Episode Description: In this episode, Rachel sits down with Becky Stoll, Vice President for Crisis and Disaster Management at Centerstone, to explore how crisis mental health systems can be intentionally designed to support staff well-being, retention, and long-term sustainability. Becky draws on nearly four decades of experience to challenge the industry's historic approach to workforce wellness, arguing that organizations must fix broken systems before asking staff to simply be resilient. Listeners will come away with a practical framework for building crisis systems that take care of the people delivering care, from recruitment and hiring all the way through career development and leadership training.
Key Topics Discussed:
- What crisis services actually are and the range of roles within the field How the industry has historically failed staff by prioritizing wellness perks over systemic change A continuum-based framework for sustainable hiring, onboarding, and retention Why being a good clinician does not automatically make someone a good manager Career pathing as an underused retention and development strategy What Centerstone's research on the brain in crisis revealed about how we should approach people post-crisis The responsibilities that come with organizational scale through mergers and acquisitions Why crisis services remains an invisible career track for students entering behavioral health
Main Takeaways:
- Organizations must audit and fix their own systems before offering staff wellness resources. A broken system is itself a source of harm. Sustainable staffing starts at recruitment. Transparent job postings, scenario-based interviews, and intentional onboarding reduce attrition and set staff up for success. Career pathing is an organizational responsibility. Whether staff want to grow as clinicians or move into leadership, it is up to leaders to build real pathways and prepare people for what those roles actually require. Scale only matters if it is used well. Larger organizations have a responsibility to share research, tools, and training broadly rather than keeping them internal. The field is losing potential workforce by not educating students about crisis services as a legitimate and diverse career track.
Notable Quotes:
- "The very first thing we have to do is take care of your own house. We shouldn't even be talking about how to make sure staff are well until we make sure they're operating in a system that is the best it can be." "How dare us to have a system that's not set up well, and then wonder why the staff aren't well, and then just say, well, here's the EAP number out there." "I wonder what it does to your brain to be in a mental health crisis. And I went, whoa."
Resources Mentioned:
- Health Care Worker Burnout — A Call for System-Level Solutions The Effectiveness of EMDR Therapy in Treating PTSD Among ICU Healthcare Professionals Organizational and System-Level Approaches to Supporting the Health Workforce
Connect with Becky Stoll:
- Organization: https://www.centerstone.org
Website: https://www.traumaspecialiststraining.com/mental-health-evolution-podcast
Instagram: /thementalhealthevolution/
LinkedIn: /the-mental-health-evolution
Facebook: /TheMentalHealthEvolution
Music Credit: Music by Zach Harrison