Women in Oklahoma face often unique mental-health challenges in different life situations – whether incarcerated, suffering from depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, or dealing with severe anxiety as a professional or parent.
At an Oklahoma Watch-Out forum in Tulsa May 21, three experts talked about issues ranging from incarcerated women and trauma to postpartum depression and both the cultural and biological factors of mental health.
The featured guests were Janet Cizek, Center for Therapeutic Interventions managing partner and CEO; Roxanne Hinther, Women in Recovery clinical director; and Dr. Nicole Washington, Family and Children’s Services psychiatrist.
About The Panelists
- Janet Cizek co-founded the Center for Therapeutic Interventions (CTI) in 2005, one of the first agencies to be named a certified Comprehensive Community Addiction Recovery Center by the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. While Cizek serves as managing partner and CEO of CTI, she continues to provide direct counseling services to clients and their families as a licensed professional counselor and licensed alcohol and drug counselor. Cizek is also the president of Oklahoma Substance Abuse Service Alliance, advocating for treatment providers and consumers to reduce stigma and increase access to care.
- Roxanne Hinther is the clinical director for Women in Recovery at Family at Children’s Services, a program she has worked in since its inception in 2009. Women in Recovery provides an alternative to incarceration for women facing significant prison sentences in Tulsa County, focusing on nonviolent female offenders with children. Hinther is a licensed professional counselor and licensed alcohol and drug counselor.
- Dr. Nicole Washington is a staff psychiatrist at the Crisis Care Center at Family and Children’s Services. Each year the organization serves 110,000 individuals, or one in six Tulsans, struggling with mental illness, addiction and homelessness. Prior to joining Family and Children’s Services, she was the medical director of a program that provides home-based services to those with severe mental illness. Washington serves on the boards of the Mental Health Association Oklahoma and National Alliance of Mental Illness Tulsa chapter.
Oklahoma Watch is a nonprofit journalism organization that produces in-depth and investigative content on a range of public-policy issues facing the state.
Troubled State is a year-long series on mental-health issues in Oklahoma. The project is enabled by a grant from the Anne and Henry Zarrow Foundation and the Zarrow Families Foundation.
