Gold Key Recipients
2023 Recipients of Gold Key Awards
Daniel Galvin, Spectrum Health and Human Services
Daniel Galvin, MSW, Certified Recovery Peer Advocate (CRPA), has been employed with Spectrum Health and Human Services since June of 2019. He began his career with the agency as a Peer Support Specialist under the Comprehensive Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC). Dan embraced his role and excelled in connecting with those individuals referred to him for peer services. He later transitioned to the Senior Peer, supervising a team of peer specialists within the agency while continuing his direct service to clients. In August 2022, Dan secured a position as the Director of Peer Services and Integration. Dan's unique lived experience of recovery from addiction and progression from homelessness to completing his Master's degree in Social Work is a celebration of the spirit of recovery he brings to his work every day. Dan’s peaceful approach has truly shifted Spectrum Health’s leadership team to be better, more person-centered, and more trauma-informed. Dan possesses a remarkable quality of sharing his lived experience in a way that helps engage and motivate. It is easy to see Dan's empathy and compassion, not through oversharing his experiences but in offering reflective feedback to people that creates a sense of safety and fellowship. He shares in a way that is quietly courageous and never intrusive. His creative style of peer counseling has helped numerous individu-als define their own goals for recovery and supported them to carry them out.
Dan has taken on a leadership role in helping to develop and launch a unique community collaboration between ROME, WNY Independent Living, and Spectrum at the Kirsten Vincent Respite and Recovery Center. This center offers respite and peer crisis counseling for people to divert from CPEP admissions. His lived experience and clinical training have been valuable in developing this opportunity to support members of our community who are in crisis.
Dan truly embodies the spirit of peer services and recovery. He has made a tremendous impact on the lives of his clients and the peer team he supervises, as well as the overall culture of Spectrum Health.
Dan has taken on a leadership role in helping to develop and launch a unique community collaboration between ROME, WNY Independent Living, and Spectrum at the Kirsten Vincent Respite and Recovery Center. This center offers respite and peer crisis counseling for people to divert from CPEP admissions. His lived experience and clinical training have been valuable in developing this opportunity to support members of our community who are in crisis.
Dan truly embodies the spirit of peer services and recovery. He has made a tremendous impact on the lives of his clients and the peer team he supervises, as well as the overall culture of Spectrum Health.
Douglas Bisher, WNY Independent Living
WNYIL’s Douglas “Douggie” Bisher is a Certified Recovery Peer Ad-vocate (CRPA) for the A2A (Addict2Addict) Team in Niagara County. In that role, he provides recovery coaching, advocacy, trainings, out-reach, and education to the community. Colleagues say Doug con-sistently exhibits that he is an overachiever without even knowing it. His standards are naturally high in all areas of his job and he embod-ies the Peer Philosophy in all he does. Doug wears his heart on his sleeve when he speaks and all are moved as he shares his experi-ences from having over seven years of sustained recovery from a long battle of almost ten years of active and progressive addiction. Whether it be speaking at Horizon Villages, to the Rehabilitation Center of Niagara, to the Buffalo Police Department Training Academy, to Lockport City Court, Doug routinely demonstrates the special supports that peers can provide for individuals seeking recovery or who still need some help while maintaining recovery.
Doug was able to take his love of cornhole and combine it with recovery in a program he created. “Tossing and Testimonies” is a corn hole tournament that is brought into treatment facilities throughout Erie and Niagara Counties that provide a glimpse and example of how to have fun, socialize, and be present in one’s recovery. The first ever tournament was held at Horizon Villages for one of the men’s residences and it was a big hit. Within a week ILNC A2A was being contacted by other facilities to do more. “Tossing and Testimonies” was noticed by
FORNY (Friends of Recovery of New York) and ILNC A2A was asked to present the program at the most recent Recovery Conference in Saratoga Springs this past October. Since that presentation, the interest has grown even further from facilities downstate, upstate, southern tier, and central region who have emailed or called about organizing their own tournaments.
Doug is constantly thinking about how to help others, how to give back to the community, and how to spread the message of hope to those who are still struggling. He has devoted many hours to assisting others on their journeys, all while being a supporting father and a loving husband.
Doug was able to take his love of cornhole and combine it with recovery in a program he created. “Tossing and Testimonies” is a corn hole tournament that is brought into treatment facilities throughout Erie and Niagara Counties that provide a glimpse and example of how to have fun, socialize, and be present in one’s recovery. The first ever tournament was held at Horizon Villages for one of the men’s residences and it was a big hit. Within a week ILNC A2A was being contacted by other facilities to do more. “Tossing and Testimonies” was noticed by
FORNY (Friends of Recovery of New York) and ILNC A2A was asked to present the program at the most recent Recovery Conference in Saratoga Springs this past October. Since that presentation, the interest has grown even further from facilities downstate, upstate, southern tier, and central region who have emailed or called about organizing their own tournaments.
Doug is constantly thinking about how to help others, how to give back to the community, and how to spread the message of hope to those who are still struggling. He has devoted many hours to assisting others on their journeys, all while being a supporting father and a loving husband.
