Bert Nash Spirit Award winner was one of state’s first mental health screeners

It seemed fitting when Ganis Himes accepted the Sandra Shaw Spirit Award at the Bert Nash Pioneer Celebration on April 20 that she asked her fellow after-hour screeners to join her.

Himes, who supervises the after-hour screeners for Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center, thinks of herself as one of them.

And she is.

Himes, who started doing mental health screens for Bert Nash in 1992, was one of the first screeners in the state.

“I was working as a case manager at the time and my supervisor brought me a screen and said this is something new we’re going to be doing and there’s a patient at the emergency room and I need you to do this,” Himes said. “She thought I would be really good at this, because I had worked for SRS doing child-abuse investigations, and I had already worked on call for a lot of juvenile intakes. So this was something I just fell into.”

It was a perfect fit.

“Her passion and dedication go beyond a job description,” Bert Nash child and family therapist in Eudora and after-hours screener Kathleen Boyd said in her nomination of Himes. “She has never in my years of working with her been anything but positive, encouraging and supportive.”

In typical modest fashion, Himes gave her fellow after-hours screeners the credit for making her look good. “I’m proud they are all really highly skilled professionals in their own right,” Himes said. “They are all compassionate, kind and encouraging. Everybody does it because they love it. I really consider myself a part of the team.”

The after-hour screeners work closely with law enforcement and hospital staff. Screens are typically done at Lawrence Memorial Hospital, but they are sometimes done at the Douglas County Jail or the Douglas County Juvenile Detention Center. Hwi-Ja Canda, a social work coordinator at Lawrence Memorial Hospital, works with Himes on a regular basis.

“Ganis is a knowledgeable, competent and skilled screener. She is very committed to taking care of people and does so in the most calm and caring manner,” Canda said. “She can work with any emergency or hospital staff and she will make sure her screening process is completed. She is excellent to triage these patients for the appropriate level of care and is very mindful when she makes a clinical decision. She never brags about herself, and her professionalism speaks for itself. She is an extremely hard worker with a strong commitment to helping clients. I am very grateful to know Ganis as my colleague.”

Receiving an award named for Sandra Shaw was especially meaningful for Himes because she worked with the longtime Bert Nash CEO.

“I feel so honored to receive this award, because I had the wonderful opportunity to work with Sandra Shaw for many years,” Himes said. “Sandra was an innovator always seeking out ways to implement the best and most effective treatment procedures for Bert Nash clients.”

Himes was also proud to join her mentor, Sharon Zehr, Bert Nash homeless outreach and jail team leader and a former screening supervisor, as a recipient of the Sandra Shaw Spirit Award. Zehr and Connie Snow, Bert Nash accounts receivable manager, were last year’s Spirit Award winners.

“Sharon has positively impacted my career more than any other supervisor in my 33 years of work,” Himes said. “I am proud to be chosen because of the previous winners of this award.”

Being an after-hours screener can often make for some long days, or nights.

“We’re on duty whenever the Center isn’t open,” Himes said. “Most of the screens tend to be later at night. You can be there for a lot of long hours.”

Himes knows all about working long hours. When she was announced as this year’s recipient of the Sandra Shaw Spirit Award at an all-staff meeting on the morning April 6, she had been up the night before and into the morning doing three screens. When she was honored again at the Bert Nash Pioneer Celebration on the evening of April 20, she was called at midnight to do a screen.

Such is the life of an after-hour screener.

“It takes a special person to be a screener,” Himes said. “It takes someone who has clinical skills, but also someone who has investigative skills. They have to be a good listener and ask good questions. They have to be someone who is not threatening and who is calm. Probably the most important thing is they have to be compassionate.”

An after-hours screeners’ primary responsibility is to evaluate if a person is suicidal or homicidal and determine if hospitalization is necessary. Requiring a patient to be hospitalized when he or she doesn’t want to be is not an easy decision.

“I never like making someone go involuntarily to a hospital,” Himes said. “That’s my least favorite part of the job. But sometimes it’s necessary.”

Typically, after a situation is stabilized, the patient is grateful for the efforts of the after-hours screener.

“Most people thank you, because they realize they were in a bad spot and they needed to go to a hospital,” Himes said. “It feels good when you screen someone and they’ve gotten help. I’ve had people come up and hug me and say thank you for making me go to the hospital. I didn’t want to go, they say, but I’m glad you made me. I’m better now.”

For Himes, those three words make all the long hours well worth it.