Episode 137

at the end of all the days of all the hours that are put into working in this space the only important thing is positive outcome for clients I think the vision has always been for the winter Symposium a vision of collaboration and collectivism and I think clinicians are curious you know clinicians want to know okay this is happening so what does it mean how do we implement it where do we go for the resources that we need to feel really confident [Music] hey everybody and welcome to another amazing and exciting episode of Finding Peaks yours truly your host president and founder Christopher Michael burn so grateful to be here today uh with great professionals but even better humans uh my co-host Nicholas Dar here today Nick thanks for joining me yeah absolutely thank you again for having me awes love it awesome and we have the Chief Operating Officer or operations person in front of us for the winter Symposium Sarah so grateful to have you on the show thank you so much for having me this is a wonderful invitation um I’ve seen the podcast and it’s an honor to be here thanks yeah and uh Sarah is doing all things Symposium it is the 50th annual winter Symposium and I was thinking on the way over here I was like is there a conference in the country that’s been going on this long oh in this field the only other one that I might say has the same longevity is maybe the Cape Cod um which many people probably don’t know but Dr Forest helped start that one as well wow so that’s the only one that I’m familiar with um there may be some other small ones um but yeah we’ve we’ve got 50 years in this space so it’s a a privilege and uh a legacy yeah it it really is a legacy I’ve been in the field for 16 years and I remember when somebody first introduced me to the winter Symposium I was out in Arizona I was doing some Gorilla Marketing out here with Parker Valley Hope and Donna Schwarz um I don’t know if you know Donna Schwarz but she used to be the chief uh Chief clinician for the Denver Valley Hope Association and she said you got to come check out the Symposium if you want to hang out in Colorado and um I got a pass from a guy named Duke Rumley and your father uh welcomed me into not only in 2013 as a marketer into the Colorado provider Community which tends to be pretty tight-knit and in 2014 we opened Peaks there maybe wasn’t a human that was more helpful than your dad out in front of us and cheering us along and when you have somebody like out out there doing that in a community that you live in it’s really impactful and empowering to do what we do one day at a time so we as much as we love to support you all we appreciate the support you’ve given us all these years absolutely yeah it’s it’s been amazing to watch you grow and evolve and really be a permanent fixture in Colorado Springs and in the community in Colorado yeah I never knew you know coming to Colorado Springs what a great decision that was going to be you from a just a resource perspective and what the Colorado Springs area needs we came down here because it was beautiful and we thought there was a lot of competition in Denver and the vast majority of the population would send their loved ones give a little space and Grace and it’s turned out to be one of the greatest decisions um and we’ve been able to connect with amazing providers uh like Dr Gary Forest like the winter Symposium like the tremendous amount of resource that honestly you guys do a great job job cultivating here in the community thank you yeah we pride ourselves on that um I think the one thing that I have heard over and over again is we’re really unique because it’s a network building collaborative community and it doesn’t feel as competitive um as some other conferences feel in some other spaces and in other states too um I think the vision has always been for the winter symposium a vision of collaboration and collectivism right because at the end of all the days of all the hours that are put into working in this space the only important thing is positive outcome for clients right and that only happens if people pull their resources share expertise and come from a place of compassion and a real vision for creating a better place for people that are in recovery or who are are suffering um with mental health issues yeah absolutely I think just to add on that as well I so in my role I’ve been to a lot of conferences in my life and I think that is the difference right it’s like not this space fully for uh tech companies and things like that to come in and and be the main fixture there right and I think that’s what makes it so different is I’ve been very fortunate to be able to go to the Symposium for N9 years now I think which is wow I didn’t realize that you had attended that many times you got right F yeah right away right after treatment I was in there thanks to Chris actually um and I’ve always felt that kind of connection this like need for it so that’s why I’m so excited that we are a part of it this year and can really be so involved in that yeah absolutely it’s interesting too you said kind of this collaboration and I come from a when I started my treatment uh Journey as a professional lives in Prescot Arizona and I don’t know if you know anything about Prescot Arizona and actually a lot of people in Colorado and the provider Community they’re not aware of this type of stuff because the cor Colorado provider Community tends to be more integrous in comparison we Champion things like collaboration and integrity and client care and outcomes but it’s not that way everywhere and I think a lot of times people don’t see that or understand that and so when I was in presca Arizona um it was really really difficult from a provider perspective because a lot of people are aren’t interested in collaborating so I show up at this place called the winter Symposium in 2013 and I’m like these people work together all I got to do is get in the club and we’re going to work together I I believed for in in the infancy of my career I was
