- February 08, 2024
- Gambling
Dave Wohl has some big shoes to fill. As ICPG’s new Executive Director, Dave talks about taking over from ICPG’s founder, Bill Johnson, and how they are teaming up with other organizations across the state to spread the word on gambling disorder, and its effects on many underserved communities.
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Transcript:
Speaker 1 (Shane Cook)
You’re welcome to wager danger. I’m your host, Shane Cook. Gambling Disorder program director at Gateway Foundation. Today, we’re going to check back in with the Illinois Council on Problem Gambling and its new executive director, Dave Wohl. Dave took over the reins from longtime executive director Bill Johnson, who set a very high bar for the direction of this organization.
00;00;27;29 – 00;00;57;21
Speaker 1
Dave brings us up to speed on what’s going on with the ICPG and how it reaches out to underserved communities for disorder gambling throughout the state. ICPG also has a great relationship with the team behind the Are you really winning campaign as well as the National Council on Problem Gambling. Collectively these organizations are spreading the word regarding training and education about and treatment for gambling throughout the state.
00;00;57;24 – 00;00;59;20
Speaker 1
Welcome to the show, Dave.
00;00;59;22 – 00;01;01;09
Speaker 2 (Dave Wohl)
Thanks, Shane. Thanks for having me.
00;01;01;14 – 00;01;30;04
Speaker 1
Absolutely. You know, I know you’ve been in the role of executive director now for the Illinois Council on Problem Gambling. You’re coming up on your first year anniversary. You’re continuing the work that Bill Johnson laid the foundation for. We’ve had an opportunity to speak with Bill on the podcast, but I thought it would be good to check in with you at this point and see how things are going in your new role.
00;01;30;06 – 00;01;48;04
Speaker 2
Sure. Definitely some big shoes to fill and I’m relatively new to this field, so and I’m still learning something new every day. Meeting a lot of new people. And I think it’s been good so far. I think we’ve we’ve made a lot of progress. We’ve done a lot of good things. And still you I can we continue to work with Bill and learn from him.
00;01;48;04 – 00;01;50;00
Speaker 2
So continuing to move forward.
00;01;50;02 – 00;01;57;10
Speaker 1
Right. So Bill’s still connected, right? He’s still connected, at least on an advisory role.
00;01;57;12 – 00;02;15;06
Speaker 2
Yeah, he is. I mean, he you know, he has a database and in his mind is, you know, he he knows he knows everybody and everything, so. Yeah. We keep him out of pretty closely. I probably talk to him at least once a week or once every other week. And. And, you know, hey, who’s this person or what do we do in this case that he’s he’s somehow stores it all in his brain.
00;02;15;06 – 00;02;17;09
Speaker 2
So, yeah. Very thankful for him.
00;02;17;12 – 00;02;41;12
Speaker 1
Right. Well, I think there was a good foundation there. And I know we’ve talked about this a little bit off line that in the state of Illinois, we’ve all been fortunate over the last couple of years to receive some investment from the state to put into our own programs, whether that be the ICP or whether that be individual agencies like Gateway Foundation.
00;02;41;19 – 00;03;08;14
Speaker 1
But all of us have been bolstered over the last couple of months or couple of years. I should say, by some of the investments that are being made by the Illinois Department of Human Services and and others that that participate in some level of funding. How have you seen that have an impact on I CPG during that during the time that you’ve been there.
00;03;08;16 – 00;03;34;15
Speaker 2
So when when I started, I started, sometime in what, April or May of 2023 and Bill had had just he just received that first training grant. Prior to that, he was working, operating on just an outreach grant. So he’d had that training grant for about nine months. And as I learned more about ICP, about the organization, you’re looking back at some of the things that that they did before with the funding they had.
00;03;34;15 – 00;03;55;01
Speaker 2
The training grant has definitely opened up our ability to offer, you know, a lot more training, a lot more variety. I CPG did amazing things with with the limited resources they had. But this is you know what the new training grant, we can really offer a lot more diverse training, different audiences, different different topics and really cover a lot more of of what’s needed in the state.
00;03;55;04 – 00;04;18;01
Speaker 1
Right. And and it’s noticeable to I think you know I’ve been at it for a relatively I still call a relatively short period of time. I mean it’s coming up on two and a half years for me being involved at this point and or man maybe it’s closer to three. I kind of lost track of time, but at least two and a half years.
00;04;18;02 – 00;04;44;00
Speaker 1
Well, we’ll stick with that. And during that time, I’ve witnessed that with the alcohol problem, gambling debt just the continued. How do I describe it? Transition. Yeah. The transition, I guess, is is probably a good way to put it in terms of more services, more training, more connecting points that are being made in terms of fostering relationships across the state.
00;04;44;03 – 00;05;04;20
Speaker 1
It’s nice to have that type of partner in our corner. And I think I think I can speak on behalf of some of several of the provider partners in the equation. I think we all appreciate that and appreciate the opportunity to to work together through the i CPG.
