Staff/Advisory Council/Associate Trainers

2005 Charter Rush Center Advisory Council Members

Pam Berkwitz - Temple Israel, Therapist at Jewish Family and Children Services, Minneapolis MN

Gerrit DenHartog – United Methodist, Director of Missouri Recovery Network, Jefferson City MO

Rev. Dr. Jay Geisler - Episcopal priest, St. Stephen’s Church, Pittsburgh PA, former Rush Recovery Institute board member

Sue Ann Glusenkamp - Parish Nurse, Transfiguration Lutheran Church, Bloomington MN, affiliation with Health Ministries Association

Dr. Thomas Holmes - American Baptist, Director of Covenant Ministry Services of Lima OH, affiliation with Samaritan Institute and American Association of Pastoral Counselors

Dr. Mohamad Rajabally - Muslim, member of Executive Committee of the Islamic Society of North America, president of Jammiah Mosque in Fremont, CA

Roger Svendsen - Lutheran, Director of Minnesota Institute of Public Health Interfaith Center on Health Issues, Mounds View, MN

Richard Thibodeau – Catholic, Executive Director, National Catholic Council on Alcoholism and Related Drug Problems, Guest House, Lake Urion, MI

Rev. Nancy Troy - Presbyterian, Executive Director of Presbyterian Health, Education & Welfare Association, Louisville KY

Rev. Dr. James White - Baptist, Milwaukee County Supervisor, Milwaukee WI, a founding member of Faith Partners, Join Together Fellow

Staff

Trish Merrill
Director, The Rush Center of the Johnson Institute
Trish is a nurse with extensive experience in linking the prevention and treatment field to the religious community. Merrill developed the Faith Partners Team Ministry approach for congregations now used in several states. She authored the manual: “Building a Team Ministry: A Congregational Approach to Substance Abuse.” This manual was developed following a five-year statewide educational program for the Texas Conference of Churches – a program that received a National Council of Churches award in 1994. She co-authored “Healing Places,” with Johnny Allem.

Drew Brooks
Project Coordinator, The Rush Center of the Johnson Institute
Drew recently was the Minnesota Area Coordinator, overseeing 25-30 Faith Partners Congregational Teams and team facilitator in his own church. He has been active in youth, one to one, and small group ministries. He has worked in prevention and treatment at Hazelden Foundation and in the addiction prevention, treatment and recovery field for over twenty-two years, specifically providing training and technical assistance with faith communities, schools and community organizations across the country. He has co-authored three curricula on stress management, raising resilient children, and group facilitation skills.

Associate Trainers

Jan Tipton, M. Ed., CPS
Jan Tipton is a Certified Prevention Specialist and has been involved with substance abuse prevention since 1990. She is the Director of Training and Prevention at Gateway to Prevention and Recovery in Shawnee, Oklahoma and is the Oklahoma Area Coordinator for Faith Partners. She has her BA in Education from Oklahoma Baptist University and her MAT in Gifted Education from Oklahoma City University. She has been a missionary teacher with Wycliffe Bible Translators in Peru, South America and in Kenya, East Africa. She is a member of Shawnee Asset Building Alliance, which is a community coalition that she helped start in 2000. She is also on the adult advisory board of the Shawnee Youth Coalition which she helped form to connect the teenagers of Shawnee back to the community through projects and service.

At present, Jan is passionate about stopping relational aggression among young people and is endeavoring to get the Ophelia Sister Project started in Shawnee as well as teaching 11 th and 12 th grade Sunday School at First Baptist Church, Shawnee and serving on the Prevention and Recovery Ministry Team there. She also plays on several 4.5 USTA tennis league teams in Oklahoma City. After many decades as a single, she married the most wonderful man in the world, David Austin, in 1997. She lives with him and Mishe the cat in Shawnee on the “bad side of town.”

Cameron M. Foster
A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Cameron is currently seeking to pursue Master’s of Christian Education Degree from Andersonville Seminary. Cameron is committed to World Outreach Christian Church, where he is a licensed Minister and is actively involved with the Men’s Ministry and the Recovery Ministry. Cameron has professional training experience targeted to educators, counselors, clergy and prevention specialist. He has provided training for the Faith Partners Congregational model.

He is registered with the Ohio Credential Board as a Certified Prevention Specialist II an Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services (ODADAS) certified Ohio Violence Prevention Process Trainer (OVPP), a member of the Reviving the Human Spirit steering committee, the Faith Leaders Academy planning committee and the Cincinnati Public Schools Safe and Drug Free Schools Advisory Committee. Cameron also serves as member of the Tri-State Asset Building Planning Committee, Coalition for a Drug-Free Greater Cincinnati Parent Task Force and is a Board Trustee for First Step Home for women and their children.

Cameron is currently employed with Alcoholism Council of the Cincinnati Area, National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Inc. (NCADD) as the Director of Prevention Services. Prior to his service at the Alcoholism Council, he had over 13 years of experience in the prevention field in Hamilton County providing a multitude of prevention services at the Urban Minority Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Outreach Program of Cincinnati, Inc. to children ages pre-school to high school. Cameron’s greatest accomplishment was the development and implementation of the KUUMBA SUMMER ENRICHMENT PROGRAM for local children to become educated in a wide range of learning environments. This program has received state recognition with the Ohio Department of Alcohol Drug Addiction Services 2006 Exemplary Award.

Otto B. Schultz
Otto B. Schultz, holds a B. A., and an M. Div. He has been a licensed alcohol and drug abuse counselor for over 25 years. He is also a Registered Prevention Generalist. He has been a Pastor, a treatment Chaplain, intervention and prevention educator, program developer and entrepreneur. He has led hundreds of workshops for business leaders and professional people on practical ways of dealing with substance abuse. He has also developed several new programs, such as, Flashing Your Brights a peer oriented, research based program to address high-risk drinking within colleges.

Schultz directed the Communities of Hope program providing substance abuse prevention and recovery support services that capitalized on the resources of faith congregations with 30 lay led congregational teams and contact persons in over 300 other congregations. In the previous 15 years, he served several treatment centers as a Chaplain. In this time he worked with management to set up chaplaincy, write Twelve Step guides and make recommendations for program development.

Karla Wardroup
Karla Wardroup has recently retired from South Plains Food Bank where she was Director of Development and Coordinator of programs for children. Her passion for the marriage of spirituality and recovery began with her own recovery journey- this in turn led her to a workshop with Trish Merrill. She began working with Trish in 1992, when Trish was training church teams in a program called ADEPT which later became Faith Partners. In a previous work life, she was a restaurant owner, caterer, cooking teacher, and food service director.

After a sabbatical from training, she has returned as an associate trainer for The Rush Center of the Johnson Institute. She is also currently coordinating her own life and that of an attorney husband and 13 year old stepson. She is mother and stepmother of six “his and hers” children- five grown and gone and one at home and grandmother of four from 16 months to 19 years.