Tuesday, May 24, 2011

The Ladder to Leadership Program: Voice from the Field Guest Post from Cassandra Sheets

This is the first in an ongoing series of Voices from the Field guest posts by scholars, fellows and alumni of RWJF Human Capital programs. The author, Cassandra Sheets, L.M.S.W., is a fellow of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Center for Creative Leadership’s Ladder to Leadership program.

It’s been barely 15 months since I completed my RWJF Ladder to Leadership fellowship, and I’m struck by two things. First, to my great surprise, I think I might have put almost everything I learned to use already, and second, it couldn’t have come at a better time for me. I can’t imagine what the last year might have been like if I hadn’t been through the program.

A newly posted story over on the RWJF Web site tells the tale. But the short version is that I was recently appointed CEO of the Center for Family Life and Recovery (CFLR), Inc., in Utica, New York, to guide the organization that we’re creating out of the merger of two family-serving organizations in the region. I know such mergers have been common in the last couple of years, driven in many cases by economic pressure from the recession.
The recession was certainly at work in our merger, and part of the purpose was to create more stable financial footing for the services we provide families. A lot of them are struggling with addiction in a variety of forms. We provide them with counseling and family support, alcoholism and addiction treatment support services, training and education, as well as mentoring and advocacy on their behalf.

Read more here.

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