Author: Anne Brown

April Wilson Smith, MPH, is a PhD student in Population Health at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Her research focuses on harm reduction approaches to people who use substances when they enter the healthcare system.

April's other interest in healthcare is interprofessional education and teamwork. Her work with the Jefferson Center for InterProfessional Education won the 2016 James B. Erdmann PhD award for Excellence in Interprofessional Education. She is currently building a large, multidisciplinary coalition to create an interprofessional education module for healthcare professionals in best practices for the care of people who use drugs when they present in the acute care setting.

April is a Certified SMART Recovery facilitator and founded the first SMART Recovery meeting in the Philadelphia city limits. She is also co-founder of the only Harm Reduction, Abstinence and Moderation Support meeting in Philadelphia.

April recently accepted a position as Harm Reduction Epidemiologist with Families for Sensible Drug Policy, which is a non-profit dedicated to helping families advocate for drug policies that save drug users' lives and keep families together and healthy.  Co-founder and President, Barry Lessin, is also a Pro Talk columnist . 

April graduated from Yale University in 1996. She was a union organizer for healthcare workers for 18 years before going back to school for her Master of Public Health, and spent ten years as Director of Organizing for Pennsylvania's largest nurses' union. She lives in West Philadelphia with her beautiful black cat, Loviefluffy.

Located in Portland, OR, Olivia Pennelle (Liv) is an experienced writer, journalist, and coach. She is the founder of the popular site Liv’s Recovery Kitchen, a site dedicated to helping people flourish in their recovery.

Liv is passionate about challenging limiting mentalities and empowering others to direct their own lives, health, and recovery. You can find her articles across the web on podcasts and addiction recovery websites, including The Fix, Recovery.org, Workit Health, and Ravishly. Liv was recently featured in VICE.

If you're interested in connecting with Liv, you can find her on Instagram. She also created a new Facebook group called Life After 12 Steps, where she proudly sees members thriving, rather than forcing themselves to do something that doesn’t work.

Additionally, Liv offers free resources on her website, including the e-book entitled Nourishing You, which is designed to give you the tools to achieve your health goals in straightforward language.

Stacey M. Rosenfeld is the author of Does Every Woman Have an Eating Disorder? Challenging Our Nation's Fixation with Food and Weight. She is a licensed clinical psychologist in New York and California. Prior to her full-time private practice, Stacey was a staff psychologist at Columbia University Medical Center in New York and at UCLA Counseling Center in Los Angeles. She is an eating disorder and substance use disorder specialist and also focuses on anxiety and mood disorders, infertility, relationship concerns, and sport and exercise psychology.

Stacey works with individuals and groups, using an approach that blends cognitive-behavioral, dialectical-behavioral, pyschodynamic, and interpersonal techniques. Her goal is to help clients address their concerns and arrive at a more comfortable and effective place in their lives.

Lesley Wirth, MA in Spiritual Psychology, and certified Recovery Coach, is an independent contractor at Practical Recovery and Restoration Inn, a beautiful trauma informed recovery center for women, located in La Jolla, CA.

With a passion for helping women who have been using as a means to cope with their emotions, trauma, and circumstances, Lesley has been in the recovery field for ten years. Working with a wide array of addictive tendencies, she believes that women undergo specific challenges when it comes to recovery, which has motivated her to work solely with the female population.

Lesley has a nationwide after-care recovery program where she helps women integrate into their home environment after treatment. Many of her clients stay with her long-term as they move from a recovery-only focused lifestyle, to one where self-actualization becomes a larger focus. Clients work through healing mind, body, and spirit, to create a life that is becomes exciting to them again and often expand into fulfilling their dreams.

In her book, Own Your Worth, A Spiritual Journey through Food Compulsion to Self-Love, Lesley outlines the process of healing the deeper aspects of shame, unworthiness, and working to overcome fear. These processes have developed into a 6 week program that has helped women to connect to their True Self and find an embodied sense of empowerment. The program has seen great success both in and out of treatment centers in California.

Raychelle Lohmann has been a counselor since 1998. She has done extensive research in the domain of anger management and careers. She is a published author, blogs for US News & World Report, and enjoys speaking and presenting at conferences and facilitating workshops.

As a school counselor, Raychelle works with students regarding personal/social, academic, college and career issues. Additionally, she assists parents and teachers with adolescent and parenting concerns, as well as works collaboratively with parents and teachers to assist students with academic progress.

Raychelle is an active member of the American Counseling Association, American School Counseling Association, and National Career Development Association. She is a National Board Certified Counselor and a Licensed Professional Counselor in the states of NC and SC. Additionally, Raychelle is a certified Global Career Development Facilitator.

Ian McLoone, MPS, LPC, LADC holds a master’s degree from the University of Minnesota’s Integrated Behavioral Health clinical counseling program. He holds dual licensure as both a professional counselor and an alcohol and drug counselor, and provides integrated care for substance use and mental health disorders to patients at Alltyr Clinic in St Paul, Minnesota. He is also an adjunct instructor/community faculty at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches Applied Psychopharmacology in the Addiction Studies graduate program; as well as St Mary’s University of Minnesota, where he teaches Substance use and Community Health in the Master of Arts in Instruction program.

Previously, Ian worked to develop a Spanish language intensive outpatient program, along with working on various advocacy projects for people with opioid use disorders. He is currently on the board of Minnesota Alternatives Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to providing non-12 Step peer support, harm reduction services and a community center where people are encouraged to define their own recovery. In addition, Ian provides training and consultation to agencies and staff on person-centered evidence-based treatment approaches, the use of anti-relapse medications, and how to work with families to effectively and compassionately support their loved ones in recovery.

Ian has worked alongside Mark Willenbring, MD since the founding of Alltyr Clinic, helping to develop its programs and to train clinical staff. He knows firsthand that many programs are still using treatment approaches that haven't been updated since the 1950s - in spite of the mountains of research that have been accumulated since - and is devoted to bringing paradigm change to the field of addiction treatment and making 21st Century care available to all.