Building Bridges With Medication for Opioid Use Disorder

Prairie Ridge Integrated Behavioral Healthcare

Description: This program will discuss the current state of the opioid crisis and new opportunities in North Iowa to improve access to care.

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Brenda Tyrrell spent the first 20+ years of her working life as a Certified Nursing Assistant and, later, as a Registered Nurse. During her nursing tenure, her area of expertise was cardiology and gerontology. When Brenda returned to school at the age of 43, she started a journey that ended with a Literature PhD and a Women, Gender, & Sexuality Certificate from Miami University in Oxford, OH. She worked briefly at Iowa State University before coming into her current role as the Mental Health & Wellness Education Coordinator at YSS in Ames, IA. She has multiple publications and presentations from her PhD experiences and hopes to eventually grow this current experience into her own Youth Mental Health & Wellness Curriculum that includes building resilience, self-care, managing stress, recognizing factors that influence mental health that are out of our control (Social Determinates of Health) and those that are in our control, as well as a built-in suicide prevention program. She is also an avid birder and is often (lovingly) teased about being “easily distracted by birds”!

Katy Schroeder is an associate professor and coordinator of the clinical mental health counseling master’s program in the Department of Counselor Education at the University of Iowa. She is a National Certified Counselor (NCC) and holds certifications from PATH International as an Equine Specialist in Mental Health and Learning and Therapeutic Riding Instructor. She also serves as a co-director of the Human-Animal Interactions for Wellbeing Collaborative, a University of Iowa Obermann Center Working Group on the Human-Animal Bond. Dr. Schroeder’s research, teaching, and clinical interests focus on the intersection of human–animal interactions and mental health. She has published and presented on the integration of therapy horse interactions in counseling and psychotherapy, as well as on a range of specialized topics related to the human–animal bond.

Dr. Shea Jorgensen is a community psychiatrist and serves as Chief Medical Officer at Prairie Ridge. She is board-certified in both psychiatry and addiction medicine and provides outpatient services, including for patients in the newly opened Opioid Treatment Program. Dr. Jorgensen also directs the Rural and Public Psychiatry Training Track at the University of Iowa, where she serves as adjunct faculty and helps train future psychiatrists in community-based and rural care.

He’s someone who never thought he would be an at-risk youth – as most don’t ever think they will be. What started as a picture-perfect journey with two happily married parents in an upper-middle-class household made a sudden 180-degree turn.

After the trauma of losing his father at the age of 14, he started to show behaviors of anger and began acting out. Add on the trauma of watching his best friend die in a car accident at 17, which meant he experienced two traumatic events before his brain was fully developed. He quickly spiraled down a path that no one wants to go down with depression, rage, grief, alcohol abuse, and even suicidal thoughts, all at the age of 17, officially making him an at-risk youth after not effectively dealing with his grief.

During a flight to London with his mother for a senior year field trip, they shared various stories about his father. Those anecdotes showed him that his mother was also grieving and that he was not alone in a difficult time. After this trip, John was able to recognize the power of hearing others' stories and started to use his own to help others deal with situations similar to his.

This led to a career in helping others. He has been assisting the at-risk population in finding housing, careers, and community experiences since 2004. When he is not at his inspirational speaking engagements, he is the Executive Director of 43 North Iowa https://43northiowa.org/ where he helps people with physical, intellectual, mental, and emotional disabilities.

Christine L. Riggert is a Certified Prevention Specialist and is currently the Prevention Supervisor at Prairie Ridge Integrated Behavioral Healthcare. Combined, she has over 13 years of experience in treatment services and her current prevention work. She enjoys being able to interact with an audience when presenting information and encourages discussion over lecture. Her goal in every presentation is that everyone learns something new.

Frank came through the California system as a child adopted into a family challenged with mental health and substance abuse issues. Raised in the East Bay area of Northern California, Frank attended nine different schools in his first nine years. Raised in a challenging home in a challenging environment both geographically and historically, Frank has a unique perspective that translates for many of our most traumatized communities, families and children. Frank negotiated his way into the military and his first professional training was as a special warfare diver attached to the Marine Mammal program of the United States Navy where he spent eight years honing behavior modification skills, stress management and understanding the dynamics of nonverbal communication. Later, as a stay at home dad for two kids and a student of psychology he became aware of and struggled with development, his own trauma exposure, and behavioral progressions and sequencing. This led to a journey of self-exploration and an academic focus on psychological trauma.

Frank has worked with the International Trauma Center since 1999 and deployed to Ground Zero to manage a team of clinicians working with a federal agency in “the dig” to stabilize them ongoing as they did their difficult work. Frank also worked extensively throughout Louisiana and Mississippi in the aftermath of Katrina. Frank has worked abroad in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, Nepal, Jordan, Haiti and several other countries for agencies like Save the Children, USAID, the World Bank and the International Center for the Protection of Victims of Torture to develop interventions and train clinicians working with children.

As Director of the Midwest Trauma Services Network and senior vice president of programming for the International Trauma Center he has spent the last several years introducing and training selected trauma informed evidence based practices as well as designing and implementing innovations specific to people from at-risk environments through the OJJDP. Frank currently consults, trains and speaks in several states for trauma in schools, foster and adoptive parents, community change through trauma informed care and provides direct psychoeducation and coaching to complexly traumatized children and families. Frank has a BS in disaster psychology with an emphasis on mental health, an MS in Public Health with a focus on child mental health and an MS in clinical counseling with trauma theory as the primary theoretical framework. Frank is the proud father of two gifted and resilient children who contribute in significant ways in their chosen professions. His mission is to create a world that understands the impact of trauma and abuse on children, families, communities and culture by teaching, challenging and learning everywhere he goes.

June Klein-Bacon, BSW, CBIST

Brain Injury Alliance of Iowa

The Intersection of Brain Injury & Behavioral Health

Description: This session will provide attendees the opportunity to learn about brain injury and intersections with behavioral health.  This session will support service planning through the lens of brain injury.

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John Swegle, PharmD, BCPS, BCACP

College of Pharmacy, University of Iowa  Mercy Family Medicine Residency

Medications Used In Behavioral Health

Description: This program will provide an overview of medications used to treat common mental health conditions.  Classes of medications will be reviewed including appropriate use and combination therapy as appropriate.    

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