunch with Row mobile VOD podcast. That’s my trusty steed and together we’re hitting the
0:11 road to discover [music] the very best behavioral health. Today I’m with Amanda Nugent Divine and Beverly Raine of Kings
0:17 View in Fresno. You don’t want to miss what they and their team are [music] doing for behavioral health throughout
0:23 California. It’s the Lunch with Row mobile VOD, behavioral health’s new best
0:28 friend. We got to go. Look. Look at this. [music] Okay.
0:36 [music] So, here we are in Fresno, California. Uh out front of Kings View Professional
0:44 Services. I think I saw that somewhere. That is correct. We have two companies here. One of two companies. What’s the other
0:50 company? Kings View is the parent company. It’s been around 75 years. And when I came eight years ago, I created KVPS, which
0:57 is Kings View Professional Services that is a wholly owned subsidiary and it has one shareholder, Kings View. And it
1:03 exists solely to serve Kings View because the behavioral health business that we’re in for Kings View as a nonprofit is
1:10 incredibly poorly funded. So we need we need money.
1:16 Gotcha. So So we either raise it, which is very challenging for behavioral health, right? Kids cancer really easy to raise
1:23 money for understandably we all get that but behavioral health everybody has a different view of why someone would have
1:29 a behavioral health challenge so it’s very difficult to raise money for behavioral health. Yeah I can imagine. Yeah. So we have to create other ways of
1:37 generating margin that are legal and [laughter] um to help fund our low margin business.
1:44 Dang. Yeah. We’re going to get into that. Okay. Um anyway, so Amanda is the uh the
1:50 CEO of Kings View. Kings View. Kings View. Literally Kings
1:56 View, which Yeah. It says it on the door over there. Yes. Which we used to be an inpatient hospital 75 years ago.
2:03 Oh, really? Okay. Yes. Um in Reedley, California. That’s where we started by a group of Mennonites.
2:09 And from the Mennonite tradition, I am not Mennonite, but from what I understand that the Mennonite tradition um does uh they are
2:16 peacemakers and they don’t believe in going to war. So at the time that people were at war, they wanted to be of
2:22 service. They’re very committed to being of service. That’s one of their their strongest held values. And so while
2:28 people were going to war, they were taking care of the individuals that were coming back from war and having mental health issues. So the hospital
2:35 was opened, ran for a number of years and then was closed in the 90s like many hospitals across California. There’s an
2:41 entire movement uh to close institutions across the state and this has really
2:46 been probably a nationwide movement is more appropriate to say. So that because we believe and we still believe that
2:52 people get better at home and in their community. However, we still know that
2:57 there are certain behavioral health moments, not just a diagnosis, but someone that has a a a severe and
3:04 persistent mental illness may have moments where they if they are
3:10 experiencing a break in reality or psychosis, they may need to be kept safe. And in order to do that, we need
3:16 hospitals. And so we have overcorrected, gotten rid of all the institutions and now we don’t have enough beds to care
3:23 for the folks that are in those situations. But you don’t do residential. Well, we do. We’re getting into
3:29 residential in some form. And in fact, we were just awarded a grant by the state of California. It’s called the
3:36 BCHIP Grant, which stands for behavioral health infrastructure. uh grant that they are trying to build
3:42 and re sort of configure rebuild the capacity the infrastructure for keeping
3:48 people safe and so yes so we are not right now we are not in the residential living space except in the IDD space
3:56 for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities we operate three homes where they live in community
4:02 independently as adults with intellectual disabilities and we have some adults with IDD that
4:07 have lived with us for 30 to 40 years. So, and they live in community, have their meals together.
4:13 Uh, this is throughout the Kings View footprint. 37 counties and we just are entering San
4:19 Bernardino County is a new county for us. We were just awarded an RFP there. Congratulations. Yeah. So, we do all of this outpatient
4:27 work, but we cover the entire continuum. And then with this new grant, we will actually be moving back into residential
4:34 facilities for geriatric psychiatric patients, which is I mean, get out of here. That’s
4:41 a growing demographic. Absolutely. It is. Given given all the factors in society
4:47 today, that’s always going to be Yeah. grow, grow, grow. I love that. Okay. So, Amanda, you’re the CEO.