and going up and down the road and vans and things of that nature and quality of care is abysmal and unfortunately the cost is the humans that we’re talking about protecting so what you guys do I I don’t I don’t even think we can even begin to understand the impact that has because if there’s 13,000 treatment providers in this country I wouldn’t send my family that I hate and I don’t hate any of my family but something that I dislike um to 13,500 of them or 12,500 of them excuse me I would definitely like to acknowledge that that is the legacy of Dr Gary Forest yeah here specifically at least in Colorado Springs yeah and along the Front Range because he came here in the early 70s he was uh attached to Fort Carson and he was doing work in their ALC alcohol and drug treatment program um and prior to that he was working at Walter Reed and he had developed the alcohol and drug treatment program for service members right they were coming back from Vietnam in the late ‘ 60s and there was a need and he was basically tasked with that and it turned into the perfect fit for him professionally but when he came here to Colorado Springs the city was like 50,000 people which is really hard to imagine right so the fact that he decided that this is going to be home and this is where he’s going to build his legacy um you know I think that the outcome is something very collaborative it was a very small town and he was highly qualified and very intentional about what he did um but there wasn’t an organization in this city or along the Front Range who didn’t know the work he was doing and wasn’t impacted or influenced at that time by the work that he did um so he worked at Valley hope he worked with them on their board um he had done work with Cedar Springs Hospital a lot of organizations that if if you look at some of the older brochures they they don’t ex anymore um but he was certainly integral in getting those programs going and giving them sort of the professional guidance that they needed to do a good job and to work together um he was on the board at um at Penrose Hospital for a long time um and they were the only place that had like a basically like a detox um at that time to think yeah so if you think about sort of how Colorado Springs became this collaborative space for people working together in this field um he really was kind of the Cornerstone of that um so yeah it’s a remarkable sort of History I guess absolutely at least for Colorado and it’s really like the whole state right I’m I’m fortunate enough to know people from the Western Slope to the Wyoming border right and everyone at least that I’ve experienced the majority of them are so collaborative here and really trying to do what’s best for the client in that moment and it’s so inspirational to me like fills my heart yeah what was it you know I think back and and I’ll get to you know obviously your passionate side of things in the why but what was it what was the intention what drove Dr Gary Forest to come in here and like make incredible change in footprint here in Colorado Springs that just wasn’t there before well I can tell you the reason he moved to Colorado Springs was exclusively because it was beautiful love it so he grew up in Missouri and I think they took a road trip out here when he was really young and um he just made this commitment to himself that like this was going to be where he was going to plant and um you know and and build his career so something that simple this is a beautiful city it’s spectacular I mean it’s once you’ve lived here it’s hard to go other places you know where you don’t have that eye candy you know with the peak right there you know every day um but I think that um part of it was you know he was committed to the military and service members and at that time there was a lot of stigma around having served um and a lot of soldiers were coming back with mental health issues right and substance use disorder um and he has always been committed to serving that population um so I think that that was that was definitely part of it um and I think everything just sort of grew up out of um how things were evolving in healthcare and the destigmatization of substance use um and he was one of the first clinicians to really try to understand how it may be treated um and he published at least 12 12 books some I think if you were to go back and reread them you would go huh okay yeah yeah a different time you know sort of like that judge was saying that you had recently on uh on an episode you know it was a different time um but definitely laying that foundation and that groundwork and giving a voice to people who had sort of been in the shadows or shamed um you know and and saying you know it doesn’t have to be this way like we can treat this you know we need to give people a Lifeline um and put some pieces in place you know in in all different aspects whether it’s you know like one-on-one clinical care or if it’s in a in a program or if it’s in a hospital you know um a psychiatric hospit hospital with a hold yeah you know all those things so and and he worked really closely with you know the legal system you know um trying to advocate for people that had substance use disorder that’s huge and you know when I think about what you just outlined you know the word that comes to me is it’s courageous it was a courageous thing to do it’s a