Greenlee recipient of Hero Award
Grant Mental Healthcare employee likes helping people
MOSES LAKE As far as songs of heroics go, Lou Greenlee is the wind beneath Grant Mental Healthcare's wings.
Greenlee, the manager of adult services for the facility and an employee for more than 23 years, recently received the Hero Award at the Washington Community Mental Health Council in Wenatchee.
"I was really excited and honored that I would get that award," Greenlee said. "I had no idea that I was going to get (it)."
Greenlee graduated from college in 1972 and got involved for nine years in developing a program for developmentally disabled people through mental health.
In 1981, she was hired at Grant Mental Healthcare.
"I've always wanted to do something to help people," she said. "I care about people. I think everybody needs to be treated equally, and people sometimes get the short end of that because they may have a mental illness or they may have developmental disabilities."
As manager of adult services, Greenlee said she manages nine adult case managers who provide assistance for adults with chronic and persistent mental illnesses, with a range including schizophrenia, anxiety disorders and depression.
Greenlee said the Mental Healthcare administration is proactive and works to ensure that the agency remains current.
"Everybody's different everybody comes with a different set of growing up and different life situations," she said. "We're trying to help them get so that they feel good about themselves, be productive and can be as independent as they can be."
To be nominated for the award, recipients must have made extraordinary contributions through their efforts, creativity, flexibility and friendship; must take their pursuit of best practices to new heights and be responsive to their client's needs and wishes while performing duties in an exemplary manner, displaying accessibility and managing for quality outcomes.
"Grant County is fortunate to have Lou Greenlee providing mental health services to individuals served by Grant Mental Healthcare," said Sharon Kiehn, executive director, in a statement. "Her commitment and code of ethics is exemplary, as evidenced by her strong advocacy for assisting individuals to experience optimum participation in the community. The agency is very proud of Lou and her award."
But Greenlee is quick to point out that, while she liked receiving the award, she's not doing the hard work.
"I really feel that the true heroes are the individuals and the families that walk day in and day out with mental illness and the struggles they go through," she said, noting that a particularly tough area they face is the stigma placed on them by community and society. "They need to look beyond that and see the real person."002,Ohmc,F-Grant Healthcare HEROClydz HD002SORT~Ae2AUDT
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