Kristopher Decker, Evergreen Health
Khristopher Decker, vice president of behavioral health at Evergreen Health and faculty member at the University at Buffalo, has been a leader in the field of harm reduction for 25 years. Since 1998, Khris has expanded access to affirming services for diverse and marginalized communities of people who use drugs, while helping other professionals develop their careers in harm reduction and substance user health care.
Khris currently serves as the Vice President of Behavioral Health at Evergreen Health, a non-profit healthcare organization that provides medical, supportive and behavioral health services to underserved communities, including people living with HIV, LGBTQ+ individuals and those with mental health and substance use needs.
Since 2019, Khris has served as the executive in charge of Evergreen’s Center for Behavioral Health and has led several large projects. In 2022, he oversaw the addition of a drop-in center that offers free services to people who use drugs, including shower, laundry, nutrition and linkage to harm reduction and drug user health services. In 2020, he led Evergreen’s outpatient mental health clinic’s licensing by the Office of Mental Health. In 2021, he led the expansion of the Center for Behavioral Health’s mental health office, opening up counseling services to up to 500 new patients. In 2019, Khris created a role for and hired Evergreen’s first Certified Recovery Peer Advocate and expanded the Evergreen substance use program to offer medication assisted treatment services without counseling to enhance recovery and overdose protection for patients who aren’t ready for counseling.
In addition to his position at Evergreen, Khris is also currently a part-time faculty member at the University at Buffalo’s (UB) Graduate School of Social Work, where he develops and delivers multiple courses to Master’s in Social Work candidates pursuing careers in behavioral health and harm reduction.
His career has taken him from Gay & Lesbian Youth Services to Horizon Health and to Spectrum Health and Human Services. In addition, he has volunteered his time and expertise to educate fellow professionals in the substance use and harm reduction field at many organizations. Khris is a published article contributor and sought after speaker. He uses these opportunities to publicly advocate for harm reduction and for destigmatizing issues surrounding substance use and mental health.
Khris currently serves as the Vice President of Behavioral Health at Evergreen Health, a non-profit healthcare organization that provides medical, supportive and behavioral health services to underserved communities, including people living with HIV, LGBTQ+ individuals and those with mental health and substance use needs.
Since 2019, Khris has served as the executive in charge of Evergreen’s Center for Behavioral Health and has led several large projects. In 2022, he oversaw the addition of a drop-in center that offers free services to people who use drugs, including shower, laundry, nutrition and linkage to harm reduction and drug user health services. In 2020, he led Evergreen’s outpatient mental health clinic’s licensing by the Office of Mental Health. In 2021, he led the expansion of the Center for Behavioral Health’s mental health office, opening up counseling services to up to 500 new patients. In 2019, Khris created a role for and hired Evergreen’s first Certified Recovery Peer Advocate and expanded the Evergreen substance use program to offer medication assisted treatment services without counseling to enhance recovery and overdose protection for patients who aren’t ready for counseling.
In addition to his position at Evergreen, Khris is also currently a part-time faculty member at the University at Buffalo’s (UB) Graduate School of Social Work, where he develops and delivers multiple courses to Master’s in Social Work candidates pursuing careers in behavioral health and harm reduction.
His career has taken him from Gay & Lesbian Youth Services to Horizon Health and to Spectrum Health and Human Services. In addition, he has volunteered his time and expertise to educate fellow professionals in the substance use and harm reduction field at many organizations. Khris is a published article contributor and sought after speaker. He uses these opportunities to publicly advocate for harm reduction and for destigmatizing issues surrounding substance use and mental health.
Rick Laude, Preventionfocus
Rick Laude has worked in the SUD prevention field for over 22 years. All of those years have been with Preventionfocus. Rick’s title is currently Senior Prevention Specialist. In that role, Rick is responsible for training new staff, maintaining all curriculum and helping with program scheduling, while supervising some staff and providing a full load of direct service in his assigned schools. Throughout his career, Rick has remained true to one of his favorite catch phrases, “I’m here to help.” Whether it’s helping a rookie prevention specialist handle a troublesome classroom situation or schedul-ing dilemma or taking an extra shift at the Erie County Fair or some grass roots coalition event, Rick is always willing. Whether it’s moving furniture for an office renovation or transporting the Preventionfocus traveling display to a shopping mall or helping with the office copier or laminator, or filling out a stat form, Rick has always been everyone’s “go to guy.” His puppet work delivering the Mendez Foundation’s “Too Good for Violence” curriculum is legendary. His voice for Carmen the Cat is his take on Kathy Griffin doing an impression of Cher and it leaves students and faculty rolling in the aisles of every classroom he does. In June, the Charter School for Applied Technologies (CSAT) made a school-wide project of doing a thank you video for him that ran 25 minutes because no classroom teacher wanted to be left out. His passion and enthusiasm for our work is as infectious today as it was on his first day at Preventionfocus. Although he is not quite 102 years old, as he likes to claim, his energy is remarkable for a person who has done this work for as long as he has. His pre and post testing results in his classrooms have been stellar year in and year out. For all of these reasons, shadowing Rick is a requirement for all new hires at the agency. Dozens of colleagues, hundreds of teachers, and thousands of students who have ever met Rick Laude over the years are definitely better for having the experience.
