Testimonials

I really appreciated the program. I felt like someone cared that I was struggling and there is such value in receiving kindness. That this comes from our state makes me feel loved by VT and makes me love VT even more. Thank you.

VT RETAIN participant

“I was so impressed with the professionalism that was shown to me, and I am happy with the recommendations that have been made to me and my provider.”

“VT RETAIN was a key element in keeping me employed, helping me work through an incredibly difficult period in my life. VT RETAIN made that possible for me in a way that I didn’t understand I needed and can’t live without.” 

“It is wonderful to know, all in one place, the many resources available to those who are disabled. The resource document is a gold mine. You encouraged me to keep being strong and to continue to participate meaningfully in this world in spite of my limitations! Thank you very much for your calmness, professionalism, and above all, kindness in word and deed.” 

“The information was very accessible. This program will help anybody that needs the help.”

-VT RETAIN Participant

“I can’t thank you enough. This program radically changed my life for the better.” “I was so impressed with the professionalism that was shown to me, and I am happy with the recommendations that have been made to me and my provider.”

“Soon after I signed up, my return-to-work accommodation failed…. My Work-Health Coach helped guide me through.” 

Empowerment: An Essential Ingredient in the Return-to-Work Process

“Through RETAIN they are seen with fresh eyes and heard through fresh ears. There is restored faith that the efforts they make towards being their more authentic, healing self are valued. With RETAIN participants experience a larger sense of healing through community, with multiple supports and perspectives, creating space for participants to carve out their own path of transformation.” – Mental Health Counselor

“The feedback has been positive. It was very easy, minimal lift from my perspective. No downsides. I
think it would be easy to implement in other practices.”

– Practice Manager & Practice Lead

Hidden barriers and creative solutions
“I worked with a man living alone, renting a room in a home shared in a rural small village in Vermont. He had been working full time until the college where he worked closed down, and all staff were terminated. He does not drive or have a driver’s license. He quickly began struggling with finances. Employment that works around public transportation schedules is extremely limited. His history of depression that had been stable for quite some time now became concerning again. After a few months with VT RETAIN support, he was able to open up and reach out. He was encouraged simply to reach out to us anytime, and we provided our library of work-health resources. His funds were dwindling down to the bare minimum, and he was fearful of becoming homeless when I suggested the possibility of being a school substitute teacher at a school within walking distance, or as a school employee, he would be able to ride the school bus to work and activities. We reviewed how to go about applying to become a substitute teacher, which he embraced and navigated himself through the application process. Not only was he hired and able to ride the school bus to work, but he was quickly offered a full-time job. He has since been offered additional work with the school’s theater program and work at another school within the school system. His transition from unemployment to full-time work making a valuable contribution in his community may not have happened because of one barrier. He had recent significant weight gain due to inactivity and depression with no professional clothing in his current size. Our coach team worked our contacts across the state and found appropriate professional clothing that was free or reasonably priced in his size. His depression symptoms are back to their well-controlled baseline, and he is saving his money for a move where it will be easier to get around with public transportation and closer to his job, friends, and support system.”