courageous thing to do today yeah right not mind you 1974 and you’re coming into an environment that’s really not trying to hear that yeah kind of stuff were on the back end of the Vietnam War and that was something that I was thinking of really clearly when I came to Colorado Springs that I had no idea of was how underserved the veteran Community was I’m in Arizona there’s not a lot of bases around you right it wasn’t part of the culture so I let you know we got retired military here I get to often times see them and then we see the completely and wildly underserved component so I’m grateful that you pointed at that in Dr Gary forest’s passion to move in and you know work with these individuals who quite frankly set in setting were severely mistreated not just by the military but the American public right so that that is heroic work in a time where it takes nothing less than courage right absolutely and at that time too as the War on Drugs was starting right at same the Reagan Administration that’s right you know my dad will go back and talk about the Reagan years I mean you know that that was a really good time to be in um in substance use care because there was money all of a sudden MH M um there was money and treatment programs were able to utilize that um kind of spending to build you know foundational programs you know there was suddenly an attention drawn to you know providing care like at a different scale right and and very visibly yeah yeah the Reagan years the forest family the Reagan years were definitely uh you know memorable I couldn’t even imagine there so much going on so much evolutionary change and well and and and as you know like in this industry it could be feast or famine right you know as far as the winter Symposium goes you know we weren’t able to host the Symposium during covid right that’s right we we had it in 2020 and that was like a month or two before everything was shut down and I got really sick and I suspect that it was probably circulating at the event that year right um but we didn’t have it in 2021 so if you’re doing the math on why this is the 50th you know like but we missed 2021 but there was like almost a rebound effect right like pressure was building and and there was money going into Mental Health Care coming down through grant money and the government and there was sort of a boon um you know when we hosted the event in 2022 and then again in 2023 and so you know it is kind of feast or famine so the Reagan years actually were um really pivotal I think much for like basically entrenching this kind of care and this awareness into sort of our mainstream um you know experience yeah what a beautiful take on that actually I I just have to mention it because it’s so different kind of For What I Hear often when you talk about the War on Drugs right it’s like this negative connotation on it right because it’s sort of viol blocking everybody right and it’s really aggressive yeah but to see that kind of opposite side right like that it did provide funding and it did help this boom of treatment centers which ultimately I think helps to end the stigma and make it more mainstream and common right and so that was just so beautiful yeah well so you know I guess there could be a lot of conversations about how it actually you know played out and sort of the images that we see now or some of the stereotypes that we might see um or think of when we think of that war on drugs but it really did sort of change the conversation um probably in a really positive way yeah in terms of those things like destigmatizing yeah get psychiatrist paid yeah and making this like a public it was then it became like a public health issue right put a light on it absolutely absolutely yeah that’s why I love doing this podcast with people because you get to
see all sides of a lot of different people’s stories and experiences and why they started in places and why it was reasonable and why it helped in it’s it’s it’s really cool and so I I I’m reluctant to ever call anything all bad no like it just might take another lens yeah another lens to see a different perspective yeah absolutely what are you most excited this year like 50 just feels like it’s like feels like a Super Bowl you know 50 is a big big thingl of Symposium yes Sarah everybody told us we were going to have fireworks this year sometimes the Symposium would be on Super Bowl Sunday it would start and I actually I remember that being like in a hotel room you know like over here at the antlers um and you know there would be people like all crowded in cuz they wanted to simultaneously be at the Symposium and watching the Super Bowl so that’s actually a pretty good that’s a pretty good memory for me but um it’s a really big year for a lot of reasons um obviously 50 years doing anything for 50 years really consistently um with the quality I think that that we produce and and provide year after year is special in its own right you know um that’s really unique um so there’s a lot of anticipation um we’re hosting a Gaya and that’s going to be um for me a real celebration um it’s going to be Lively and fun and um hopefully well attended um we’re going to um just really enjoy this mile marker and bringing people together and um having a sort of like uplifting festive typee of of feeling because so much of the content that we cover is not those things right you know we want everybody to come away feeling like they’ve gained some skills and knowledge but that’s not always in a really like happy space as far as topics go right um but so the Gaya should be like just a really fun celebratory um experience for the people that hope to attend or want to attend um and I’ve actually