Page 17 - Healthcare Heores 2021

HEALTHCARE HEROES OF WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
Richard Johnson, center, with many of the team members staffing the Deborah Hunt Prevention and Education Drop-in Center in Mason Square.
substance abuse to prevention of communicable diseases to overdose prevention and Narcan distribution. These sites include the Friends
of the Homeless facility, Carlson Detox Center, Opportunity House, Bowen Center, and Valor Recovery Center.
COVID has reduced the numbers of such visits, but the work goes on, he said, adding that it
is highly rewarding in many respects, because through it, he is helping not only individuals but neighborhoods and the larger community become more resilient.
This has become his life’s work, and his devotion to that work, that mission, has made him a Healthcare Hero for 2021.
Source of Strength
As he talked with BusinessWest/Healthcare News in the tiny lab set up in the drop-in center, near the Rebecca Johnson School, Johnson said the facility lives up to every word over the door.
It is, indeed, a drop-in center, where one can find testing, counseling, education, and help with prevention. There is a team of individuals working there, but Johnson is the leader, in every aspect of that word. Meaning, he sets a tone for the work there, one born from experience working with this constituency and trying to meet its many and diverse needs.
He first became involved in community health in 2002, when he volunteered for an agency called Northern Educational Services, funded by the
Massachusetts Department of Public Health. “There were a number of folks I knew who were impacted by substance use and HIV,” he
explained. “So this provided an opportunity for me to be directly involved in trying to navigate them to some sort of care.”
“Much of my work as a case manager centered on really
just helping people to adjust
to a new reality with regard to being diagnosed with HIV and confronting some of t”he stigmas associated with that.
After this stint as a volunteer, he joined Northern Educational Services as a relapse counselor, and from there, he went from relapse prevention to HIV case management, starting first as an assistant and then working his way up to senior case manager. Ultimately, he became the director of Counseling and Testing Prevention and Education Services.
“Much of my work as a case manager centered on really just helping people to adjust to a new reality with regard to being diagnosed with HIV and confronting some of the stigmas associated with that,” he said. “I helped them understand
Congratulations Richard Johnson!
You are truly a Healthcare Hero and deserve this award!
Love,
The Mason Square C3 and
Baystate Medical Center Community Benefits Advisory Council (CBAC)
TrinityHealthOfNE.org
Mercy Medical Center is proud to recognize this
year’s Healthcare Heroes and their commitment
to the community.
271 Carew Street, Springfield, MA 01104 • 413-748-9000
OCTOBER 2021 A17
2021 HEALTHCARE HEROES
Staff Photo