The power of words

“I wanted to share an “aha” moment from a recent discharge of a participant from VT RETAIN. The participant was highly engaged but also suffering significantly and consistently (both physically and emotionally) from arthritis pain and adjustment disorder from a childhood and adolescence of incessant abuse. This participant had been sober and engaged with AA for 40 years before entering RETAIN, had a profound arsenal of self-care tools, habits, and routines, and yet he was struggling terribly with the 10% of his work week that he had to interact with supervisors and colleagues. These interactions caused him to want to leave his employment. Before enrolling in VT RETAIN, his responsibilities to his family were what kept him in the workplace. Four months into VT RETAIN, this participant was still “running on empty” with no energetic reserves, despite his robust self-care plan. Part of this was because he was engaged in really difficult therapeutic work, (with support from a VT RETAIN EAP counselor), that was productive and life changing, but also a drain on his reserves. Through his work with the counselor, the tools the counselor gave him, and a couple months of added support from a mental health medication, he was able to make a huge shift towards healing. He was able to make true progress in healing his trauma, build up his energetic reserves, actually enjoy his self-care activities, start a new hobby, tackle household chores like the “small things they were,” rather than “unbearable burdens,” and improve his interpersonal interactions at work. He felt he was no longer in active chronic traumatic stress. At work, he was walking away when he needed to, making a quippy comment (rather than blowing up at someone and telling them off), and setting clear boundaries without the trauma response that he needed to quit his job. As he reflected on his RETAIN time, he identified his work with the EAP counselor as a transformational factor, his primary care provider’s mention of the importance of “joint preservation” with his new arthritis diagnosis, and a term that I had used, “adversarial relationships,” which he said made him very uncomfortable but also motivated change. In our initial conversations, he had identified a goal of wanting to become better at advocating for himself rather than just getting mean. I don’t even remember using the term “adversarial relationships,” and I didn’t realize it stuck with him in that way. For me this is a reminder both of the power of active listening – summarizing and reflecting back to our participants what they are sharing, and it is also a reminder of the power of our words and of our role and position at a vulnerable time in a person’s life.”

Downstream effects

“I could tell you so many stories about Vermonters with significant mental and physical health conditions who have made incredible transformations from unemployment to fulfilling full time work. One participant who entered the program with an undisclosed (and untreated) substance use disorder and in crisis was able to acknowledge her condition, accept treatment, become sober, and start full-time employment within six months of starting VT RETAIN. She is pursuing work as a peer counselor for others with substance use disorder. When we support the journey of one person, we are positively changing the lives of many other people as well – their family, people in their community, and lives they otherwise would never have touched.”

A path through complexity

“I recently worked with a participant with a complex array of debilitating physical symptoms including back pain and a burning sensation in her legs. She also had sporadic weakness in her legs that had resulted in several falls. She had seen her doctor but a diagnosis was not made. She then had an episode of severe back pain that did not subside with usual care. She was seen by her doctor and a specialist and diagnosed with a rare spinal condition. She had surgery in 2022. During her VT RETAIN intake, she reported to me that she still had back pain that only improved a little if she was laying down. She also had urinary and bowel issues, lower extremity pain on both sides, and ear and eye symptoms that she was told were related in some way to her spine diagnosis. She is a small business owner and all of this was making it very difficult for her to work. She was very discouraged and just wanted to be able to contribute to life and move on from this. I presented her situation at VT RETAIN case review, and the following cross-specialty recommendations were made and implemented in coordination with her primary care physician: She was referred to: our wellbeing counselor for mental health support during a difficult time, pain management for a non-opioid treatment plan and the MORE (Mindfulness Oriented Recovery Enhancement) program, a urology specialist and pelvic physical therapy, a VT RETAIN ergonomist for ergonomic review of her workplace, and a VT RETAIN telehealth Work Readiness Medical Evaluation. She was able to engage in her treatment plan and follow the coordinated recommendations. At the end of her time in VT RETAIN, she reported that her symptoms were improving, her discomfort was less, her mental health and coping strategies were improved, and she was increasing the number of hours she was able to work. She said that she felt that she was finally on a path to recover and to getting her life back.” 

“I received grateful feedback from a participant that simply having regular positive and supportive check-ins with me was what they needed to get through the months they were waiting for their employment situation to improve (which it did). After listening to another participant’s goals, I encouraged them to enroll in a certificate program at NYU, which they did. This one suggestion was what they needed to turn their situation around. I was able to resolve a discrepancy in food stamps for another participant that helped them reduce financial strain and regain employment. Sometimes large problems have simple solutions when you listen.”