4:53 I’m the CEO. And uh Beverly, you’re the you told me this earlier. Executive
4:59 director. No, it was executive director. Executive director of marketing and communications.
5:05 That’s great. Love that. That’s what I do. Fantastic role. And have y’all because you’re originally from Louisiana
5:12 and you’re not. Clearly. [laughter] Clearly. Clearly. Are you from South uh
5:17 England? I’m from St Edmund, Suffolk. Just north of London by about 80 miles. Oh, so it is
5:23 20 m in the bit that pops out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. out there a little farm farmland and I came to farmland. So
5:30 I went from one agricultural community to another. So yeah. Now I was going to ask what why are we
5:36 here today on you know blacktop that could fry some eggs out in front of Kings
5:42 View. That’s a great question. I actually had a cousin that died right before I was married. um she had Addison’s disease
5:50 but everybody thought she was depressed and so they kept hospitalizing her when I say everybody the doctors and her dad my
5:57 uncle I’m very close to kept thinking she was just depressed and um kept
6:03 hospitalizing her but um and she ended up dying of Addison’s disease and so she was getting all this mental health
6:09 treatment so it’s kind of like the reverse and people would say well wouldn’t that make you go into medicine but it didn’t what it made me do was
6:15 just the misunderstanding of a mental health issue and how we still have
6:20 mental health separated from physical health. So much so that people get wrongly diagnosed and wrongly treated,
6:27 right? Misdiagnosed, mistreated and um and so I really just I felt so horrible
6:34 for her because it was so confusing. She was so confused. It ended up being literally that her adrenal glands were
6:41 were shrinking up and weren’t getting enough cortisol, I think, to the heart is how Addison’s disease ultimately kills
6:46 her and she just died of heart failure at 20. Oh my gosh. And it was just so upsetting and there
6:52 was just so much more prejudice and stigma around mental health. So that actually is what drove me into mental
6:58 health. [music]
7:04 you know, we talked to a variety of people from different backgrounds, um, CEOs, other executive directors, uh,
7:12 other clinicians and things like that. And it’s interesting to hear their stories and and and what what got them
7:19 to this point and many of them are, you know, former uh, clients, you know, of the very place
7:26 that they were where they work. Do you find that there’s within Kings View? Is
7:31 that is that almost baked into the succession planning a little bit that are are there people who just say, “I
7:37 want to pay it back. You guys have been amazing. You’ve inspired me. I’ve gone on to college. I’m I’m now studying this
7:45 kind of thing.” I mean, you know, is there is there any of that here or Oh, yeah. We have a lot of people that
7:50 have what we call lived experience and um it’s tremendous when they’re able to bring that to their jobs. So, I think I
7:58 think a lot of that a lot of people obviously that are attracted to behavioral health have an event or
8:03 something or a family member or their own struggles that draw them to this
8:08 work wanting to alleviate suffering for others. And we actually have physicians, we have wellness centers and we have
8:14 something called a peer support group. And so, they will come in as a client in the wellness center and they’ll get a
8:21 job with us and then they’ll be part of a leading a group. And some of those folk have really pretty good positions
8:28 within the organization and and have gone back to school like you were saying. Yeah. And one person in particular ended up
8:34 being on our board of directors and making and really making a change. Yeah.
8:39 As a family member related to someone very closely who’s been through
8:44 um receiving mental health help even in crisis situations especially
8:50 uh in one case. Um I find that it’s comforting to know that there are people that work within the field.
8:57 Yes. That have also you know benefited right by it. Right. Absolutely. No, it’s very
9:04 encouraging. I would say in the substance use disorder space, I would say that that is especially important
9:12 where someone feels like someone else has lived experience. I I find that to be true. Yeah. And I I find in the
9:18 substance use arena uh cuz I’ve worked in that arena. and I did not have addiction issues and and I did my advice
9:24 or my support or my even clinical expertise was not as valued and that’s
9:30 just a reality. I don’t think that’s always true but that is more true in the substance use disorder space. That’s
9:36 just a that’s anecdotal. I don’t know that that’s proven in the data in the mental health space uh or the
9:42 behavioral health space. I would say that um not everybody is in their
9:47 lifetime, not everyone is going to experience or get or receive a mental illness diagnosis, a mental health
9:54 disorder diagnosis. But in your lifespan, just as a result of being human, you are going to encounter an
10:03 emotion or a challenge maybe in the area of depression, maybe in the area of anxiety, maybe in the area of
10:09 obsessiveness that is maybe becomes exacerbated through a certain life event.