Nick has offered his party planning experience and um he and I got together and worked out some of the things that we’re going to do for the event so that’s really special and I appreciate that of course absolutely it’s really good really good energy and really inspiring um so so those are all the really positive things that are happening um and of course we have an excellent program um that kind of goes without saying it’s one of those conferences where you leave and and you really do I’ve I’ve been there’s two conferences one of them is very small TJ Woodward puts on the conference and I was just there but every business card you get yeah like I I found myself personally emailing every person because I had a 5 to 10 minute if 15 to 20 a conversation about what matters the most which is outcomes in humans uh and it was just so exceptional and the winter Symposium is is very close to that with with the amount of volume you all have there right I don’t know that there you know and I love kipo but like you know you go to a conference in Del the Keo like they take over the whole thing and it’s like great it’s cool yeah keep’s great and they are the status quo but like what about the humans right and you all speak to that really intelligently and it’s one of those conferences where like all of those business cards matter and it’s almost like their hands selected it is very it’s very unique that’s the thing that I love about it um what I love is that there are attendees that have returned year after year after year like Nick I didn’t know you had been coming for nine years because I too have been there for nine years and I remember meeting Brandon for the first time um when you guys were helping or Brandon was helping with the website you know so it’s it’s really fun obviously I’ve attended for quite some time should I divulge I think yeah this will be 48 years for me oh my gosh yeah so I mean you know my parents got married and literally uh they got married their anniversary is the end of December the 28th and they had to like they got married in Georgia and they had to hight tail it back to Colorado because my dad was working on what would become this right like he sort of had his first little um group of clinicians get together and sort of share knowledge um so yeah so 50 years is Big because for me it’s you know this is my Lifetime right like I’ve been involved in different ways for all these years and I have been involved in different ways in high school I was on a teen panel to talk about you know like substance use in high schools and among my peers I was so naive like looking back like I was not the right spokesperson for that and probably the other people on the panel were also not um but you know it was kind of self- selecting right like yeah we’re a little privileged yeah and then and then as an undergraduate I attended for credit and that was applied toward my psychology degree and then um after my graduate degree I presented at the winter Symposium on sort of the interface of culture and psychology and also very naive right I was also very naive but um but yeah so I mean like this has been a part of my life a long time so 50 years is obviously very symbolic um how many people were at the first one you many attendees if you ask Dr Forest till say somewhere between 25 and 30 okay you know it was like a really really small group and probably several of them were attached to Fort Carson sure um and I think in fact the very first one was actually on Fort Carson oh no way that’s pretty cool that speaks to that intention yeah that that early onset in intention yep and I I always ask about intention as like cuz where’s your Foundation yeah cuz it really informs why we’re here 50 days later right I uh one of my favorite quotes is by a guy Nam Rich R I’ve said it on the podcast a million times I’m going say it again when the heart is true the universe will conspire to support you I believe that so even in times of business like I’m sure your father walked through in 50 years and my only very novice 10 years in business there’s been times where I’m like I don’t know if we can do it I don’t know if we can make it I don’t know if we have the resource I don’t know if we have the people when the heart is true and so we just make sure it Peaks it seems like very similar to the way that your father did we just we just make sure that we’re doing the next right thing I will say that without a doubt unequivocally it my father always worked with Integrity always worked with the other person as the focal point or or first you know um very client centered right like everything was very client centered and and by client I mean we I use the term client like very Loosely right like anybody that was interfacing at the winter Symposium you know like deserved that same sort of respect and integrity so that’s one thing um that this has always been yeah yeah it’s funny when you say that I’m like I guys I zoom out 12 years and I’m like I think I’ve seen Dr Gary Forest helping somebody set up their Booth with like a pole he definitely didn’t use any tools that he just trying to be supportive yeah yeah that’s like me too I am so my wife’s like honey I’m like babe can you hang that for me good thing it’s true but no I mean he was always very generous that way I think um the thing that I have seen happen the most in my life over the last year which has been a difficult year for our family is the caliber of person that my parents surrounded themselves with and I don’t want to leave my mom out of the story so Sandra Dela Justina the original Symposium coordinator she and Dr Gary Forest have surrounded themselves with the most incredible people with the most