In our Staff Showcase series, we’re highlighting individuals who make Canvas Health an exceptional mental health provider. Today, we shine the spotlight on Amanda Cammack, Katherine Carlson, Beth Hopkins, Dr. Rori Johnson, Anna Marie Montague, Ben Rastegari, Jessica Torrey, Ben Widbin, Sandra Woolsey, and Der Yang who have dedicated 10 years of their careers to making a difference in our community.
Join us in thanking our incredible staff for their contributions to our mission!
Celebrating 10 Years with Canvas Health
Amanda Cammack
Amanda Cammack is celebrating 10 years of children’s mental health case management work at Canvas Health. Join me in a heartfelt congratulations and thanks to Amanda for her dedication to the children and families in Washington County.
When Amanda came to our agency, she was wide-eyed and had an excitement and passion for working with kids that was common for new staff beginning work in the field. A decade later, Amanda continues her passionate work with clients. She has worked with nearly 100 children during her tenure with Canvas Health. Amanda has the natural ability to develop meaningful and connected relationships, promoting change and improved functioning through that connection and trust. She frequently goes beyond the requirements of her role, and we can always count on her to think outside the box to meet client needs and achieve goals. Amanda has been a dedicated advocate for her clients over the years, always focused on strengths and giving kids a voice when they need it.
Amanda has been committed to inclusivity and equity and has continually strived for integration of these values into everyday work and life. Her clinical skills and influence on the case management team are invaluable. We are so proud that she continues to approach her work with the same passion she had those first few weeks of work, ten years ago.
Katherine Carlson
In life there are few things you can depend on; Katherine Carlson has been one of those things for the school based program. Katherine has worked in District 916’s elementary school level 4 program for the past 10 years. This program has gone through several changes and tons of growth over the years. Through it all Katherine has been a consistent. Katherine is a skilled therapist working with some of the youngest and most complex students we work with in our program. Katherine has a steady, quiet calming presence that puts clients, their families, and schools at ease. She is non-judgmental and open to understanding each individual person’s story.
Katherine’s work with families has grown and developed over the past 10 years as well. Her acceptance of families where they are at has allowed her to develop wonderful relationships with caregivers even when others are not able to do so. Many families allow Katherine to come and see them all summer in their home and through this work they develop a deep sense of trust with her. She is an expert at working with students on the autism spectrum and holds hope for them when many other skilled professionals struggle. She is patient and willing to put in the time that it takes to help these complex students build trust with her and process difficulties they are experiencing.
Katherine is creative and has found tons of tools to engage even the most skeptical young person. Her creativity showed itself during the Covid lockdown when she was able to engage these students and their families on telehealth successfully. Katherine is collaborative and works well with social workers and teachers. She partners with other Canvas Health staff and providers in the community. Her work has spread the good name of Canvas Health far and wide!
Katherine is constantly seeking to grow professionally, she has adoption competency, she is TFCBT trained and trained in EMDR. Through all this amazing work Katherine has also been one of the highest billers in our program. She consistently exceeds her billing expectation and seems to do so effortlessly. Katherine is a leader on our team, completing her training to be a board approved supervisor, she has taken on supervising interns for the past several years. She also takes the lead on organizing our baskets and gifts. She participates on the QM committee at Canvas Health as well. Katherine is a brilliant clinician who has helped countless children, families, and school staff over the past 10 years. Her consistent high quality therapeutic work has helped to build the strong program we have today. We depend on her, and she delivers. Congratulations to Katherine on 10 years at Canvas Health! Looking forward to what you do with the next 10!
Beth Hopkins
Congratulations to Beth Hopkins on her 10 year anniversary with Canvas Health! Beth is an outstanding clinician and important leader on our team. Several years ago, she helped to start one of our first Minneapolis school mental health programs, which has now grown to 9 different buildings in Minneapolis.
Beth does great clinical work and is a leader on our team. She is who people turn to when they need help answering questions or a seasoned clinician to consult with. She is also very helpful by stepping up to lead meetings and help keep up morale when the job gets hard.