10:16 Um so even if it’s not chemical for you, it may be uh situational, it’s just as
10:21 painful, right? And so it is very it’s very few humans get to the end of their life and haven’t had a mental health
10:29 experience, a mental health challenge experience. And so I think in this arena it’s just
10:36 not too many people that you’re going to meet. Now when we talk about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and you talk about any of the disorders where
10:42 you can experience psychosis, that’s a smaller number of people who may have experience with that. However, we have
10:50 most of our families, most of our parents are living into their 90s. And so many of them, you have people in
10:56 their 90s, like 96 getting Alzheimer’s and dementia. And so that is a
11:02 diagnosis, right? And so even though that is a brain disease, a brain disorder, there are mental health issues
11:08 that go along with that. So really, again, just by the virtue of being human
11:14 in your life, you’re going to experience it with someone you know. I mean, it’s one in five experience mental health
11:20 illness. Yeah. But I also think if you know, we all experience the loss when you lose a loved one and that that grief and that
11:27 all of that really plays into a part to being able to relate to somebody else. Yes. Because um even if you don’t have like
11:33 Amanda was saying a diagnosis there there comes a time even before you’re taking your exams the anxiety is there.
11:40 It’s like oh and for days you’re on edge and then afterwards it’s like and we’ve all experienced that. Well, I think
11:45 to a tiny degree, you know, I’m glad you made the distinction between substance use and those kind of disorders because I think
11:52 that’s primarily what we were just talking about it the other day in another episode and it was at a a at a
11:58 recovery place. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And pretty much everyone on the staff Oh, sure. had been through the program,
12:04 you know, they they’d had a background and I thought, “Oh, that’s really great that you know, the people coming in, they’re like, “Oh, you’ve been where
12:11 I’ve been.” Whereas bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, those kind of things, you don’t necessarily you don’t necessarily
12:18 need your doctor to also have schizophrenia. I mean, I guess it doesn’t hurt, but in
12:23 terms of helping the actual person, it may not be as critical. By the way, I just want to say I think our food is
12:29 here. As it is lunch with Row, we Here we go. [laughter] This is our server today.
12:35 Look at the lunch. This is Matt. That’s awesome. There it fun.
12:45 [music] These guys, by the way, for all of y’all watching and and listening,
12:50 this looks amazing. They did, in fact, uh want the sushi, which is part of part of our Lunch with
12:58 Row logo. The O on Row is uh is some kind of sushi. Oh, how fun. [laughter]
13:04 Did you see? That is very clever. I love the attention to detail. So, open up. That’s awesome. Yeah. Well,
13:11 we this is actually, you know, it’s funny. We do these u these episodes and quite often our our lunch with Row turns
13:18 out to be brunch or even breakfast because just kind of depends on your schedule. All the time. Has anyone ever choked
13:24 while you’re filming? Not yet. But it’s always the first yet.
13:30 Well, I’ll be waiting with baited breath here. Yeah. Anyway, um I got So, I got the I got the
13:38 kitty meal. Are you serious? What? You have something tempura? Um, sure. Let’s call it that.
13:44 Oh, okay. Um, I think I think it’s just Japanese chicken nuggets or something.
13:50 That’s hilarious cuz we got this at Ozika Yeah.
13:55 Super good. Japanese uh restaurant food. Yeah. I don’t remember what it’s called.
14:00 It’s a little edgy here. Here in Fat. Oh, yeah. I heard that in Japan if you don’t put
14:05 the whole thing in your mouth at once, it’s rude. I heard that too. If anybody can consult, that would be
14:10 interesting. Right there should go in your mouth. You’re not supposed to bite into sushi
14:16 cuz it falls apart. Yeah. And then it gets all over your top. Well, have at it. We’re not going to judge you. Oh my gosh. Did you just see
14:22 that? What a pig. I didn’t even explain it when I did it. I just did it. At least you explained.
