Editorial
Front Page - Friday, November 6, 2009
Local adolescent behavioral health facility hires new CEO
Samara Litvack
As the new chief executive officer of Cumberland Hall —Chattanooga, Eureka C. Daye never has the same day twice. But then, that’s exactly how she likes it.
“Every time you think you’ve seen it all, there’s something new,” she says. “You really have to have a clear understanding of mental illness and disorders and what it looks like. And you have to have a high respect and passion for the field and a high respect and regard for persons who suffer from mental illness.”
Daye has worked in the behavioral health field for over 25 years, from one coast to the other, and the invaluable experience she’s gathered along the way is all being put to use in her month-old role.
As CEO of Cumberland Hall - Chattanooga, she oversees the daily operations of the entire facility, which provides behavioral health treatment to adolescents, ages 12 to 17. And while she oversees everything from financial viability to regulatory compliance she views patient care and patient safety as the most important day-to-day function of her position.
“I’m charged with assuring excellence in the entire facility’s spectrum of care – from inpatient to the outpatient facility here in Chattanooga and to the outpatient in Nashville, she says. “But at the end of the day, it’s about patient safety and patient care. And because of my clinical background, I know what exemplary patient care looks like.”
Daye’s journey to CEO of Cumberland Hall began in her home state of California. A pre-med major, she switched her concentration first from genetics to pediatrics. But when she began working with a professor doing research on hospitalized ballerinas with eating disorders, her interest in behavioral health took precedence and she switched her major to psychology and never looked back.
“I became fascinated with the power of the mind and its ability to skew perceptions to the point of making an emaciated body look overweight from the ‘patient’s’ point of view,” she says. Daye completed her master’s thesis in this area.
She earned her bachelor’s in psychology from Pepperdine University and went on to earn a Masters in Counseling Psychology from the University of San Francisco and a Masters in Public Health from Walden University. As part of her PhD dissertation research, Daye studied the effectiveness of combined behavioral and policy interventions and treatments for obesity in economically deprived children.
She has served as administrator of clinical operations and ancillary services at Oak Creek Psychiatric Hospital in San Jose, Calif.; executive of clinical operations at Vendell Psychiatric Hospitals in Seward, Neb.; and chief operating officer at Holly Hill Psychiatric Hospital in Raleigh, N.C. While in North Carolina, she also served as vice president of clinical and operational services as partner with a private behavioral health agency in Raleigh; assistant vice provost at North Carolina State University; and director of Health Sector Management at the Duke Fuqua School of Business in Durham, N.C. Daye also was appointed as the director of organizational change Management at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln.
She operated and owned her own counseling consulting business, Cornerstone Behavioral Health, for 10 years, and has conducted seminars, speaker bureau presentations and workshops on behavioral health issues throughout the United States. She has also served on several boards, from the YWCA to the United Way, and is currently active in the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy; The American Association for Training and Development; The American Public Health Association; Mediation and Dispute Facilitation and Resolution; Critical Incident Stress Management and Crisis Intervention; and the American Obesity Association.
As a licensed professional counselor and a licensed marriage and family therapist for over 18 years, Daye stands by her solid behavioral health background. “I stand by principle and hold employees to a high standard,” she says. “I have a high bar, a high level of integrity and professionalism that I encourage my employees to adopt and own as theirs.”
Daye says her credentials and years of experience have put her at “level V leadership” where she’s obliged to grow employees to their optimal level of professionalism and also hold them accountable for the optimal “delivery” of their profession.
Under her direction, she plans for Cumberland Hall - Chattanooga to flourish and grow. With its multi-disciplinary treatment approach, the 64-bed psychiatric facility runs the gamut of specialty adolescent behavioral care.
Through its in-home case management services, the facility brings specialized psychiatric care into patient homes. By offering natural supports within their communities, patients and families receive the care they need through an all-encompassing treatment approach.
For patients needing longer, highly structured and highly supervised therapeutic care, residential care services are available. Cumberland Hall – Chattanooga’s residential program is designed to promote self-awareness and self-control based on cognitive behavioral principles that help patients attain the skills necessary to reach their full developmental potential.
The facility’s acute care patients receive treatment similar to residential care, but are reintegrated back into their communities and families as quickly as possible, once clinically stabilized.
And finally, the facility’s therapeutic foster care program recruits and trains families and connects them with adolescents who need strong, nurturing environments in which they can thrive.
“We aim to be the treatment center of choice in adolescent behavioral health care,” Daye says. “We are the subject experts, using evidenced-based practices and deliveries with our consumers.
Daye believes in partnering with other agencies, practitioners and nonprofit organizations to better serve adolescents who are in need of behavioral health treatment.
“All of my training to date has included building relationships, collaboration and partnering for the best interest of the patient. That’s the philosophy that I bring to the table. That’s what I would like to see in my tenure here.”
Daye says the goal of Cumberland Hall — Chattanooga is to stabilize its
patients and move them into the next lower level of care through a process that, when successful, would eventually end with them becoming productive members of their communities in spite of their mental illnesses. As CEO, she will reinforce that idea by expecting nothing less than above-board work from her staff.
“I’m very big on accountability and I’m very big on competency,” she says. “I ask people to consistently operate at their highest level. Patient care and safety, that’s first and foremost.”
Daye welcomes “all stakeholders” in the community to contact Cumberland Hall - Chattanooga for more information. And, she adds, a stakeholder could be a practitioner, doctor, family member or any general member of the community who has a vested interest in the care and wellbeing of the
facility’s patients.
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