INOVAKELLAR CENTER

FALL/WINTER 2014 NEWSLETTER

IN THIS ISSUE

2LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

3TEENS IN CRISISKellar Expansion for Teens in Need of Crisis Intervention

4INOVA KELLAR CENTER TRAINING PROVIDES PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT TO THERAPISTS

5SPOTLIGHTMeet Kellar’s New Medical Director, Sonia Thomas, MD

CARDINAL CLASSIC RAISES $150K FOR KELLARLocal Celebrities Support the Cardinal Classic and Inova Kellar Center

An all-star cast assembled this spring to support Inova Kellar Center at the Cardinal Bank Charity Classic. Mark and Margot Bisnow of Bisnow Media chaired the

12th annual event and brought their particular mix of hu-mor, compassion and energy to the Classic. The day started with a sold-out field, over 200 golfers each played 12 holes at the beautiful Country Club of Fairfax. Sponsors, players and guests then headed to the ballroom for an inspirational evening of speeches from community leaders including the Bisnows, WJLA’s Kimberly Suiters, the Voice of the Wizards Steve Buckhantz, and Tournament Chairman and Cardinal Bank President Kevin Reynolds.

The evening program was particularly emotional because the event occurred just weeks after the loss of three Fairfax County high school students from suicide. Kimberly Suiters, a familiar face from WJLA News Channel 7, shared a clip during the presentation of her interview with a parent of one of the teens who committed suicide. Her research when covering the Northern Virginia tragedies and her quest to understand what

From left to right: Voice of the Wizard Steve Buckhantz, Kimberly, Suiters, WJLA News Channel 7 and Rick Leichtweis

Behavorial Health Services for Youth and Families

FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

ABOUT USInova Kellar Center is a not-for-

profit comprehensive behavorial health outpatient program in Fairfax, Virginia. Established in 1991 to address commu-nity needs, Inova Kellar Center pro-vides a full continuum of mental health and substance use disorder treatment services and special education pro-grams for children, adolescents, adults and families.

Contact Us:11204 Waples Mill Road, Fairfax, VA703/218-8500inova.org/kellar

Executive Director Rick Leichtweis, PhDMedical Director Sonia Thomas, MDLorency Fernando, MDSonali Mahajan, MDStephanie Mayrant, MDJames P. McMurrer, MDShruti Tewari, MDProgram Manager, Outpatient Family Services Lynn Field, PhD, LPCProgram Manager, Psychological Services J. Thomas Giroux, PhDProgram Manager of Clinical Programs Elizabeth Hinkle, LMFTPrincipal, The Kellar School Amy Hartswick, MS

2 Kellar News

Dear Friends of Inova Kellar Center,

Welcome to Inova Kellar Center’s quarterly newsletter where you will be able to learn about current programs of-fered at the Center; education on current trends in mental health; staff highlights and the wonderful work of the many philanthropic supporters that make the services here pos-sible. Inova Kellar Center provides over 30,000 encounters with children, adolescents and their families each year and the number keeps growing. Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder treatment has never been in such demand as it is today as evidenced by the number of high profile events in Virginia over the past few years involving young people with mental health issues. Inova Kellar Center takes great pride in being able to provide these desperately needed services to our community.

This has been a successful year filled with program expansion, professional education, Kellar School graduates and successful fundraising. In 2014 Inova Kellar Center raised 1.7 million which includes a major gift of one million dollars from the Kellar Family Foundation to enable Inova Health System to expand mental health services and Inova Kellar Center’s reach in Northern Virginia. The Kellar family has been a loyal and committed partner for over 23 years and this program would not be possible without that commitment.

Enjoy the newsletter and if you are interested in visiting Inova Kellar Center, please contact us and come for a tour! On behalf of the entire staff of the Kellar Center thank you for your continued support of this critical community program.

Wishes for a safe and enjoyable holi-day season.

Rick Leichtweis, PhD

The Kellar Family Foundation donates one million dollars to Inova Kellar Center to enable the expansion of mental health services to adolescents in the

Northern Virginia area.

