Grassroots Recognizes Nursing Team with Annual Spirit Award

Grassroots has honored the crisis intervention center’s team of nurses and nurse practitioners with the annual Grassroots Spirit Award to recognize their helpfulness, openness, welcoming spirit and respect for colleagues, clients and visitors. The award was presented during Nurses Appreciation Week.

The Grassroots nursing team is responsible for the clients being served in the New Beginnings Crisis Stabilization program, an important component of Howard County’s opioid intervention strategy to meet immediate needs for assessment, treatment, referrals and brief overnight housing and food.

According to Grassroots Executive Director Dr. Mariana Izraelson, the nursing team has particularly distinguished itself during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it has been especially difficult “to meet the needs of clients while maintaining their safety, as well as the safety of each of our Grassroots team members.”

The nurses and nurse practitioners, Izraelson said, helped with symptom and temperature screenings for everyone entering and exiting the Grassroots building in Columbia, designed and executed a plan to provide testing in house when potential outbreaks were a risk, and taught staff how to properly get into and out of Personal Protective Equipment.

“The nurses and nurse practitioners were generally willing to jump in and help whenever needed to make sure client needs were met, whether it was within their role or not,” Izraelson said.

Grassroots provides the county’s only emergency shelter and 24-hour crisis intervention, suicide prevention, and support for individuals and families with a mental health, substance use or homelessness crisis. It operates the crisis intervention center in Columbia and the Grassroots Day Resource Center in Jessup. For information, see www.grassrootscrisis.org, or call 410-531-6006.