14:28 [laughter] Not me. It’s all good. I want to while we’re sitting here kind of just eating and
14:34 chatting um talk about the work culture itself
14:40 your your employees staff associates whatever you call them you know um do
14:45 you have a special term for people that work employees I mean is there staff yeah staff okay personnel I mean there’s
14:52 all kinds of theories around what people are called and stuff but I mean
14:57 where do they come from are they primarily born and raised local, you
15:02 know, within the Kings View. So, way back when they were all at the hospital and they are sort of with the
15:09 in the area that we’re doing services. However, on the Kings View professional side, we have some people who are remote
15:15 in Oregon, Arizona, someone who commutes from Mexico across the border every day to do a lot of that IT work, but usually
15:24 they’re from the community and they know the community and we we go everywhere. As Mandy was saying, we’re opening up in
15:29 San Bernardino, but basically Kern County all the way through to the Oregon border, Shasta in the north, but the
15:36 Kings professional services hits multiple counties. And so we work with the county itself and we may be here,
15:43 but we’ve been working with their staff on the IT professional services side. On the other side, Kings View Behavioral
15:50 Health on that side, they’re usually local. And we’ve had some people, we just had an anniversary. Every year we
15:56 do an anniversary luncheon to thank the folk for You do an anniversary thing annually. Uhhuh.
16:02 Huh. And we last year we gave out some awards that were Oh, every year. God, I missed that one.
16:08 I didn’t catch it either. No, you know, I’m not on my game today. She’s like, every year we do an anniversary fantastic. Is that a British
16:15 thing? [laughter] Cuz we don’t do that. Every three years we do an anniversary
16:21 party. We do an anniversary. That’s so rude today. I don’t know what it is. Oh, you feel
16:26 comfortable? I do. I do. Um, so some of the awards we gave out and Dr. Cruz was prime example 35 years
16:34 of providing services to our clients and we have clients um, Bon Northern
16:39 Regional Center. We we service them. Some of those clients have been with us for 30 years.
16:44 We we started telePsychiatry in 1997 way before anybody else and we were
16:50 doing in rural areas. So, we’ve got a really good reputation and following for that and have done some amazing work.
16:56 So, staffwise, well, on the telepsych side, you can be remote, but on the wellness
17:01 center, um, homeless shelters, reaching out, the drug and alcohol, that is local. Of course,
17:07 you guys local. I mean, you do everything. I was going to say, you saw the motion I was doing.
17:12 Yeah, everything. This is a gamut spectrum range thing because you know we’ll talk to people
17:18 who are in here but y’all are have it all which was interesting when I spoke to
17:23 you the first time you know we were talking about and I said you said what do you do and I said well at the moment everything but inpatient you just what
17:30 but now we’re even going to res we do residential but with this grant we will
17:35 be having people that will be there 24 hours a day 7 days a week so there really is nothing
17:40 that we don’t do Um, talk to me about because you have such a broad range of
17:47 services available. What does access mean to you guys
17:53 that people can get what they want when they want it, the way that they want it, right? I mean, treatment, early
17:58 intervention is so critical and it’s so hard to get um care. We want people to
18:04 have very, very low barrier. We want them to have no barrier to getting treatment when they want it. Uh we want
18:09 to eradicate stigma completely from the world. That’s one of our goals. Yes.
18:15 Um because it is ridiculous that people are judged for having psychological
18:20 psychological issues or challenges that they uh didn’t create. It’s not about, you know, pull yourself up by your
18:26 bootstraps. Yeah. It’s like it’s like saying, you know, she has cancer. That’s not her fault, right? She she needs medication. She needs
18:33 treatment. It’s going to be are you are you going to sh people are are proud cancer patients, you know what I mean?
18:39 They post I just got out of a round of chemo that if someone says I I’m
18:44 struggling with bipolar or whatever depression, we don’t want to talk. Nobody’s proud of that. That’s right.