TEENS IN CRISISKellar Expansion for Teens in Need of Crisis Intervention

They are adolescents as young as 12 and as old as 21 and their families. The young men and

women begin arriving at 8 a.m. filling the waiting area; some are nervous, some are sad and feeling helpless and some are hopeful that they will be able to recapture their happiness and sense of belonging. Each teen allows trained staff to search their backpacks, pockets and coats to ensure that Inova Kellar Center’s Culture of Safety will keep all staff and clients safe throughout their stay. A staff member greets them and inquires about their previous evening or weekend and spends time assessing each child to determine if any change in their individualized treatment needs to occur. They complete a worksheet ask-ing about safety issues, meals they have had, nutrition, sleep and physical activ-ity - the details of daily life so many of us take for granted. Each worksheet is reviewed by a staff member who then communicates any pertinent informa-tion to the physicians and other team members. During this time the young people also do school work, trying to keep up with their academic workload during this time of crisis to prevent fur-ther disruption when they return back to their school and community.

This is the start of the day at Inova Kellar Center’s Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP). The program is from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. and consists of group, in-

dividual and family treatment sessions and psycho-educational programming. An individualized plan of care is devel-oped with the adolescent and family to provide a course of treatment towards the goals they have identified to work toward during this brief, intensive crisis intervention.

Patients in this program are typically experiencing a mental health crisis that is interfering with their ability to man-age their day to day activities at school, home and/or in the community effec-tively. These adolescents often come to Inova Kellar Center as a result of concerns for their personal safety. They may be having suicidal thoughts, engag-ing in self-injury, using substances and/or alcohol, running away from home or engaging in other high risk behavior which is affecting their day to day func-tioning. The patients are referred from their schools, therapists, physicians, insurance companies or friends or fam-ily members familiar with the Center’s services. The average length of stay in PHP is 2 weeks with opportunities to transition to lower levels of care such as an Intensive Outpatient Program that allows them to return to school. This could be at Inova Kellar Center, which provides a full continuum of care so patients can remain in the same environment receiving different levels of service depending upon their needs. The patient may also choose to return to their psychiatrist or another program that provided the referral.

While enrolled in the PHP program the adolescents work in peer groups throughout the day. A staff member is present with the milieu at all times guiding the discussion or activity that

Fall/wiNter 2014 3

Inova Kellar Center embraces a multi-disciplinary approach and each patient’s case is reviewed by a team of professionals led by a board-certified adolescent and child psychiatrist that includes therapists and staff from a variety of training and educational

backgrounds.

INOVA KELLAR CENTER TRAINING PROVIDES PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT TO THERAPISTS

Leadership and learning are indispensable to

each other. -- John F. Kennedy

In 2011, in celebration of Inova Kel-lar Center’s 20th Anniversary, the Kellar Family Foundation provided

funding for Kellar to host its first Edu-cation Series program. The goal of the series was to provide the Kellar staff and professional partners in the field with top-notch training on treatment protocols. Workshops focused on topics relevant to the mental health of chil-dren and adolescents including Cyber Bullying, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Asperger Syndrome, Eating Disorders, Trauma, Dialectical Behav-ior Therapy (DBT) among others.

In 2013, the Education Series workshops evolved to support the Commonwealth of Vir-ginia’s current initiative of implement-ing a Systems of Care model approach to treating children and families in need of mental health services through-out the state. This initiative states that at the core of a successful Systems of Care model is the ability to assess fidel-ity within the continuum – meaning the use of Evidenced-Based Practice. Evidenced-Based treatment interven-tions are critical in measuring efficacy and effectiveness of an array of services. With this initiative as a guide, all speak-ers and topics selected incorporated historical data, research, and treatment strategies backed up with empirical data. In addition, Kellar wanted to ensure that participants walked away with practical methods to employ when working with their young clients, so criteria included professionals who provided a hands-on presentation ap-proach, small group sessions as well as a tool-kit of materials for attendees to take home to their workplace.