integrity and the most most character um than I could ever imagine because they have stepped up for us in ways that you know I just never imagined you know and you grew up in that 100% that’s incredible I I always wonder right cuz my kids are eight nine years old and we have a a similar path in the field as we’re growing up around recovery and mental health they climbing through the boo all that’s right yeah absolutely used to collect the candy and all and in fact you know I mean that’s a legacy right like my own my own girls and my niece same thing you know they go through those exhibit booths and you know used to be like back scratchers and those little like squishy stress balls or whatever you know we just have bags it was like Halloween you know trick-or-treating yeah all the things but yeah yeah I’ve heard people say that you know you can take a young person and take the five closest people to them and they’ll be the sum majority of those those humans and it just seems heard that but that’s pretty powerful yeah very powerful you just kind of spoke to that in a way where I was like wow yeah that’s true that’s cool so I want to make sure today it’s not just me informing the quality of life for my children it’s the people that surround them and the child adult relationship is so so impenetrable right or wrong right negative or positive right absolutely so that’s really really cool to hear you say that I was going to ask what is it like tell me your story just kind of did that’s really awesome yeah yeah that is beautiful one of the things that we speak to a lot here at Peaks is just disrupting the industry through quality of care and why it was so top of mind for us as we came out of the again that Northern Arizona millu and we’re very mindful of the Southern California and the southern Florida millu as far as providers and so I think sometimes when we first made that when my brother and I made that you know specifically him and the team made that a core value I think originally we wanted to be disruptful just to be disruptful uhhuh and it was a little bit distracting for us uhhuh um but today I think we’re really well intentioned is is being disruptful one day at a time and how we treat individuals and who we connect with who we connect those individuals with and so maybe just throw it over to you what what would be one of the main things you think that your dad did with respect to not just creating an industry but like really disrupting what was well I think really foundationally embracing people in recovery or embracing people before the recovery let me back that up embracing people before they were in recovery and seeing the humanity and trying to destigmatize everything that sort of surrounds the person who’s using um you know he grew up in a really small town in the Midwest and he saw a lot of dysfunction and he saw a lot of primarily alcohol abuse right at the time in the 50s and 60s and um that left a Las impression on him um his parents didn’t use they weren’t drinkers um but he saw a lot of people in the community suffer um friends and their parents and something about that experience for my dad was very humanizing and really compelled him to see people for who they were um outside of their addiction or their substance abuse that I think in a lot of ways at the time was disruptive right it was and he’ll tell a story where there was a physician here in town I think he was a primary care physician around the same time in the 70s um do Gordon Regal and there was a detox opened um it was called the Regal Center but at that time Dr Regal was the only medical doctor who would treat alcoholics nobody else would treat them that’s right wow that’s my understanding of the way the story goes right um and so just even creating a space for people to come in detox and get medical supervision for that detox that was disruptive and my dad was integral to building that program and and partnering with them to build that program so I think like foundationally right if we rewind 50 years um that was disruptive what are we doing now that’s disruptive just being us we’re just us we are just this really small sort of Grassroots organization and we are not fancy and we don’t have huge deals with you know pharmaceutical companies and we’re just us I mean this is this is this is me and um you know like our team the people that you know provide sort of some advice and guidance around what to put on the program I mean it’s a very organic process and now that actually feels kind of disruptive yeah it is right like there’s a you know there’s a a large conglomerate that runs a lot of conferences and that’s just not us we are not them and we just do what we do year after year out of um from a place of compassion from a place of enthusiasm for improving care um I don’t know it’s beautiful right now that just feels sort of like different yeah you know yeah it’s a little bit different I I agree with you completely and I just have to say as well as you were talking about disrupting in the past I was getting like chills cuz for me being a person being in recovery that was kind of the feeling I still had and I mean this was what 10 years ago so it were 2014 right yeah and it still was that way back in the 70s you know and just to to know that those actions are what influenced my life today right even when I wasn’t there or touched in it is so impactful for me I’m like oh my God where would my life be yeah that Legacy piece is really huge I mean the one thing about the winner Symposium being what it is now is like some of the older people are no longer able to attend and so we are losing some of that um history I think um because it wasn’t always that you