18:49 and and we don’t want to remove that if we like I I tell clients all the time if
18:54 if you have bipolar, it is important to know what you can and can’t do that will
19:00 make your disorder harder to manage. Right? We do have a responsibility, but
19:06 you don’t create bipolar, right? It’s not like I mean there really is a strong genetic component and a chemistry aspect
19:14 and and we don’t know exactly what that mix is between environmental and science nature versus nurture. We don’t really
19:20 know. We just seem to find that it’s mostly a combination of them and it varies
19:26 depending on the individual how much of it was nurture and how much of it was nature. Yeah. Wow.
19:32 You were talking about access. Um so [clears throat] our telepsychiatry program started because there was no
19:37 psychiatrist in the town to treat people. So we’re in rural areas and for
19:43 example one of the counties we worked in for quite a long time was Sierra County. Now in Sierra County there isn’t a
19:49 pharmacy and there is no infrastructure for transport. So we were able to ship
19:54 medications and have them you know distributed for our clients in behavioral health area. But access is so
20:02 important and it’s not just the stigma Amanda talks about. It’s physical access.
20:11 Is there something that keeps you up at night about work? You know, I
20:16 mean, is there are there issues that just you just feel like you’re banging your head against and it’s it’s a real
20:22 uphill climb? [laughter] Yeah. We look at each other. Okay. Yeah. [clears throat] Bottom line.
20:28 Bottom line. Um because we you know we when you’re a nonprofit people literally
20:34 we have people say to us you’re a nonprofit you’re not supposed to make any profit and I’m like well and that’s okay. I mean if you don’t
20:40 work in business then you wouldn’t know but um it it is very challenging in the governmental space and we have great
20:47 government partners. We have some counties that we work with that are just amazing and they’re they’re compassionate, intelligent people who
20:54 are partnering with us the best that they can with the money the government’s entrusted to them. Right. And so these
21:00 are public dollars, many of them, not not all of the things that we do are, but um but the whole game is to do as much
21:07 as you can with very very little, right? And I it’s like independent film making, right? You do as much as you can with
21:13 very little. Um and and it’s not and that’s fine. And I we’ve gotten we’re we’re very good at
21:19 that, but there is a fatigue level to that, right? That there’s that we’re always having to squeeze every dime out
21:26 of something. And oftentimes there’s really it’s not just poorly funded, it’s
21:31 literally not funded. It’s not funded. Yeah. And so a lot of things in California in particular that they’ve changed is not
21:38 not compensating for documentation time, not compensating for travel time. Well, if you’re a field-based clinician, and
21:46 that’s what a lot of Kings, we do a lot of different things, but one of the things we do is mobile crisis response. So we are in the field. We do homeless
21:52 outreach. We are in the field. So we are traveling because people get better through relationships and and yes they
21:58 get better through medicine but really people won’t take their medicine without a relationship right so it’s it’s how do
22:05 people get well through relationships I mean ultimately all comes back to that so in our homeless outreach if someone
22:11 is homeless and actively psychotic they are not going to engage in services without a trusting relationship
22:17 right and so we build those relationships over time it’s not about just find the guy under the bridge Yes. Go to the guy
22:24 under the bridge at the same time every day when he gets up. Take him to get some food. Make sure he’s got, you know,
22:30 what he needs in his if he’s got a heart condition. Make sure he’s got his medicine. He’s got it late. And depending on the community, there’s
22:37 50 guys under the bridge. There are thousand guys. And so all of that time finding the guy, driving the
22:43 guy, writing about the guy, not you’re stretching thin. Oh, not at all.
22:49 Not compensated. What do you do? I mean, how do you How do you address that? I don’t know what people do. I can tell
22:55 you what we have done. And what we have done is create a wholly owned subsidiary that is for-profit where we take the
23:01 talent that lives within Kings View and try to parlay it into revenue. That’s
23:07 what we’ve done. And it covers our losses because literally we have a number of programs that we’re committed
23:13 to do because we care about the people in them that we are literally paying to run.
23:18 Yes. I mean, that’s just the reality. And you can hear the bitterness in my voice. [laughter]
23:23 It’s okay, man. It’s okay. It’s okay. I mean, I’m going to spin it right. I think it’s bitterness built uh born of
23:29 the frustration of wanting to help people to actually do what you’re here to do.
