Brenda John-Banach LMSW, CASAC

Vice President of Outpatient Operations

“One of the most meaningful aspects of working in this field is hearing a consumer tell his or her own story of recovery. These inspiring situations provide insight to help so many other individuals.”

In Brenda John-Banach’s current position as vice president of outpatient operations, she provides oversight and operational supervision of Horizon Health Services’ outpatient behavioral health services in Erie, Niagara, and Genesee counties. This includes Mental Health, Addiction, Continuing Day Treatment Services and Comprehensive Case Management programs. Brenda began her career at Horizon in 1988 as a skills training specialist, where she was responsible for providing individual and group therapy in one of Horizon’s Continuing Day Treatment programs.  From there, she became a rehabilitation specialist and, in 1992, was appointed interim senior vocational counselor.

Later that year, she was named coordinator of Medical Psychiatric Services. In that position, she assisted in establishing a special assessment program for individuals referred from a third party managed care insurance organization. Brenda also conducted ongoing monitoring of the psychiatric status of Horizon’s approximately 300 consumers with severe and persistent mental illness, providing assessment and support services as needed.  She was appointed program manager in 1993, responsible for clinical and operational supervision of staff in one of Horizon’s outpatient mental health clinics.

In 1996, Brenda became a management team leader, making her responsible for daily oversight of outpatient programming for mental health and chemical dependency services at Horizon. In addition to clinical and operational supervision, Brenda also interacted with managed care companies and staff, developed new programming and marketing of new services and participated as an agency representative in the Niagara Falls Drug Court.

In her next position, as coordinator of quality assurance, Brenda developed and implemented a quality assurance and auditing system to ensure Medicaid billing compliance and state regulatory agencies for 16 outpatient chemical dependency and mental health programs within the corporation.  She also trained staff regarding compliance with various regulations and became very familiar with state regulations of Office of Mental Health and Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services, successfully completing audits and relicensure with both organizations.

In January 2002, Brenda became senior coordinator of chemical dependency services, responsible for the operational oversight of Horizon’s outpatient chemical dependency programs.  That position led to senior director for Erie County Outpatient Services, where she was responsible for a $6 million budget for Horizon’s nine outpatient chemical dependency and mental health programs in Erie County. In that position, Brenda provided oversight and operational supervision for all program directors and interacted with county and state officials on a variety of behavioral health committees.

Brenda received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from SUNY at Buffalo and her master’s of social work degree from SUNY at Buffalo. She is a licensed master social worker and a credentialed alcoholism and substance abuse counselor. Brenda also serves on the Independent Health Clinical Advisory Group and is a past board member of the WNY Chemical Dependency Consortium.