Category Archives: GW Team

Growth Works would like to thank Shenandoah Chefalo for embarking on a journey of trauma-informed care with our team! We welcomed her to our All Staff meeting and learned about her history and her approach to building a trauma-informed community.

Shenandoah Chefalo, award-winning author, sought-after speaker, and trauma-informed coach and consultant who penned the book, “Garbage Bag Suitcase” about her young life in the foster care system, as well as an e-book entitled “Setting Your Vision and Defining Your Goals”. Her upcoming book “Hiking for Stillness” lays out a plan to overcome and address personal trauma by using and exploring the methods that she developed for herself.

She travels internationally helping transform organizations by teaching them how they can improve their workplace, performance, and overall enjoyment. Her tested and proven style of trauma-informed coaching includes a focus on resilience which she feels is a necessary skill for all to learn. 

She is passionate about serving her clients, family, and community. She does so by helping organizations improve their workplaces and performance by teaching sustainable, trauma-informed methods, and by telling her story and educating the public about the grim realities of a life that she had always tried to hide.

Shenandoah experienced a dysfunctional childhood with neglectful, drug and alcohol addicted parents. This eventually landed her in the foster system where she endured numerous moves in the middle of the night with just minutes to pack, multiple changes in schools, hunger, cruelty, and loneliness.

To learn more about her story and how Shenandoah can serve your organization, you can visit https://www.chefaloconsulting.com/

Growth Works is excited to announce their new hire, Brian Galdes, as the Suicide Prevention Coordinator for the Western Wayne Suicide Prevention Coalition. As we bid farewell to Syndee Malek, we want to thank her for all her hard work in leading the coalition and we know Brian will continue her tremendous work.

This Coalition seeks to address youth suicide prevention, support their mental health, and in turn aim for zero completed youth suicides within the Western Wayne School Districts served. Over the past year, this initiative has helped train over 3,000 school staff members in seven school districts. We’ve implemented three major conferences as well as a lecture series to provide ongoing professional development for school mental health teams. Overall, the coalition represents 6,500 school staff members serving over 65,000 students.

The Suicide Prevention Committee started through a community health needs assessment initiated by St. Mary Mercy in 2015. This resulted in a suicide prevention forum developed through a collaboration of stakeholders in the seven participating school districts. With support from Trinity Health Livonia, the Flinn Foundation, and the Growth Works board of directors, we are pleased to announce that our agency will continue to support the coalition’s efforts for the next two years. We are grateful for the opportunity to support the staff and students represented by the coalition and we look forward to taking this work to the next level. 

“It is an honor to have this opportunity to continue to work with the Western Wayne Suicide Prevention Coalition in this new capacity,” Galdes said.  “This coalition will provide school districts powerful tools and resources to address adolescent depression and reduce the risk of suicide through the combined efforts of the coalition partners.”

Under the guidance of the district team lead, partner organization(s), and Coalition members, Galdes will support the school districts in implementing evidence-based programming, policies, and strategies that target risk and protective factors associated with youth mental health.

Brian Galdes is the former Superintendent of Schools with South Redford School District and brings with him a passion and dedication for this effort that is unmatched. He has been in the coalition since its inception and he participated in Trinity Health Livonia’s Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) which identified youth suicide as a priority for our area and we know he will do great things in this new role.

If you want to learn more about the Coalition, contact Alice Reinke, Alice.Reinke@gwcares.org.

Growth Works started an Employee Recognition Program to recognize staff who went above and beyond to live out the Growth Works’ values in their interactions with our fellow staff members and our clients. Our staff members live out the values of Passionate Dedication, Service to Others, Humility and Commitment to Community on a daily basis. Our goal for this program has been to recognize those individuals for their heartfelt work, and it also sets a high standard for the type of individuals who carry out our work here at Growth Works. We are caring for the body, mind and soul of our clients, and we take that work seriously.

We want to share with you our most recent employee who was recognized by their peers for living out the Growth Works values; Veronica Pryor.

Veronica consistently practices commitment to community by saying hello to me when I come into the Plymouth office. She always makes me feel welcome and included within the agency. She always has a smile on her face, which brings up my spirits, especially on those tough workdays. I know she has been with the agency for many years, while at the same time, being very humble. I appreciate her positive demeanor and I hope to continue to see Veronica in the near future.