It's hard to believe another year is coming to a close, but what a tremendous year it's been here at Forge. We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are gearing up for an enchanting holiday season. Thanks again to everyone who made this year's Forge/KPC Thanksgiving Cookbook a delectable success!

This last month, we also celebrated Veterans Day and all of our incredible Veterans here at Forge Health. We are so appreciative of our Veterans and are fortunate to be working alongside you in our collective mission to provide effective, affordable, and accessible mental health and substance use care to all in need, especially those in our Veteran and First Responder Community.

We'd like to recognize our fantastic Veterans here at Forge one more time:



Sheena Bice

Nilton Castro

Adam Chelmo

Eric Golnick

Alfy Jimenez

Martisha Kanard-Dwyer

Dave Karpf

Casey Lancaster

Dalton McLaughlin

David Oppmann

Jason Palamara

John Rodolico

Ana Toro

You can also check out our full Veterans Day Blog Post and LinkedIn Post thanking our Veterans and celebrating their service.

With that, there is tons of exciting content in this month's newsletter including announcing promotions and the opening of brand new clinics - happy reading and happy December!

Kristin Colangelo

Executive Clinical Director

West Deptford, NJ

Emma Conant

Clinical Case Manager

Manchester, NH

Robyn Georges

Executive Assistant to the CEO

Corporate

Christoper Guico

Clinician

Paramus, NJ

Alexandra Hanson

Clinical Director

Virtual Outpatient, NJ

Eurica Pinthieve

Executive Clinical Director

Freehold, NJ

Dawneisha Sprately

Executive Clinical Director

Virtual Outpatient, PA

Work Anniversaries

Merrit Hartblay

Clinician, KPC Syosset

His 3 year Anniversary was Dec. 1st!

Terry Bacher

Clinician, KPC Hauppauge

Her 13 year Anniversary is Dec. 15th!

Candice Alizio

Executive Clinical Director, Manchester, NH

Her 5 year Anniversary is Dec. 18th!

Claudia Ragni

Executive Clinical Director, KPC

Her 29 year Anniversary is Dec. 29th!

🎉Celebrating our December staff birthdays!🎉

Happy Birthday!

Colby Mills - December 3rd

Denise McClellan - December 16th

Robyn Georges - December 17th

Andrea Mitchell - December 23rd

Holly Selepouchin - December 26th

Diane Yacenda - December 28th

Jessica Dickerson - December 30th

Karen Melito - December 30th



Andres Reyes-Capo & Mike Cohen

Our Technology team has been on the road the last few weeks, from helping with onsite onboarding of new staff members to getting our new clinics up and running to the day to day tech support across the organization. We wanted to take a moment to thank you both for all of your hard work and dedication. We wouldn't be able to do our jobs without you, and we can't thank you enough!

We appreciate you both - thanks, Andres and Mike!

We are tremendously excited to announce four well deserved promotions this month! We are so excited to have Janet Bamgbade, Michael McCann, Samantha Santo, and Sydney Stennett step into new leadership positions with Forge, effective November 28th. We are confident that they are going to continue to excel and take their programs to the next level. Please read below for more information on each promotion!

Janet Bamgbade

Executive Director, Virtual Outpatient

Janet Bamgbade joined Forge Health in April 2022 as our first Clinical Director of a fully OP clinic. Janet quickly demonstrated through her dynamic leadership, clinical skillset, and passion for her staff, clients, and the organization as a whole, her ability to successfuly build a program and lead her team with compassion and confidence. Janet has paved the way for Forge to effectively scale our virtual outpatient programming, while keeping the clients the absolute number one priority. With that, we are thrilled to announce that Janet is stepping into a new position as Executive Director of Virtual Outpatient programming, where she will oversee a team of virtual Executive Clinical Directors and their respective fully virtual clinics across the organization. We are so excited for you, Janet!

Michael McCann

Executive Director, New Jersey

Michael McCann joined Forge in January 2021 as the Executive Clinical Director of Paramus, NJ. Michael's demonstrated ability to effectively lead his team with kindness, humility, authenticity, and decisiveness has allowed him to cultivate the successful program that stands in Paramus today. Michael has been instrumental in developing our programming throughout the state of New Jersey and we are so excited for him to continue on this leadership path as our Executive Director of New Jersey. Michael will be overseeing a team of Executive Clinical Directors throughout New Jersey, including our newest West Deptford and Freehold clinics. We are extremely proud to have Michael on our team and are excited to watch him thrive in this position. Congratulations, Michael!

Samantha Santo

Program Director

Paramus, NJ

Sam Santo started with Forge Health in 2018 as a Clinician, just after graduating from Ramapo College of New Jersey with her Masters Degree, and was one of the first employees in the Paramus facility. Sam has been paramout in not only the continued growth of the Paramus facility, but also in cultivating the dynamic culture and spirit of the Paramus team. Sam will sit as Program Director, where she will be co-leading the Paramus team alongside Vicki Trause. We are fortunate to have Sam as a member of this team, and now a leader on the team - congratulations, Sam!

Sydney Stennett

Program Director

Greensburg, PA

Sydney Stennett began her career with Forge in 2019 as an intern in our Greensburg, PA facility and has been an integral part of the team since day one. Sydney was hired as a Clinician after her internship, and has only continued to excel. We are absolutely thrilled to have Sydney step into this new leadership position as Program Director, where she will be working alongside Brian to continue driving excellence across the board in Greensburg. Sydney's passion and dedication to her clients is evident every day and we are so proud to have her step into this new role.

Please join us in congratulating Janet, Michael, Sam and Sydney on their new roles!

