Mental health is just as important as physical health.
And one can impact the other.
That’s where the Bert Nash Center’s nutrition case manager and health and wellness coach can help clients with their overall wellbeing.
Breanne, a nutrition case manager, and Ethan, a health and wellness coach, help clients focus on the whole person, which has been an integral part of the Bert Nash Center’s transition to being a Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC).
“Our focus is on healthy living in general,” Breanne said. “Building healthy lifestyles, developing goals, anything from healthy eating to exercise to stress management to motivation.”
Breanne and Ethan each work with their own set of clients.
“Each client is very different, very individualized,” Breanne said.
“Even people with similar goals can be different,” Ethan said. “The approach can be different, just based on what the client’s preference is. “It really needs what the client needs and what the client wants.”
Breanne and Ethan help clients come up with their own health goals.
“It’s really them verbalizing what they want,” Breanne said. “We can prompt and guide what a realistic goal would look like, but for the most part, it’s them saying this is what I would like to see in my life, or this is why I would like to do it.”
Breanne and Ethan receive clients through an internal referral process, typically from a Bert Nash Center therapist or a case manager.
“What I care about is what the client’s goals are and what they want for their own wellbeing,” Ethan said.
Smoking cessation can be part of what both Breanne and Ethan do in working with clients.
“People I have worked with have had that as one of their goals,” Breanne said.
Both Breanne and Ethan have received training to help people to stop smoking.
“I have two clients who recently quit drinking and also want to quit smoking but haven’t yet,” Ethan said. “I think it would be great for clients to quit smoking for their health and how they feel overall, but my place is not to tell them to quit smoking. We really go at whatever the client’s pace is and if they want to quit smoking, we can offer that support to them. But it’s up to them and what their priorities are.”
Breanne’s priority may be on nutrition, but she also focuses on the whole person.
“It’s really not just nutrition,” she said. “It’s also lifestyle and wellness.”
Having a nutrition case manager and a health and wellness coach on staff is a new approach for the Bert Nash Center treatment team as part of the CCBHC initiative.
“Having a specific-focused provider who is just about health and wellbeing, that has been an important change,” Ethan said.
Both Breanne and Ethan do what they do because they enjoy helping people.
“I can see that people can really thrive and benefit from these services,” Breanne said. I love the feeling of helping people, just knowing that I’m helping someone move toward who they want to be or what goals they want to achieve.”
“I’m very non-directive with my clients, so not telling them what to do, so that all of the changes that they make, they are doing that themselves,” Ethan said. “When a client tells me that they are proud of the changes they’ve made and they’re happy with the way things are going, then that is their own progress that they worked hard for and earned themselves. It feels good to have clients tell me that they are proud of themselves.”
“To bring that sense of empowerment,” Breanne said. “Reflecting on how far they have come. That in itself makes people proud of themselves, even if it’s a small goal. So having those moments is really cool.”
Both what Breanne and Ethan do involves asking thought-provoking conversations and getting people to think about things in a new way.
“A lot of our conversations are about exploring, asking people who they want to be,” Breanne said. “Like I am working with someone on improving their sleep routine, that can affect someone’s mental health.”
“For example, I’ll ask someone, since making this change, what other changes have you noticed. They will think about since they started going outside, they feel less depressed, or if they interact with other people, they get more socialization. Helping people feel less stuck impacts their well-being.”
Both Breanne and Ethan will initiate conversations with clients by asking questions to get them to open up, to get them to share, to get them to reflect. But a big part of their job is listening.
“When I meet with a client for the first time, I always tell them this first meeting is the one I talk the most in, the rest of the meetings, my job is to ask open-ended questions and listen a lot,” Ethan said. “It’s really the clients who are in charge.”
Breanne and Ethan offer one-on-one coaching and interaction with clients, assist in setting individualized goals, and provide accountability and encouragement. Clients can ask their provider for a health coach referral.
“I think people know the answers themselves, they just don’t know how to find them,” Ethan said of the role of a health and wellness coach. “Our job is to help them get there.”