When you are caught in the middle of alcoholism or drug addiction, it can be hard to see a way out, a future that is not only free of substance abuse but that can be full of joy. Ann Neglaska has lived those feelings and, just as was done for her, now works every day to reach out and pull others through that dark tunnel to life at the other end.
Ann is the Behavioral Health Aide for Kaltag, a village of about 125 people located on the banks of the Yukon River, about 335 miles west of Fairbanks. In that position, she provides a broad range of mental health and addiction services, including intake assessments, diagnosis and treatment plans, and individual and group counseling. But Ann’s path to this work was not a straight one.
“I guess you could say it started with my own recovery. While I was at Old Minto Camp, one of the counselors there, Dorothy Bekoalok, became a kind of role model, a mentor.” With her support and inspiration, Ann achieved sobriety and wanted to help others the way Dorothy, and many others at the treatment camp, had helped her. Later another woman, Jessica Goff, convinced Ann, who at that point was working as a clerk, that she had the ability to go through the training to become a Behavioral Health Aide for Tanana Chiefs.
Ann was hired in June of 2015, but first the job required completing a rigorous training program. For two years, she traveled every month to Fairbanks and then Anchorage to take classes, which led to a certificate in Rural Human Services. At that point she was assigned some limited responsibilities for clients, but the emphasis was on still more training, this time under the supervision of licensed mental health professionals. After several years she earned her A.A. in Rural Human Services, from the University of Alaska, and was able to carry a caseload of her own.
As she had hoped, the greatest joy of her job is that Ann is able to offer encouragement to people who may not be able to see that recovery is possible. And not everyone is recovering from substance abuse, some are struggling with mental health issues or trauma that stops them from having their best life. Wherever someone is in their life’s journey, if they really want to get better, Ann is there to help.
There are frustrations to being a Behavioral Health Aide, mostly the same ones that so many rural providers experience, such as a lack of health aides, no VPSO, and a long time to wait for the Troopers to arrive if there is an emergency. It means that Ann must wear many hats and that she spends a lot of time coordinating with urban providers to get her clients services. And then, like any provider for any agency, there is the ever increasing and often changing paperwork! But the satisfaction she gets from her job makes it all worth it.
When she is not working, Ann can be found spending time with her husband of twenty five years, or one or more of her three adult children. It is gratifying to Ann that her youngest son told Ann she is his inspiration and that he is at UAF working on his counseling degree because he intends to follow in her footsteps.
When she has free time, Ann enjoys skin sewing, mostly for potlatches. She is an avid photographer, and uses the family’s many camping trips to catch the sunsets and sunrises in her pictures. Her other main source of what she calls self-care, is her garden: planting, tending, harvesting, and taking pictures of the plants as they grow. She makes sure to take the time she needs to replenish her own energy, so that she can keep doing the job she loves for many years to come.
Candice Jacobs, who has worked with Ann for some years and is now her supervisor, calls Ann “a pillar of strength to her community and a blessing to her co-workers. She always is willing to step in on a moment’s notice to help out wherever she is needed, whether at Old Minto or assisting another Behavioral Health Aide in their community. We are so thankful to have her on our team!”