Lynn Field, PhD, LPC, manages the Education Series and is rewarded by the feedback she receives. “It is very

exciting to be able to provide training to colleagues at Inova and in the com-munity. We did our best to determine what would be the most useful to clini-cians with hopes that they would walk away with something that was immedi-ately relevant and practical.”

The Education Series provides Inova Kellar Center the opportunity to part-ner with other health professionals. The grant from the Kellar Family Founda-tion makes available scholarships to our

public partners in the community. Shanise Allen. Chair of Fairfax County CSA/SOC Training Team and her team benefit from the Kellar scholar-

ships. “Fairfax County greatly appreci-ates the partnership with Kellar in shar-ing training opportunities with county and school staff in evidence-based and trauma informed treatments,” said Al-len. “The trainings increase the capac-ity of our system and staff to meet the needs of youth and their families in System of Care (SOC) practice.”

The Education Series also provides an opportunity for mental health care professionals to share their challenges, successes and to find new ways to work together to improve healthcare for families. “Attending the Kellar training series offers a chance to be exposed to, or broaden, expertise in areas of inter-est to the youth serving community,” said Jean Bartley, Director, CSB Youth Resource Program. “The opportunity to network with community partners is a huge positive as well. Collaboration among community partners provid-ing services to a youth/family always enhances the services provided.”

Through the Education Series, Inova Kellar Center will continue to provide leadership and education to their staff and the community at large.

4 Kellar News

SPOTLIGHTKellar Welcomes New Medical Director, Sonia Thomas, MD

Growing up in a family of doctors and in a community home to one of the oldest medical educa-

tion centers in all of Asia, for as long as she can remember, Sonia Thomas wanted to be a doctor. Eventually she would attend the prestigious Goa Medical College, established in 1842 by the Portuguese, the same institution at-tended by her cousin and her older sis-ter. Goa is a former Portuguese colony and a beautiful coastal tourist destina-tion located on the Western shoreline. Goa was also a popular European hippy scene along the likes of Ibiza and Bali, attracting a party crowd that came for the music and drugs. The emergency room where her sister worked treated patients from drug overdoses and she often would return from work relat-ing their tragic stories which were also prominently featured in newspaper headlines. Later, the loss of a classmate due to a drug overdose was a defining moment for the future doctor. Influ-enced by the compassionate physicians surrounding her, a desire to help others and a fascination with human relation-ships and behaviors, Thomas choose to specialize in psychiatry.

Thomas came to the United States in 1996, she was soon married and expect-ing her first child. In order to main-tain her skills she took a position as a research assistant at Howard Univer-sity and later applied to the psychiatry residency program. She completed a fellowship in child and adolescent psy-chiatry at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. where she was named chief resident.

Joining Inova Kellar Center in 2004, Dr. Thomas treated children, adoles-cents and their families in the Partial Hospitalization Program and Outpa-tient Family Services. In this role, she was responsible for medication man-agement, developmental guidance and consultation to children with mood,

anxiety and substance related disor-ders. “I truly feel that child psychiatry services are at the hub of health care coordination,” explains Dr. Thomas. “We have the power to influence long term health care because we know that socially and emotionally healthy child-hood development years are crucial to preventing the onset of psychiatric disorders later in life.”

This year, Dr. Thomas was appointed Kellar’s Medical Director and she pro-vides clinical supervision, instruction

and direction to the therapists and sup-ports staff throughout the organization. Thomas’ personal goal is transforming health care delivery, “I see the single most pressing need facing the mental health industry as the necessity for all stakeholders – patients, families, health care providers, insurers, pharmaceuti-cal companies and scientists to come together to create a mental health care system that is safe, effective, affordable and patient centered.” She strongly be-lieves in providing the right care, at the right time to each and every patient.

“We have the power to influence long term health care because we know that healthy childhood development years are crucial to preventing the onset of psychiatric disorders later in life.”

