Each year, the CSB Spirit of Excellence Awards recognize staff whose performance and actions promote, reinforce, or exemplify the CSB’s vision, mission and values.

To be considered for a CSB Spirit of Excellence Award, an individual or team must make a deliberate, obvious and valuable contribution through actions in the areas of customer service, Good Samaritan, innovation, leadership, stewardship, partnership (for non-CSB employees), and Random Act of Kindness.

This year's event was postponed from the spring due to COVID-19, and was held virtually. Staff joined together on November 12 to celebrate the more than 100 individuals who received Honors Awards and Spirit of Excellence Awards.

Get a printable program or listen the audio recording from the celebration.

Here are our honorees...

Honors Awards

• Paul Coble (Supported Community Residential Services) 
• Community Response Team: Shane Brillhart (Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department), Robert Wakeley (Community Response Team and Mobile Crisis Unit), and Adam Willemssen (Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department)
• Crystal Davis (Youth and Family, Intensive Services) 
• Valanda Engram (Community Readiness and Support Program)
• Entry and Referral Youth Walk-In Team: Diane Hattler, Brian Marvin, Maurice Martinez, Jisel Perilla, and Zach Scott
• Sara Hauserman (Behavioral Health Outpatient Services)
• Program for Assertive Community Treatment (PACT) Team: Felicia Aboagye, Nyrisha Beckman, Gary Carter, Susan Cottrell, Nina Dodson, Gladys Gwananji, Christopher Harris, Dr. Anjuli Jindal, Rebecca Knowles, Lindsay Mogard, Anwaar Smith, Cicely Spencer, Dr. Tom Thornburgh, and Catherene Wood
• Project for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (PATH) Team: Angela Amas, Maryann Cheney, Nella Leppo, Shaun Hampton, Christa Holt, Dr. Diana Mata, Ramonia Morant, Cordelia Nieketien-Tawari, Neva Ortuno, Patricia Pennant, Melvin Walking Eagle, and Jessica Weinstein
• Adam Ranjo (Diversion First/Jail Based Services) 
• Isaac Rashid (Behavioral Health and Outpatient Services) 
• Tahictic Scott (Support Coordination Services)
• Jackie Tyler (Supported Community Residential Services) 
• Youth/Family and Adult Outpatient and Case Management Engagement Team: Napoleon Corleto, Jennifer Crittenden, Michael James, and Shafiq Qureshi
• Youth and Family Services Team: Kendra Rascoe and Megan (Wallace) Bateman

Spirit of Excellence Awards

• Robert MacMurdo (Intensive Community Treatment Services) “Mr. MacMurdo assisted our son, who had been in a psychiatric hospital setting for three months, through a troubling and serious mental health crisis in 2016-17. He understood that our son, in addition to being on the Autism Spectrum, also had developmental delays. Mr. MacMurdo helped our son be placed in a group home for adults with developmental disabilities and later into a 1-bedroom apartment. Our son is happily occupying his own apartment and beginning to live a more independent and fulfilling life.”
• Pathway Homes Team: Cyrus Eftakhari, Anibel Herrera, Diane Malaquias, David Simmons, and Jean Terrill. When a residential contract provider abruptly changed, the CSB and this team immediately engaged in an extremely collaborative process to ensure that none of the 60 individuals impacted by this change would lose their housing. The transition process entailed prescriptive planning, detailed communication, engagement of individuals and their service providers, accountability to the process and quick action. The staff at the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services offered glowing feedback at the successful conclusion of the process.

Honors Award

• Danielle Mackall (Administrative Services) 

Spirit of Excellence Award

• Janice Jackson (Administrative Services) – Janice is the "front door" for the Juvenile Forensic Evaluation Program team. She schedules and manages our appointments, organizes the court orders and referral information for our evaluations, takes care of office supplies, and is our "go to" person for Credible. She is forward thinking and devoted to the fidelity of our team’s work. Janice is called upon to assist additional CSB programs and teams (both youth and adult) who are without their own administrative staff member without compromising the work she does for her team.

Honors Awards

• A New Beginning Stabilization Team: Gregory Adams, Idean Fortune, Jashan Grewal, David Rhee, Katherine Robinson, Lidia Rodriguez, and Lisa Taylor
• Catherine Flanery (Residential Treatment and Detox Services) 
• Deborah Gray (Supportive Community Residential Services) 
• SharePoint Team (Support Coordination Services): Stephanie Adkins, Cassie Astrin, Charlene Blaha, Dana Blanshan, Mary Neufeld, and Casey Roberts
• VA DBHDS Regional Support Team (Support Coordination Services): Erin Lauer and Emlyn Podesta

Spirit of Excellence Award

• Turning Point Team: Megan Downey, Jacqueline Blake, Amanda Davis-Scott, Crystal Edmonds, Giselle Gaitan-Valdizan, Marisa Gentile, Lauren Hillegas, Dr. Alexander Isaac, Dr. Anjuli Jindal, Amy Nguyen, Dr. Kathryn Walseman, and Laura Wrona. The Turning Point team is a multi-specialty coordinated care program for individuals with new onset of schizophrenia. Team members created a vibrant community of parents, service recipients, staff, and program alumni by programming family support groups, client outings, and holiday meals. Case managers meet clients in the community where they can be engaged in treatment and developed specialized treatment methods on their own to break through to their non-verbal clients.

