North Carolina Addiction Fellows Program

Almost a minister and a lawyer, but not quite, Jim has spent 30 years in business from Fortune 500 companies to non-profit ventures. He has been very active in North Carolina politics and taught political science at UNC Greensboro for a number of years. He became associated with Pavillon International in 1994 to manage its move from Canada to North Carolina and ended up staying as the Administrator. He left Pavillon in January of 2003 and set up a nonprofit corporation, Addiction Recovery Institute, (www.addictionrecoveryinstitute.org) to work in other areas of the field that he thought needed immediate attention.

During his 10 years in the addictions/recovery field Jim became convinced that significant changes needed to be made in all aspects of the profession. He has served on numerous statewide commissions and work groups whose purpose was to improve the effective delivery of quality services. While at Pavillon he helped create the Carolina Conference on Addictions, which he now runs as the Carolinas Conference on Addiction and Recovery. (www.addictionrecoveryinstitute.org)

He foresaw a real need for advanced professional training and leadership development for counselors in the field and started the North Carolina Addiction Fellows Program (www.addictionfellows.com), which was created by Pavillon International and the state office of Substance Abuse Services and funded by a grant from The Duke Endowment.

Other seminars and workshops are offered through Addiction Recovery Institute by utilizing a faculty made up of the best and brightest in the addictions/recovery field.

Jeff is a senior clinician the Private Diagnostic Clinic at Duke University Medical Center where he specializes in the treatment of addictions in conjunction with other psychiatric conditions. He is also a clinical faculty member of the Department of Behavioral Science and the School of Nursing at Duke University. In addiction to his clinical work, Mr. Georgi has contributed to three Treatment Improvement Protocols and was the co-chair of the TIP on Group Psychotherapy for substance abuse treatment. He has worked extensively with the Department of Surgery at Duke where he developed screening tools to evaluate patients for appropriate listing as liver transplant candidates. He is an established author and national trainer focusing in the areas of Addictions and the Brain, Clinical Spirituality, Ethics, Motivational Enhancement Therapy, Group Psychotherapy, Dual Diagnosis and Carving Management.

Most recently, Jeff has joined the Rice Diet Program which is a medical intervention that addresses hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and other health concerns through nutritional and behavioral adjustment. In this capacity, he is examining the parallels between chemical dependency and dysregulated eating while developing a program based on his work the bio/psycho/socio/spiritual definition of addictive process.

As Senior Associate, Kathleen currently directs the Center for Creative Leadership's Design Services worldwide, determining strategic direction for program and initiative design processes and setting strategic direction for the work of the Evaluation Services, Trainer Quality, Materials Development, Education Sector and Non-Profit groups. Dr. Ponder also delivers CCL's Leadership at the Peak and Leadership Development Programs for Educational Leaders.

She came to the Center in 1994 from the directorship of the Texas Center for Educational Technology. Dr. Ponder has proudly served in a variety of leadership roles in public education, served as a faculty member at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, and the University of North Texas, and managed a private consultancy. Kathleen earned a B.S. at the State University of New York, a M.Ed. at Western Maryland College, and a doctoral degree from the University of North Texas.

Corinne F. Gerwe, Ph.D., is President and CEO of the Group for Chronic Addiction Research, Inc. based in Saluda, NC. Her pioneering work explores the link between conditions arising from intense childhood experiences, persistent behaviors, and the development of chronic addiction and other disorder conditions. She is the author of The Orchestration of Joy and Suffering, Understanding Chronic Addiction. Her methodology is used in corrections settings in the State of Georgia, in the military and by an increasing number of individual and group clinical practices. She is an Adjunct Clinical Research Fellow at Clemson University's Nancy Moore Thurman Initiative on Substance Abuse and Addiction.

Liliane Desjardins is co-founder and former program director of Pavillon International, an addiction treatment and renewal center in Mill Spring, North Carolina. She is an internationally known lecturer and workshop facilitator and has appeared widely on radio and television.

A certified clinical addiction specialist, Liliane has worked in the recovery field for over 25 years and has created, along with her husband Gilles, the Desjardins Model of treatment.

Liliane Desjardins is a native of Zagreb-Croatia, formerly Yugoslavia. She earned a B.A. at Lycee Pere Lachaise in Paris. In addition to her training as a counselor, her educational background includes studies in liturgical arts and business.

In 1976, Liliane began her career in Canada as a counselor in the treatment of addictions. Her interest in addiction treatment and recovery grew out of her own painful history. She experienced addiction herself and has been in recovery for over 28 years. Her decision to change professions was the result of the death of her first husband from alcoholism and her desire to help others rewrite the scripts of their own lives, discovering what she calls their “spiritual DNA.”

Paul Nagy, MS, LPC, CSAC, CCS directs the clinical staff of the Duke Addictions Program of the Department of Psychiatry, Duke University Medical Center. He has long been active in the development of the addiction treatment profession in North Carolina and is a much sought after speaker at conferences and workshops. He serves on the Boards of the North Carolina Governor's Institute on Alcohol and Substance Abuse, Inc. and TROSA, Inc., an innovative treatment/recovery/life skill development program in Durham, NC.

Fulton Crews, Ph.D., is the Director of the Hargrove "Skipper" Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies at the University of North Carolina, one of 14 such research centers in the United States. The center conducts, coordinates and promotes basic and clinical research on the causes, prevention and treatment of alcoholism and alcohol abuse. Dr. Crews speaks at national and international conferences on alcohol related issues.

Jim Van Hecke—Project Director and Senior Faculty