Please welcome Adrienne Gregory and Jody Brand into their new roles as administrator and deputy administrator (respectively) in the behavioral health department.

Born and raised in Oklahoma, Adrienne and her husband have enjoyed living and working in Alaska—Bethel, Anchorage-Wasilla, and Unalaska (Dutch Harbor). As a licensed marriage and family therapist in Alaska and Oklahoma, Adrienne has 20 years of experience in behavioral health care. Adrienne has enjoyed serving out multiple two-year contracts with YKHC since 2007 in the BH department as a village clinical supervisor of behavioral health aides, clinician for McCann Treatment Center, BH village services director, and in the medical outpatient clinic as the IMPACT manager, ACT clinician, and most recently, the ACT manager.

Adrienne’s passion is marital and family therapy but she also enjoys designing and rebuilding behavioral health systems to ensure Indigenous and Native populations receive high quality mental health and substance use services. Adrienne’s goal is to build a strong and robust department through the integration of behavioral and medical health care, raising up Native workers across Bethel and the YK villages, and by implementing ideas and input from staff, service users, and community partners. The behavioral health department is committed to ongoing development and transformation to become a leader in rural and tribal Integrated behavioral health care throughout Alaska and the nation.

My career and life choices led me to become a behavioral health and substance use clinician in 2008. My desire for an adventure led me to move with my husband to Bethel, Alaska, in 2019. Initially, I had every intention of returning to my small community in the mountains of Utah three years later. But Bethel had other plans, and this region quickly became my home. My husband and I are blessed to have our daughter Ashley living and working in Bethel. She’s a nurse at YKHC.

As a member of the Medication Assisted Treatment program for opioid and fentanyl abuse, I have gotten to know people and have seen them make significant life changes. I have witnessed firsthand how substance use affects individuals, families, and communities. In my practice, I strive to meet YKHC’s Napartet Strategies for healthy people and communities to reduce the negative consequences of substance use and misuse through improving the delivery of care.

I often think of one person I observed making significant changes in her life. She shared with me that for the first time in years because she stopped using substances, she could finally lay her head down on her pillow at night and relax. No longer was her head filled with thoughts, questions, and anxiety about what would occur when she woke up and began to feel the effects of withdrawal symptoms. What a tremendous blessing it was for her to be able to relax and experience peaceful sleep, which allowed her to function better in the morning. This was one of many positive changes in her life, and it’s a change that I believe often gets taken for granted and overlooked.

I work to ensure that behavioral health is meeting the needs of the people and communities across the YK Delta. All behavioral health departments must collaborate and bridge the gap with other YKHC departments. I envision village trips becoming more meaningful and helpful for each community. We are planning village trips for this year to focus on increasing wellness. There will be community events incorporating self-care, reducing substance use, and decreasing and eliminating suicides through education, reducing barriers to accessing treatment, and utilizing the Calricaraq model for healing and promoting traditional healthy practices.

I am excited to be a part of the positive changes taking place in the behavioral health department, and I look forward to working with our new administrator as we strive to provide the best services we can for the people of the YK Delta and to meet the individual needs of each village in alignment with the Napartet strategies.