Last year, Beth worked hard to finish an intensive clinical supervision training and she is now a board approved supervisor. She is now one of our clinicians who supervises interns, who are very lucky to have Beth coaching and mentoring them.
Beth continues to pay attention to the details and cares about doing right by her clients and school. She continues her committee work which is above and beyond her job. She is a member of the Mpls Clinicians Planning Committee and the Excellence Committee. She attends Canvas events and helps with outreach such as the Pride Festival and Stomp Out Suicide. Beth is also a working mom who has two beautiful sons at home. She has struck a balance, which is not easy, while caring for them while prioritizing the wellness of her clients and relationship with her school. Beth gives so much to her clients, parents, school partners, interns, and colleagues. She is a woman of integrity and reliability, and our team is better because of her!
Dr. Rori Johnson
Dr. Rori Johnson’s decade with Canvas Health started as she was going through a closure of Riverwood Behavioral Health Center, previously 5 County Mental Health. She cares so much about 5 county rural community that she brought her knowledge and expertise in outpatient, adult day treatment and mobile crisis services to Canvas Health. With Canvas Health, Dr. Rori Johnson has been continuing to work with 5 counties to coordinate 24/7/365 Mobile Crisis services. She has shared her knowledge with other mobile crisis supervisors and helped to establish Canvas Health as one of the few non-profits in the metro area running mobile crisis services. Ten years of being on-call 24/7/365, for someone who struggles to get back to sleep after being woken up, is quite a feat. Rori has worked with diligently with law enforcement and educational systems in rural communities who are slower to embrace mental health resources.
Her professionalism and knowledge of the region and commitment to clinical care and the community makes her stand out from others. Not only does Dr. Johnson provide quality clinical work with multiple approaches including EMDR, she also is always the first to take people off the waitlist just so they can be seen more quickly. Dr. Johnson has provided supervision to countless interns and trainees in psych services and through the programs she supervised. She has lead day treatment services in the North Branch area and is always excited to bring additional services like Substance Use to her community. We hear all the time that people just love to hear Dr. Johnson speak because she is so thoughtful and knowledgeable. When we talk about Excellence at Canvas Health, Rori is one of the key contributors to that value.
Anna Marie Montague
Anna Marie has been both a volunteer and an employee for Housing Services. Her knowledge of all the technical aspects of data reporting in Housing Services and HMIS is amazing. She is a valuable memberof the housing team and even though she works only a little her impact is huge.
Ben Rastegari
Ben Rastegari started his journey with Canvas Health as an ARMHS worker as he completed his clinical hours. He then applied for an outpatient therapist position and has been a consistent provider in Cottage Grove since then.
He has helped out with Credible, ran an anger management group and been a consistent provider for adults at the Cottage Grove office. Ben is passionate about providing a non-judgmental, supportive space for his clients and focuses on rapport development and client focused treatment approaches.
Ben has shown a lot of growth in his time at Canvas Health, in particular in the past year and we appreciate his willingness and hard work!
Jessica Torrey
Jessica Torrey is getting recognized for 10 years of service, however if you ask Jessica this well beyond 10 years. Jessica started her work with Canvas Health in the 2000s. She took a break from work to spend time with her children and then returned to work at Canvas Health as her children aged.
Jessica was our first Rapid Access Assessor in 2014, before we were required to have one as part of being a CCBHC. In 2018 she made the leap into supervision at Canvas Health with the Cottage Grove Outpatient team. She followed Dan Johnson who moved into his role in psych services. While Jessica enjoyed supervision and the Cottage Grove team the drive from Anoka County to Cottage Grove was not sustainable.
When a position on the Anoka Mobile Crisis team opened up in 2020 she transitioned to her current position as the supervisor of the Anoka Mobile Crisis team. Through Jessica leadership Canvas Health has been able to secure contracts with 2 city police departments (Columbia Heights and Fridley). Her Embedded Social Workers have received accommodations from the department and have been recognized as an effective model of collaboration and community transformation.