23:34 Beverly, you looked like you had kind of some nods going on as she was discussing uh how how you deal with the the
23:41 stretching, the thinning of the dollar. So, for example, um some of our outreach workers will take water
23:47 and they’ll take other things out to the community where someone’s having a problem um to to make sort of that
23:54 introduction to make sure they’re hydrated, just meeting. Yeah. And and unfortunately, we we
24:00 account for x amount of people we’re going to see, but we see there are many more that come out. So, mid year we
24:05 don’t have waters. media. We might not have snacks for the people we’re trying to help and make sure that they’re
24:11 hydrated or in the winter that they’re warm. We we do until we run out. Yeah. And then when we run out, we have to
24:16 become creative. And so we will do things such as PepsiCo here in the valley. We went to them and they gave us
24:23 12 pallets of Gatorade or Powerade and water. And they’ve been very generous.
24:29 Or we will go to um Costco and they’ll give us a $100 certificate to buy provisions to keep going. But that’s
24:36 when it gets tricky. And then we have generous individuals who will say here’s $100 for the wellness center because
24:42 these folk come in and they attend um meetings, art classes, they do their
24:47 resume and when they come they get like a credit and that credit ends up giving them a ticket and then they’ll get
24:54 enough tickets where they can come to our store on like a Wednesday and we’re able to give them provisions like
24:59 toothpaste and toothbrushes and deodorant, things that we all take for
25:04 granted. [music]
25:09 One of the things that um we’ve done here at Kings View to help the general public is uh we created something called
25:16 the mental health minute and it’s a part it’s podcast and it’s on some large
25:23 stations and it’s on our website but it’s different topics that Amanda writes about and records doom scrolling um the
25:32 uh getting mad when you’re driving road rage rage And so um Amanda’s done all these
25:38 and people fubbing. Yeah. And people who are driving around hear it and they’ve
25:43 commented and they’ve said Beverly I heard Amanda on radio station and then I heard you know what this topic and it
25:50 really resonated with me and so it’s become part of the culture of the valley here and when a new one comes out people
25:57 will go and listen to it and they will go back to the radio station or to our website and download what mattered to
26:03 them. There was one about narcissism and there’s one about communication. So there there we’ve got about 30 now.
26:10 Yeah. Over 30. Yeah. Over 30 subjects and it and so people are getting that little nugget of something. Grief is one
26:17 of them that they don’t have to pay for. It’s just over the airwaves and they can go
26:22 back and revisit it which I think is is brilliant because we’re actually on that scale millions of people are hearing the
26:29 message. Yes. And as is with this, people are going to hear the message and that’s important. We have the suicide hotline. There are
26:35 about 12, I think 12, 13 now, um, entities that are responsible for the
26:41 suicide prevention, the 988 that was rolled out. And for the Central Valley, Kings View holds that contract. And it’s
26:48 such a privilege. Um, and I feel like that just the some of the
26:54 things that we’ve learned from individuals who have attempted suicide and survived um will often say that they
27:02 uh the minute they like many of them are are those that jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge that the minute their hands
27:09 left the rail they regretted it and that they wanted to live. And most people,
27:14 you know, even though you would say, well, no, they wanted to die. That’s why they attempted suicide. Most people they want to live but they want their they
27:20 want the pain to stop, right? And so our business is about trying to help people
27:27 make the pain stop and find a way going forward to to manage it and cope with it
27:33 uh and you know eradicate it if it’s possible and if not learn to to live with it but thrive and and that is
27:40 possible and we see people do it every day. for each of you. Is there any just one real impetus behind why you continue
27:48 to do this? Uh, you know, a person, a story, something that moved you, that
27:53 changed you where you continue to draw on or it continues to provide fuel for
27:59 what you do, Beverly. So, we have Dr. Cruz is an amazing psychiatrist and he does children,
28:05 adolescent as well as adults. And there was a young lady who had OCD and would
28:13 keep going around the table and having to tap it a million times. You not million literally, but and he got her
28:19 sorted out because the school was saying well she doesn’t get here on time. Um her language is not English is not her
28:24 first language. It went on and on and on. She is now in college. Yeah. Next
28:31 time you make me cry. She’s now um doing really well. And there was a point where they thought she might have to be
28:36 hospitalized, but working with her every week for months changed her life
28:43 forever. So I think about that one. That’s a good win. Well, it wasn’t my
28:49 win. That was a psychiatrist win, but we’re part of that, you know. Exactly. Yeah. You make it so the psychiatrist can do what he does. Dr.