could go to treatment right right it wasn’t always that you could um you know talk with your healthc care provider about your substance use or whatever medications that you were using you know um that wasn’t always the case right like a lot of foundational work had to be done for us to be able to do what’s being done now yeah right like there’s absolutely no way I had a amazing show a few shows back Dr John nin you know what your dad did in 1974 and forms this opportunity for Dr John nine to come in and train HR departments on how to create safe places where people with substance use and mental health issues can come and say hey I’m having a bad day and am I not going to lose my job today right woo cuz now we can inform healing and hope and action and recovery and so it really is Pioneers like your father in 1974 which you’re going into a space well that verbiage might as well get you kicked out of town right that is not acceptable here and in a way you kind of had to work in the dark cuz I used to ask some of our old clinicians some of our old Chief CL clinical office like if you knew about sematic therapy why weren’t you talking about it or if you knew um right that some of these things could change and help heal people why were we just sending people to Alcoholics Anonymous and just that and he’s like because man like you it took a lot of courage and so just to speak to that I’m really grateful that you highlighted that again um because disrupting the industry or creating the platform thereof and moving forward with Grace and space and informing something that I’ve actually just really learned and inherited for myself in the last few years which is every diagnosis has a story right and you you about you should just learn the story right and that’s so important for healing right and it seems and it appears and it’s so cool too because a lot of clinicians and doctors it’s one of the things about mature adults with an esteemed career professionals sometimes are like they just stick to the old information and something about your dad he’s always grooving with the newest stuff connecting with the newest people seeing what fit and moving along with the times which is just gives me a chill definitely true in his profession not true in technology not true of Technology he still had trouble with like a flip phone cell phone we had to just eliminate that like it just you know but the word but in his in his field absolutely that’s definitely true he was always um just a voracious reader you know like just always um and always a healthy dose of skepticism nice you know always always looking for what was really sort of um professionally aligned and um I don’t know how to really articulate that but he was also really Discerning right he wasn’t easily distracted by fads or trends like he did what he did and he always just sort of had this very um professionally informed vein um you know which I think allowed him to to stay an expert and to sort of um see through some things that might not have been um you know in the best interest yeah of clients or other professionals yeah but he was he was really gifted yeah he was really gifted in that way you know he always had a healthy dose of skepticism but I think that that was um that was just part of who he maybe it’s even groundedness yeah maybe that’s what we call ISM today yeah yeah yeah yeah right yeah and he was he was very grounded in what he did he definitely owned his expertise for sure yeah and he’s wrote 12 books oh and that reminds me so I did I did bring you a copy cool as a gift of his Therapeutic Alliance book cool so sweet enhancing outcomes and recovery process yep and if you would like to have it’s not a signed copy but I can absolutely get it signed if you’d like to have a signed copy I would love to have a signed copy I know that was just weird what I did by my wife and I with books book make sure they’re real yeah I love the smell of a good book yeah I just recently heard that there are many children growing up without physical books in hilmes we make sure to read give her back at night yeah it’s really it’s kind of nostalgic actually I guess different yeah it’s but yeah this I always smell a a nice book and then New Pair of Shoes oh so I always put my face in the Box I don’t know what it is about that yeah chemicals yeah my wife’s like ass like SM matches you know we’re really excited as Peaks to be uh you know educational supporter and showing up for the conference I know Brandon’s putting on a a great panel um that we’re really looking forward to I know we are looking forward to having it because when you talk about disruption you know this is a topic that um I think needs to be um offered to clinicians so that they can understand the direction that we’re going and sort of the legitimacy of the work that’s being done in this area so so we’re happy and we really appreciate you taking the time to really cultivate an expert p panel yeah you know when I went to that one a couple years ago I really didn’t know what was going on I thought maybe you know okay mushrooms whatever and I went in there and I watched a group of professionals speak from their heart education insight and experience and I left there going this is a good thing when done properly it’s an exceptional thing specifically to our Point earlier I mean just the veteran community and the opportunity we have there I have some friends uh up in Denver that owns some really unique Alp programs but they’re getting some funding from the VA um for some International stem cells some remission of symptoms for TBI they’re doing some Cutting Edge work for combat veterans it’s never been done before and I think the VA is