Jessica has led her team through the addition of Certified Peers and Family Peers and has built a solid foundation with Anoka County. As part of being a mobile crisis supervisor she is on-call 24/7/365 for her team to support. She has been working on increasing her relationships with the Allina-Unity staff as her team is moving toward colocation. Jessica is taking on the next part of the development, moving Mobile Crisis service to be both within a hospital and be focused on the community. For each challenge that is placed before her, Jessica has embraced and proved that she can do successfully. Her dedication and efforts wherever she has worked is appreciated and is part of what makes Canvas Health a great place to work.
Ben Widbin
The children’s mental health case management team is celebrating Ben Widbin’s 10-year anniversary with Canvas Health. We’re relieved by this momentous anniversary, not only because Ben is such an incredible asset to our team, but especially because he has attempted to leave us in the past, but quickly returned, realizing that his work home was with us at Canvas Health!
Over the last decade, Ben has had roles as an ongoing case manager and in most recent years, as an assessment worker on the case management team. He has worked with almost 275 children! Ben holds the record for the number of parents that reach out to him for additional support after he’s ended service with a family. This speaks to his ability to develop and maintain easy connections with others. Ben’s clinical skillset and knowledge of both the social service and mental health systems of care have benefited the client’s he has served. In his CMH Assessment work, Ben is known for getting families and kids the support they need very quickly in hopes to ensure improved functioning to often overwhelmed family systems.
Ben has a great sense of humor, and you can often hear his chuckle around the office. His calm demeanor is contagious, and it often benefits his families and his co-workers. He is well loved on the case management team and in the child and family division. Thank you to Ben for his years of service and his commitment and dedication. Congratulations!
Sandra Woolsey
Therapy is often described as an art, of course we know it’s a science too. The magic of therapy is in the middle, understanding the art and science and blending them together with clinical understanding in a way that helps clients get better. Sandy Woolsey has that “magic.” She is wise and understands science and theory and can explain it to others. She is able to support complex children and families and provide hope in a way that others cannot. She is magical. Sandy Woolsey began in the TAP school-based program working at the Bellaire Education Center in District 916 ten years ago. At the time it was a level 4 special education program for middle and high school students.
Over the 6 years Sandy worked at Bellaire it changed and morphed. Through it all she worked with a complex population of youth. Many whom had many therapy services in the past that were unsuccessful. When the population at the school became younger, Sandy learned new techniques and brought in her sand tray work to use with students. When presented with a complex client with dissociative identity disorder, Sandy joined a consultation group focused on the diagnosis. She partnered with school staff, psychiatry, and community providers to provide high quality wrap around care. Sandy worked with grace and caring and helped educators and families understand and support students.
Sandy became a supervisor in the school-based program before the Covid lockdown. The role of supervisor in the school-based program is complex. Not only is it important to understand clinical supervision (of which she is a pro) but also you must understand how to navigate relationships with school partners. Taking on this challenge during a global pandemic was a feat. Yet with Sandy’s determination and focus on providing the best clinical care to our clients, we have continued to grow our programs. She is the person on our team that challenges all of us to continue to learn and grow as clinicians, to understand the work and then to take it to the next level, to go deeper in an effort to help others. She is skilled at attachment work, parts work and EMDR. She is making all of us better and thus helping more clients, families, and schools then you can imagine. Thank you, Sandy, for your dedication to Canvas Health for these past 10 years and for sharing your magic with us all.
Der Yang
Starting as a 10 hour per week, part-time front desk admin has turned into 10 years with Canvas Health!
In her journey through Canvas Der moved on to be our Cottage Grove front desk admin, Program Support for Adult Day Treatment and is currently our Supervisor of Intake and Quality Management.
Der brings a commitment of excellence, attention to detail, and understands that her Intake team is often the first point of contact for people seeking services at Canvas, while Medical Records supports efficient communications with our community partners. Her dedication, contributions and expertise have been fundamental to the agency’s mission of helping people and changing lives. Congratulations on reaching this incredible milestone of 10 years with us.
Congratulations, Amanda Cammack, Katherine Carlson, Beth Hopkins, , Dr. Rori Johnson, Anna Marie Montague, Ben Rastegari, Jessica Torrey, Ben Widbin, Sandra Woolsey, and Der Yang!