28:57 Cruz, thank you. What about you, Amanda? There’s so there’s so many. There’s one that comes to mind just for this
29:02 discussion, but so this gentleman um was
29:07 uh is is now a substance use disorder counselor, but for um over a decade was
29:13 actually homeless and addicted uh to heroin. Um and a number of other drugs
29:20 and lived on the street and was married and had children and was aware. um was
29:26 lost his family and just said that his brain had been hijacked by the drug and that he wanted the drug more for that
29:34 long, but now that he was able through people reaching out to him uh to achieve
29:39 recovery and and then has maintained recovery by helping others. And so he’s a licensed he’s got like a gazillion
29:46 letters behind his name after he got clean and sober. He just got really focused on bettering himself, educating
29:52 himself. And so he is a an amazing substance use disorder counselor that I worked with personally just as a as a
29:58 colleague uh clinical director in Sacramento area, but just was so amazing
30:04 uh at how he is able to speak to people that tell him there’s no chance for me or I’ll never get clean and sober
30:11 because his story is so powerful. I mean, he would be someone that it would be easy to say
30:18 this guy’s never he’s just not going to do it, you know? He’s just never going to do it. But he did it. cash.
30:23 I mean, even if it takes 50 times in rehab, you know, it may be the 50th time and he
30:29 lived, you know, like I said, it’s more than a decade he’s helped all these other people, hundreds of people because they
30:36 listen to him. And are are the people he’s helping, are they primarily homeless? Yes. I mean,
30:41 he works in the particular program he works at is a unhoused program. Unhoused. And yeah, we’re moving to say that now
30:48 unhoused. Um and specifically with those that struggle with addiction. Yeah.
30:54 So it is it’s inspiring. But um and I I just I mean yeah we see it we
31:00 see it all the time. We have so many amazing stories. Yeah. It’s such u just want to thank you for what you do
31:07 just from a personal perspective. It’s like I when you started talking about the homeless earlier and getting out and
31:12 taking them things and finding them and identifying and seeing needs and you know now you you you you kind of close that loop with
31:20 Yeah. you know one of your own counselors is a former unhoused person. I mean talk
31:25 about lived experience. Yeah. It’s incredible. But well we want to thank you for giving us this opportunity. Literally the only way
31:32 stigma goes away is if people talk about it. It’s just I mean it’s like talking about heart health is very normal. We do
31:37 it all the time. We don’t wait for people to have heart attacks to talk about heart health. We shouldn’t wait till people are headed to the
31:44 psychiatric hospital to talk about mental health. It’s just ridiculous that we do it that way. So, thank you for
31:49 elevating the conversation. And am I going to be able to keep my lunch box? Absolutely. And I like this. What about
31:55 the chair? Super comfortable. We’ll say yes on camera. And [laughter] then when
32:01 I got to keep the chair. Wink wink.
32:07 [laughter] That was O to Ziki Japanese food. Anyway, anyway, thanks so much to uh
32:14 to both of you. Amanda uh Nugent Divine, I got that right. CEO of
32:20 Kings View and Beverly Raine, uh executive director
32:26 of marketing and communications. Thank you. See, I don’t even have to put a title. No, you don’t. I just said it. Perfect.
32:32 You guys are fantastic. God bless you for what you do. Keep it up. Best of luck going forward. We hope that this
32:38 does good things for you and for the industry as a whole. But uh thank you so much. I hope it encourages just one person.
32:45 Yeah, just one person. That’s all it takes. It’ll be more than one, but just one person. Oh, that’s very optimistic of you.
32:50 [laughter] I appreciate it. I am optimistic. It’ll be thousands. Anyway, thanks again and uh we’re
32:56 heading back out on the road for another episode of Lunch with [music] Row. Join us then.
33:03 Thanks for joining me on the Lunch with Row Mobile Vodcast. I hope you’ll hit subscribe and tell your friends. I’ll
33:09 see you right back here every two weeks with an all new episode. [music] It’s the Lunch with Row Mobile Vodcast,
33:15 behavioral health’s new best friend. [music] Look at this.
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