beginning to see it and so just back to that point of this plant-based potential opportunity right there is so much legitimacy and efficacy I think when done appropriately professionally and I think that’s just it when done appropriately and professionally and I think clinicians are curious yeah you know clinicians want to know okay this is happening so what does it mean how do we implement it where do we go for the resources that we need to feel really confident um in how this is administered to clients yeah absolutely so I appreciate that you guys are providing that to us this year it’s timely of course and we want our Clin we want all of our attendees to have access to the most sort of Cutting Edge um and professionally presented material as possible yeah so thank you for that it really is cool I can’t wait for the panel I’m like all ears I’m like oh my goodness this is awesome be so good yeah yeah Nick I know you’ve been working really hard to bring everybody together and get the materials together for us so that we can put it Forward on the agenda so thank you for your work on that yeah yeah absolutely I’m so excited really happy to do it I’m also really excited for our other talk which is Dr Dr Marissa Prince who’s oural director she’s great so great what is she speaking on cultural diversity oh sweet perfect person perfect absolutely yeah she is the executive director for don’t tell me we’re going to be disrupting the Cradle the prison pipeline it is educating children of color she is executive director for that nonprofit uh Regina Walters judge Regina Walters is the owner of that as well just doing really cool stuff so she is a great person to speak on that um it’ll be wonderful awesome that’s cool that they’re so well it’s been an absolute pleasure Sarah to have you on to get to know you even better my brother uh speaks highly not only of you but your family the the conference the opportunity we’ve had to connect professionally and personally and I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart both your mother Sandy your father Gary yourself uh your entire family support to this community it it means the world and it’s it’s been very anchoring in our ten years here in Colorado Springs to be a part of a a tremendous Legacy as we we continue to cultivate ours alongside you guys and so as we wrap up here is there anything we want to let the viewers know we got any websites anything we can look at the conference date um just get that stuff out there so people can be aware yeah absolutely so the 50th annual winter Symposium starts um we’ve got a pre Symposium Workshop that’s full day on Saturday January 25th um we’ve got an Ethics um presentation that day so anybody that needs ethics hours um that’s a great way to get them all done at once and um we also have a suicide prevention um presentation going that day too and um you know anybody that attends that should be able to come away with some real clinical tools to use um with clients in crisis um and then everything really kicks off on Sunday um Sunday January 26th um everything gets rolling we’ve got the Gaya plan for that night um Sunday evening so that should be a lot of fun and um first year the Gaya yeah with this is it’s special for the 50th yeah special for the 50th so at one of our planning meetings I sort of Flo this idea and everybody got really excited it’s actually going to be sort of like a through the decades um theme so we are welcoming people to dress up from their favorite decade be sure that should be yeah for the 50th time yeah that’s right so but that should be really fun um I’m excited I’m definitely going to um dig out some old iconic I’m going to I’ll just say I’m going to go with the8 that was sort of my coming of age you know so kind of Madonna you know Cindy loer type of situation yeah so anyway so that’ll be really fun um one of the things that I’d like to highlight this is really interesting we have um Adam neoy coming who is the son of character Dr Spock from Star Trek um he and his father were um addicts and found their sobriety together um so that should be an exciting um session to attend that’s our lunch presentation so it’s like a story yeah I love that big story guy yeah so that would be really great yeah so um we are really looking forward to it um this is a busy time of year for us this is when we put all the pieces of the puzzle together the agenda was just published um so the full agenda is online and um yep it’s on the website and um you know everybody has an opportunity to sort of sift through and see what topics you know um resonate with them and um we’ve just got another really great program this year so I love it it’s it’s really cool Sarah um but really appreciate you coming on and for anybody who’s thinking you know we go to one conference a year it Peaks it’s this one and for good reason if you’re thinking or considering or looking at your budget coming into the year and you’re looking at your conference budget and your marketing I assure you your marketing dollars will not be spent better and more intentionally then in the winter Symposium um come find us I forget what Booth W but we’ll be there well and I want to I absolutely want to thank you and Peaks for being an integral supporter year after year because this is a small organization the event does not exist without your participation um so we thank you very much for coming back and um sending your your staff and other people in your network and trusting us um to give them the quality and content that they need to do a good job at Peaks for you guys so thank you so much Chris and thank you Nick thank you it’s been an absolute pleasure and until next time y’all peace