Honors Awards

• Donna Chittum (Human Resources) 
• Hyesun Jeong (Youth and Family Outpatient Services)
• Sharan Kaur (Human Resources) 

Spirit of Excellence Award

• Amy Miller (Crisis Care) – Crisis Care is going through massive changes currently and Amy Miller has been instrumental in these changes going smoothly while always maintaining a positive attitude. The program started to accept temporary detainment orders and Amy ensured that all staff were trained, comfortable with, and prepared for the transition. The most impressive component may be that the program is preparing to move in the next year and Amy is pulled into multiple meeting consistently to ensure the transition is moving along. She is also working to prepare Crisis Care to accept medical detox, which is a large leap for Crisis Care. Amy goes above and beyond her routine job duties and responsibilities because it is not every day you have to architect two major programmatic changes while also balancing moving a program.

Spirit of Excellence Award

• Addiction and Recovery Treatment Services Implementation Team: Devin Arnold, Brian Anderson, Hossein Bakhtar, Bernadette Boozer-Madison, Sara Bryant, Michelle Gonsalves, Sean Graham, Carmen Ip, Vanessa Jenkins, Darcy Kipp Kim, Annie Le, Peggy Morris, Allyson Mosher, Nhat Nguyen, Bharati Patel, Laura Sauer, Bill Strobel, Sebastian Tezna, Ben Wagner, Andrew Wheeler, and Michael Yancey. In 2017, Virginia’s Medicaid program launched an enhanced substance use disorder treatment benefit, Addiction and Recovery Treatment Services (ARTS), which provides treatment for those with substance use disorders across the state. Through 2019, this multi-disciplined team came together from across the county several times per month to work on the necessary tasks to move forward with ARTS billing. The CSB has billed $219,000 since August 1, 2019 for this initiative and collected $113,000. The enhanced revenue will generate improved access to treatment services across the county.

Spirit of Excellence Award

• Lee Ann Dispirito (Supportive Community Residential Services) – For the past two holiday seasons, Lee Ann organized a call out to all staff at the Merrifield Center to contribute money for the day and night porters at the Merrifield Center. These individuals work very hard to keep the building neat and clean for visitors and staff. In 2018, Lee Ann collected over $800 that was shared among 14 porters. In December 2019, she collected $585 that was shared among 15 porters.

Honors Awards

• Northern Virginia Coalition of Service Providers: Kenan Aden and Sandy Pullara (MVLE Inc.)
• The Arc of Northern Virginia Services Team: Alexandra Chevez, Hillary Deichman, Lisa Fong, Caroline Girgenti, Ana Hughes, and Cheryl Johnson
• ECHO Transportation Team: (Donald Coates, Lanie Greene, and Beverly Sheppard)
• Ed Hemphill (Volunteer)
• Tanisha Holmes (Cigna)
• Sean McGinnis (Hartwood Foundation) 
• Kelly Gomes Melendez (Infant and Toddler Connection)
• Melissa Osborne (County Executive’s Office) 
• Recovery Program Solutions of Virginia Team: Jerome Hughes, Lisa Goodwin, and RPSV’s staff, Board, and volunteers
• The Honorable Tina Snee (General District Court) 

Spirit of Excellence Awards

• Claire Gesalman – Claire, whose son participates in the Self-Directed Services program, helped reenergize the SDS family support group. Her work with the family group includes establishing and growing a website so SDS families can share information and engage in real-time conversations. Claire freely shares her many years of experience hiring care givers and reporting SDS funds on her annual IRS forms and makes herself available to families when they have questions specific to their own situation.
• U.S. Geological Survey – The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has built an alliance with school districts across the nation that have school-to-work transition programs for students ages 18-22 with cognitive and other disabilities. The STEP UP program (Secondary Transition to Employment Program) connects students, many on the Autism Spectrum, and USGS research scientists on projects to preserve at-risk data, locate and tag features on maps, identify bird calls, and many other activities. USGS began this special collaboration with Fairfax County Public Schools’ Secondary Transition to Employment Program (STEP) by hosting a single student at USGS’s national headquarters in Reston in 2012. After a recent USGS presentation to the National Science Foundation (NSF) in Alexandria, VA, NSF entered into a partnership with a STEP site at FCPS’ Mount Vernon High School, where students now participate in data collection projects/scanning records with great success.

Congratulations to all of our award recipients! Be on the lookout for the nomination process for the 2021 awards, which will be announced soon.