As noted above, we had four new incredible team members join the clinical leadership team this November. Kristin Colangelo, Alexandra Hanson, Eurica Pintheive, and Dawneisha Sprately joined Forge this month to lead brand new clinics in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

With that, we are ecstatic to announce that we are opening new IOP/OP clinics in West Deptford, NJ and Freehold, NJ, as well as two brand new virtual outpatient programs covering New Jersey and Pennsylvania as a whole. We are so proud of this tremendous growth and want to take a moment to recognize everyone's collective efforts, contributions, and dedication that allowed us to add new stars on the map! This is just the beginning.

New Jersey

Freehold, NJ - Eurica Pinthieve, ECD

West Deptford, NJ - Kristin Colangelo, ECD

Virtual Outpatient Clinic - Alexandra Hanson, CD

Pennsylvania

Virtual Outpatient Clinic - Dawneisha Sprately, ECD

Eric Gonick was honored as the "hometown hero" during the University of Miami football game this month vs. Pitt. The University of Miami recognized Eric and all of his achievements as a Naval Officer and for the work we're doing here at Forge Health. We are so incredibly proud of you, Eric, and are grateful to be working alongside you. For more information, you can read here and check out a clip of the event here.

Our phenomenal ACE team went on a team outing to a painting class in Manhattan! Who knew we had a team of artists doubling as intake and experience coordinators?! We are now proudly adorning their artwork in our corporate office in White Plains.

Forge Health/Forge VFR was honored to present to 120 Service Members of the C CO 2-104th Unit at the Johnstown Aviation National Guard Station. Forge’s Art Therapist, Cassandra Hartless, spoke about the effects of Alcohol Abuse and the benefits for integrated care for co-occurring issues. A special thanks to Staff Sergeant, Jamie Francis, and PNG Soldier and Family readiness Specialist, Rebecca Lidey, for allowing Forge to continue to work for those who serve our country. 

Our new clinical leadership had a three day on site orientation during their first week where they split time between our West Orange and Paramus facilities. Both Kristin Colangelo and Dawneisha Sprately celebrated their birthdays on Day 1 and Day 2, respectively, of their employment with Forge! See below for the joint birthday celebration hosted by our Paramus team! Andres and Sheena were also on site to meet the new teams.

On November 19th, the staff of KPC threw Claudia an amazing 70th birthday party at Chris and Tony's in Syosset. The KPC teams collected $450 to donate to the charity that Claudia administrates, Gabriel's Giving Tree, which funds funeral and cremation expenses for families on Long Island that have lost a loved one to accidental overdose. Absolutely amazing and a belated happy birthday to Claudia!

Claudia also met with Robert Kent, Chief Council, White House Office on Drug Control Policy and he gave her a private tour of the West Wing, pictured below.

Our White Plains Clinical team hosted a luncheon this month to connect with providers in the area. The team was able to share the amazing things they’ve been working on since opening our doors! Our team did such a great job showcasing their individual areas of expertise and our specialty in treating Veterans and First Responders. The entire White Plains pictured below at the luncheon! Liz Walker and Hannah Blank were also in attendance.

Forge Health attended the Concerns of Police Survivors National Conference on Law Enforcement & Trauma in Dallas, TX, where they presented on 'Growing Up Cop.' Sheena Bice, Jason Palamara and Sean Kilbreth were in attendance. It was an incredible opportunity to meet so many great officers and the many organizations that support them. Thanks for representing Forge Health at such an important event!

A reminder to please send your flu attestation form to Alicia McDermott as soon as possible. All those who submit their forms by the end of the year will be entered to win one of three Amazon gift cards!

Up to 40 hours of PTO can rollover to 2023 for all Forge Health staff. If you're projected to have more than 5 days of unused PTO by the end of 2022, make sure you are taking some time off or you will lose those additional days.

Take care of yourselves and take that PTO!

The Forge Health floating holiday and VTO are not elgibile for rollover. Please use these days by the end of the year or you will forfeit them for 2022. You can find the VTO request form here.

Don't forget - Forge Health and KPC are closed on December 26th and January 2nd for Christmas Day and New Years Day. Enoy your holidays!

Welcome back to your newest recurring section – Monthly Tech Tips! Today we're talking about keeping your computer up to date.

Windows is constantly updating, so regular updates are important.

• Updates keep our hardware and software working well in an ever-changing environment. They also keep us safe by updating security features of our computers. Staying up to date is staying safe.
• To access the Update Panel, follow this shortcut:
• Start  > Settings  > Update & Security  > Windows Update, and then select 'Check for updates'. Here you will see your status, the last time you searched, and if you have any pending updates.

• After you search once, If you see the green check mark, you are up to date! However, if you have updates to run, you will see a list of required updates with a percent completion next to it. Once the updates are ready to install, it will require you to reboot your computer. Make sure to save and close all your documents before running updates!
• It's important to wait for all the updates to say “Pending Restart” before clicking restart now. As you can see in the below image, one update is still at 40%

• Once all your updates show “Pending Restart” you are ready to restart your computer and the updates will apply.
• Our Technology team pushes regular updates automatically as well, Fridays at 4:00 PM, so you can leave your computer on at that time to receive the automatic system updates. This is done through N-Central, and the popup will look like this:

Updates can sometimes cause issues and can slow your computer down when installing so I recommend running them when you know you have time for your computer to reboot. If any updates cause issues, please reach out to support! [email protected]

Please remember, and a fresh reminder for our new staff, if you'd like to see your highlights, celebrations, wins, events, pictures of your pet, etc., included in next month's newsletter, please send your submissions to Rachel Rodriguez at [email protected]. I look forward to your holiday highlights - let's all finish out the year strong!

Until next year,

Rachel