Page 21 - Silver Linings Issue2

contained, confirming the need for CRC services to be sustained.
The training, done mostly as live virtual seminars, is provided as a community service and several regional organizations and law enforcement agencies have benefited from the
CRC. More than 1,000 individuals have received CRC training. The president
of NAMI-CT, a nonprofit mental health organization, said CRC training helped her counselors prioritize themselves during a tremendously stressful time of high demand for their services. “You can’t help others if you are completely depleted,” she said. CRC team members have heard similar responses from other organizations.
“We’re trying to get these survival skills to people who are really
feeling it,” CRC Director Stephen N. Xenakis, MD Brigadier
General (Ret) says. “I’d like to build it out.
I think this pandemic is going to be
with us for a long time. People are going to need our
help. Once things start to calm
down, even a little, and people stop
thinking about it, that’s when
you see all the other
problems. We’re ready to help.”
The tremendous impact Silver Hill Hospital’s Community Resilience Campaign had in 2020 was funded entirely by supporters like you. Rudy Ruggles, a longtime resident of Ridgefield, provided the initial funding to launch the Campaign. Ruggles has been a supporter
of Silver Hill Hospital for many years, and he recalls clearly the conversation he had when President and Medical Director Dr. Andrew Gerber called in the spring to discuss the possibility of forming the CRC.
“I already understood the need
for a new and targeted source of mental health support, even at
the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Ruggles says. “Other recent pandemics, such as Ebola that was ultimately contained, were a bellwether for things to come. The COVID-19 outbreak was suddenly worldwide. It was highly contagious, often fatal, and caused by a coronavirus about which little was known, and which was already mutating in unpredictable ways.
In addition to its medical threat, the mandated sequestering, kids home from school, losses of jobs and income, will combine to cause multiple psychiatric consequences.
Ruggles and Stephen Xenakis, MD, director of the CRC, did not know each other prior to the formation of the Campaign, but they bonded quickly over their similar backgrounds, areas of expertise and common goals for the resilience program.
“He knew this pandemic was going to have a huge impact and that there would be ripple effects over time.
It was the same feeling I had as a military officer,” Dr. Xenakis, a retired Brigadier General, says.
Matt DeBernardis is the Campaign Liaison and Resiliency Trainer. He brings a unique background to the CRC as well as a passion for personal
Mr. Rudy Ruggles
development. He has trained U.S. Army soldiers and their families in resilience and psychological skill building. He has also worked with business leaders and elite athletes.
“It’s a great team with their own specialties all working together for a common objective,” Ruggles says.
Ruggles brings his own skills and perspectives. He follows closely the work and findings of scientists and provides the CRC team with the most current information on this unfolding scene.
Ruggles is currently a Board member and Adjunct Researcher at the J. Craig Ventor Institute, a leader in genomic, or DNA, research. In addition,
he founded the Rudy L. Ruggles Biomedical Research Institute.
He is world traveler and has
been to dozens of countries for work, research and pleasure. His destinations span the globe, from the Arctic to Antarctica, and include an 8,500-foot descent to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in a Russian deep submersible. It is no wonder that he was elected a fellow of the Explorers Club in 1980.
Ruggles has seen the important work the CRC has done and knows the need for this type of training will continue for a long time as the mental health implications continue to unfold. “The reason I put in the initial funding is because I believe in the project,” Ruggles says.
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SILVER LININGS MAGAZINE | ISSUE TWO | 2021
Supporter Spotlight