Vermonters who do not like to accept help

“One of the strengths of the VT RETAIN program is that we can support the transition from rejecting to accepting help. Functional loss from a newly acquired disability is a life-changing event, often with profound psychological consequences. Rejecting help is a common reaction to crisis and change and can prevent people from getting the services they need. We accept help-rejection as part of the process. For example, I worked with a successful participant who quit VT RETAIN three times. Quitting was part of the process for him. Each time he quit, I called him and asked if he would share feedback for how we could improve our services. Through the process of giving feedback, being heard, and receiving confirmation that his opinions mattered, he was also articulating his needs. I was then able to give him ideas for how he could meet some of his goals. I offered that we could try these strategies with the understanding that he could quit anytime if they didn’t work. By the end of our work together, he had retrained for a job in a new field, was employed in a less physically demanding job that he enjoyed; had gotten coordinated medical treatment; stabilized financially, emotionally, and in his relationships at home, and told me, “Asking for help isn’t a weakness, it is strength.” 

Walk with us

One of the biggest things you will get from a VT RETAIN Work Health Coach is a personal advocate. Somebody who can listen to your full story and take into account all the different pieces of your puzzle to help you get where you’re wanting to go. This is unique, because there are silos that happen in the medical system, the mental health system, and with social and employment services. The Work-Health Coach is somebody who can stand in the middle of all of that with you and help navigate where you need to go. Vermont is awesome. It has a lot of really great services already available. Our Work-Health Coaches do a great job of putting together a cohesive plan and helping people access these resources. My message of hope would be to come walk with us for a couple months and let us help. We can help break down some of the barriers and clarify your goals to help get you to a better work-health situation. Ultimately, the goal is that through our work, we have a healthier working population in Vermont.

A Long COVID Journey

A woman had been out of work for 4 years due to Long-COVID symptoms including fatigue, brain fog, and joint pain. She also had thyroid disease, heart issues , and symptoms of arthritis.. She was receiving excellent medical care from her primary care physician. She wanted to try to return to work but knew she couldn’t handle what she had previously been doing. She wisely planned to take a part-time job to start building stamina and ease back into the workforce, and thought carefully about what type of job she thought could work.

She embraced help and was very engaged with her Work-Health Coach, who provided moral support and helped her process events as they unfolded to support her decision making. She also received short-term counseling from our EAP counselor and began receiving physical therapy from a RETAIN recommended provider who has Long-COVID protocol.

She ended up landing a job which was a perfect match for her current abilities, environmental needs, interests, and skill set. At discharge, she was happily employed while continuing her medical rehabilitation and optimistic about the future.

On the other side of it

One of the many things I hear from participants is their feeling of overwhelm. They are stressed, anxious, fearful and don’t know where or how to start. I have realized that one of the best ways to help people is to listen, letting them be heard, and then letting them know they have been heard. Then we pick a starting point. Maybe it is at the beginning, or maybe it is somewhere in the messy middle. I share advice that my therapist once (or twice) told me, “Sometimes you can simply only handle what is directly in front of you at any given moment.”

I have been working with a woman who was a primary care physician who was out of work due to burnout and cognitive issues. She loved helping her patients and was passionate about the work she did, but could no longer meet the demands of our challenging and demanding healthcare system, working 70-plus hours a week. Once out of work, her work day was quickly replaced by a barrage of emails, paperwork, logging into portals, and phone calls related to her employer’s human resources department, health insurance company, short-term disability insurance, and FMLA. Not to mention multiple neurology appointments and testing, labwork, sleep study, and occupational therapy for her cognitive issues and concerns for early onset dementia, which both of her parents had. She was clearly overwhelmed!

She welcomed VT RETAIN’s help with open arms, and I was able to guide her towards prioritizing the many requests she was bombarded with, establishing a timeline, writing notes and emails after our weekly meetings outlining next steps, all the while balancing her sense of overwhelm and her memory challenges. I attended appointments with her and we made calls to human resources, health insurance, billing and short-term disability companies. We referred her to an employment attorney which also referred her to a disability attorney. 

She has said on more than one occasion over the last 5 months, “I really don’t know what I would have done without your help. I’m a physician and I know about all this medical information and documentation needed, but I am seeing it all from the patient point of view.  It isn’t easy, especially when you are not well. I think I’m on the other side of it now. How do other people do this? What will they do without VT RETAIN?”