Fall/wiNter 2014 5

TEENS IN CRISIS (CONTINUED)...

covers a range of topics. The curricu-lum is designed to help teens learn how to navigate the challenges facing them in their daily life. These skills focus on appropriate and healthy ways to communicate and interact with their peers, parents, teachers and others in their lives. Staff members assess each patient prior to the end of the day for any safety concerns and to help them develop effective and meaningful goals for the evening ahead while at home. When parents or family members return at the end of the day to pick up their child, the staff has the opportunity to brief them if something needs to be communicated. This is a critical part of Inova Kellar Center’s treatment model which focuses on a family systems ap-proach that involves the patient and family working together to provoke change and make better choices in their lives. The family participation is re-quired as part of the overall treatment intervention.

The hope is that enrolling a child in a PHP program will prevent potentially higher levels of care such as hospitaliza-tion and residential treatment, which require the child to be separated from their family, school and community and

are significantly more expensive. The intent of this intensive intervention program is to avoid a hospitalization or out of community placement. Un-fortunately, some children do require a higher level of care in a hospital in order to maintain safety. When this occurs, Inova Kellar Center continues to work with the hospital and family to have the child return upon successfully completing a program from another agency.

6 Kellar News

DEFINITIONSPartial Hospitalization Parogram (PHP)PHP is a short-term treatment program for adolescents and teens experiencing difficulty functioning at school, home and in the community because of mental health issues and/or substance abuse.

MilieuA therapeutic group of kids and

staff.

Dr. Thomas is also an assistant clini-cal professor of psychiatry and behav-ioral sciences at George Washington University, W.D.C.

When she is away from her profes-sional responsibilities, Dr. Thomas relaxes with her family and spends her spare time reading, painting and practicing yoga. Growing up in India where meditation and relaxation were an integral part of traditional culture, Thomas preferred dancing and aerobic activities. It was only after coming to the United States where she was lured

by a yoga studio on every corner that she become a fan herself. Dr. Thomas is soft-spoken with a lovely accent, you can imagine her drawing the confidence of a child; this combined with her pas-sion for mental health care and her pa-tients, Kellar is delighted to have such a remarkable doctor leading their staff.

SPOTLIGHT: SONIA THOMAS, MD(CONTINUED)...

brings a teen to this decision led her to Dr. Rick Leichtweis. Ms. Suiters shared her conversations with families and friends of teens who have committed suicide. Her stories were haunting and captured the attention and emotion of every person at the event.

A father of two adult sons, Chairman Mark Bisnow visited Inova Kellar Cen-ter to tour the facility. “It was a moving experience to visit Kellar and begin to understand how important its mission is - to help kids who are struggling with very grown up emotional issues,” ex-plained Mark. “The sign over the lobby desk says it all, ‘A Happy Childhood Lasts Forever.’ The other thing that’s moving is to realize how much effort and passion Cardinal has put into help-ing Kellar. The rest of us are very lucky to be able to help out just by participat-ing in the Cardinal Classic.”

Wrapping up the evening program, Voice of the Wizards Steve Buckhantz, was once again running the live auction and using his winning personality to raise funds for the Classic.

The evening raised over $150,000 for Inova Kellar Center and the proceeds from the 2014 Classic will partially be used to add a family therapist to the Center’s Intensive Outpatient Pro-gram (IOP). The IOP program enables students to attend school during the day and receive treatment afterward. Kellar strongly believes that the best treatment program involves not just the child but the entire family system. Current insurance limitations prevent

the Center from being able to bill for family therapy when a child is in IOP. The family has to find these services elsewhere, often paying entirely out-of-pocket. This is a significant clinical void in the program as most of the fam-ilies are in need of this type of interven-tion. Through the use of the Cardinal Classic funds hundreds of families will now receive family therapy in conjunc-tion with the IOP treatment program. “This will strengthen the program significantly by increasing the intensity of the treatment provided through the active involvement of the entire family system. I fully expect to see a decrease in the length of stay for each patient as a result of the program addition,” according to Dr. Leichtweis. “This is a perfect example of how partnerships between community business leaders and non-profits can work together to provide services that will impact hun-dreds of families for a relatively small amount of dollars.”

Fall/wiNter 2014 7

From left to right: Dr. Rick Leichtweis, Stacey Reynolds, Bernard Clineberg, Kevin Reynolds

Margot and Mark Bisnow

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