Stephanie Christian on Better Together Live with TherapyWorks

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LAUREN FURTADO, HOST
Thank you everyone for being here, and welcome to Better Together Live. This is a space where we create helpful connections in the community when it matters most. I’m Lauren. I’m your host and a Community Relations Coordinator here at TherapyWorks. And today we are joined by Stephanie from Alsana. Thank you for being here, Stephanie.

STEPHANIE CHRISTIAN
Thank you for having me.

FURTADO
And we started Better Together Live to create a place to highlight resources like Alsana so that we can have more awareness and access for support for our local community. We really hope that you find these conversations helpful. Stephanie, we are so thankful that you are here, and we have the privilege of having you and one of your colleagues, Lisa, one of the registered dietitians from the Alsana team present to our team of therapists. I’m really excited to be able to share some of that information with other mental health professionals and clients to learn more about the support that you offer. With that said, I wanted Why don’t you share a little bit about yourself, your role, and what Alsana is?

CHRISTIAN
Sure. Well, thank you again for having us on. I’m Stephanie Christian. I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist. My role at Alsana is the Regional Director of Clinical Outreach. I have a few pieces to my role. One is being out in the community and sharing resources, Alsana’s programs, and then other resources as well with folks. I also assist our team with discharge planning, so it’s always helpful for me to learn who’s out there, different treatment programs and outpatient resources, and also free resources, because I’m always assisting our teams with linking folks to step down plans or to other programs. Alsana is an eating recovery community. We support folks 18 and older through the lifespan with eating disorder treatment. We offer care at the residential level and then partial hospitalization level and intensive outpatient level. We have in-person programs throughout California as well as in Missouri and Alabama. Then we also have a fully virtual program in California now, which is the PHP-IOP level of care, and it’s a great program as well.

FURTADO
Awesome. Well, we are so glad to have that support in our local community. I know that with many mental health areas of support, treatment, therapy, there are different approaches, modalities, protocols. What would you say sets Alsana apart? What makes you stand out?

CHRISTIAN
I think there’s a couple of things that make us unique. We use what’s called an Adaptive Care Model^®. We really look at the five dimensions for every client, which are their medical, nutritional, and therapeutic needs, which I do think you see in other programs. But additionally, we also look at the relational and movement dimension for every client that we work with. And what we’re really trying to do is get a full picture of where the client’s at, what their needs are, and then also to incorporate those aspects into treatment so that when they return back home from treatment, they really have a stronger relationship with all of those pieces of themselves in their lives moving forward.

FURTADO
I’m sure that there are so many other helpful tools that you use that would be important for people to know. I’m curious if you can share maybe something, a unique or surprising fact about Alsana that would be interesting for our listeners to know.

CHRISTIAN
We’re probably one of the only treatment programs, if not the only, that uses compassion-focused therapy as our theoretical framework. I think this is important because when Alsana started, one of the, I think, main values that they held was doing work that was compassion-led. So when the Alsana leadership team was really looking for what framework would fit with that, they identified compassion-focused therapy as the best fit for the work that was already being done. And the real focus around CFT is reducing shame and blame around our client’s eating disorder, which is an issue we see time and time again with folks that have eating disorders. And then something that’s really fortunate is we were able to bring on Dr. Stan Steindl, who is a lead researcher in CFT, onto our advisory board. He’s been really guiding us the past couple of years actually now, on deepening our training around CFT and then how to apply that in our work, which is really exciting. I think you really feel that when you come to our programs that we’re leading with compassion.

FURTADO
I love that approach. It’s clear that you do such important work at Alsana, and I assume very rewarding. I’m curious for you personally, what’s the most fulfilling part of working there, or what do you enjoy most about working at Alsana?

CHRISTIAN
Well, it’s a hard and easy question to answer because I like a lot of things about my work, and then my role in particular, and then our Alsana community. I think one of my favorite things, though, is our culture and the teams that I get to work with. So one thing that I learned when I joined the team is that one of our values is a servant leadership style. You really see that with the teams. We don’t really have a hierarchical approach. Our leaders are really just empowering and engage in really meaningful conversations with us on the team and then also in the treatment teams. I think that that translates as well with how we work with the humans that we’re privileged in treating. We just have a really strong, positive culture. Again, very compassion-centered. That’s a privilege for me to be in that environment and culture. Then also in my role, I get to bring awareness. I think I’ve always had a social justice piece to or passion, I would say. I have the opportunity to just bring awareness to eating disorders, to address stigma that often comes along with seeking treatment, and also to share resources, which I love doing. So trying to be a help to our community. Those are the things that I love most, probably.

FURTADO
Well, we are so grateful that you are in this role and out there sharing these resources. And speaking about resources, what would you say is Alsana’s favorite way to stay connected within the community and to continue to share this support and these resources?

CHRISTIAN
Yeah. We do a few things, which is another part, something I love as well about Alsana. We offer free presentations throughout the year. We do CE events, which is great for those clinicians who are trying to deepen their knowledge. We have great interesting topics from experts in the field, so that’s an opportunity. We also do free events that are client-facing. If folks want to learn more about our programs in general or an educational topic, we have a variety of free events. Personally, I love to go out in the community and meet with people in person. I also do virtual meetings, but I love to get out and connect with people in the real world. Then we do also throughout the year host different events. I’m usually involved in those typically for providers, whether it be a dinner or lunch, just to connect and get to know each other better and build community.

FURTADO
I’m sure there are so many people that could benefit from learning about what you do and the support that’s there. Like you said, the approach of compassion and trying to lessen the shame. I’m glad that you’re out there sharing that with everyone and having all of those opportunities for people to learn. With that said, is there anything else that as we wrap up our chat together, that you’d like to share about Alsana or how people can reach and connect with you?

CHRISTIAN
Absolutely. One thing that’s important to know is access to care is very important to us. We are in-network with all major insurances, including Kaiser. We also have Medi-Cal contracts, which is a big passion of mine, as well as we do offer single case agreements and scholarshipping. We just want people to know that it’s always worth a conversation because we want treatment to be accessible to everyone. Our admissions team is available by phone, or we have a chat feature on our website. I am also always available by phone, text, or email. If you want to ask more, get more information about Alsana or ask me any questions. Our website is www.alsana.com

FURTADO
I’m so glad that you mentioned the insurance piece and the best way for everyone to get in contact with the admissions team and yourself. So thank you for sharing that. Yes, please do check out their Instagram and website to follow Alsana for more information and access some of the resources that Stephanie mentioned. As for us here at TherapyWorks, our philosophy is very simple. We believe that we are better together. Everything that we do is in support of our community and people like you. We also understand that it can feel sometimes not easy to reach out, but when you are ready, we are here. So with that, Stephanie, thank you so much for being here and sharing that information with our community. And for those of you joining us, we will see you next time. Take care.