00;05;04;23 – 00;05;19;07
Speaker 2
It definitely needs to be a collaboration. You know, one one entity can’t do it all. That’s that’s something that’s I’ve I’ve practiced that way for for a very long time that I, I don’t I don’t want to be the smartest guy in the room. I don’t want to, I don’t want to be the only brain at the table.
00;05;19;07 – 00;05;40;29
Speaker 2
The more you know, the more more people you get together, the better ideas You’re going to come up with. One collaboration that we’ve done you talked about like a transition for I CPG at one time I CPG was really the only or the main entity to kind of dispense the problem gambling message. They did a lot of outreach to providers, they did a lot of outreach to the public.
00;05;41;01 – 00;06;08;18
Speaker 2
One of the things that I’m I feel really fortunate with is since I’ve been in here is the are you really winning program is you know they have some funds to do the public facing message and that’s really taken a load off of CPG or we can you know they can they can focus on the public facing message we can focus on the therapist, the provider facing message and rather than trying to spread ourselves too thin, we can each do what we excel at.
00;06;08;21 – 00;06;36;01
Speaker 1
Right? So the are you really winning campaign? And we’ve had the opportunity to have John on the program too and talk with him. Fascinating conversation and I know that will continue to evolve and all the providers are involved with that process as well. So there’s there’s really a lot of good collaboration that goes on there bringing that. Are you really winning component into the mix here?
00;06;36;01 – 00;06;39;09
Speaker 1
Was that a conscious decision?
00;06;39;11 – 00;06;58;04
Speaker 2
Well, I think that they received their funding about the same time that I CPG got that training grant. So yeah, and I think, you know, six or nine months into it, everybody was kind of feeling out, you know, where do I fit in this equation at Maybe, you know, since I was new to it, I had fresh vision and I realized why.
00;06;58;11 – 00;07;16;15
Speaker 2
Why do we want to keep doing the public outreach when there’s a whole other agency that’s doing it? And, you know, we you know, we would not you know, not not that it’s not valuable. It’s definitely valuable. But if if we’re trying to do what they’re focusing on, if they’re trying to do what we’re focusing on, we’re I think we’re we’re kind of wasting effort by duplicating.
00;07;16;16 – 00;07;47;26
Speaker 1
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And the reason I wanted to explore that, but I’d never really put the those two things together. But it makes a ton of sense. Now, the way you’ve explained it, it’s just Federated. The services that are being provided for the state. And I think because of that you’ve got two organizations that know what they do really well and both organizations have been freed up to do what they do really well.
00;07;47;29 – 00;08;04;28
Speaker 2
Right? And yet we still support one another. If we go to a conference, you know, a therapist and try to spread the word about CPG, we’re also going to promote, are you really winning? Because that’s important to that group. If they go to a conference or to an event and there are some people that want to know about gambling education, they’re going to promote us.
00;08;04;28 – 00;08;10;01
Speaker 2
So I mean, we’re all we’ve, we’ve we’ve doubled our capacity by partnering with them.
00;08;10;03 – 00;08;43;22
Speaker 1
Yeah. Now that’s a great thing. So let’s talk a little bit more about the educational opportunities, because I know that’s a primary focus for I CPG. And what I mean is providing education for the practitioners that are in the field of mental health and helping people recover from problem gambling. So can you kind of give us an overview or a rundown of the types of education that’s available, how it’s delivered, the different types, different styles of delivery?
00;08;43;25 – 00;09;03;06
Speaker 2
Sure. So again, Heather Martinez, my associate director and myself, we both started around the same time. So, you know, there you go again. It takes two people to fill Bill shoes and we’re still we’re still scrambling, but we’re learning as we go. We’re we’re getting some great feedback from the therapists out there about the things they want to see, the format they want.
00;09;03;06 – 00;09;26;12
Speaker 2
We’re trying to you know, we’re here for you know, for the therapists and the providers in the state. So we’re not we want to offer what what’s going to work best for them. So we’ve we’ve tried to do one or 290 minute virtual webinars each month on on topics of interest, you know, and sometimes, you know, we’re going to focus on the the staples, the basics.
00;09;26;12 – 00;09;43;11
Speaker 2
Other times, you know, we might try to explore something new trending just so just to mix it up. I mean, you know, you don’t want to see the same the same topic, you know, week after week, month after month. So again, we’re always open to feedback. If somebody says, you know, I’d like to see some information on this, we can definitely we seek it out.
00;09;43;11 – 00;09;56;07
Speaker 2
We’re building a bank of speakers for our events. And I mean, we’re learning as we go as well. So sure, we don’t know at all. In addition, so we you know, we have those the virtual trainings.
00;09;56;10 – 00;10;11;23
Speaker 1
Right? And those those typically occur live, right? So, you know, you’ll have a date set up. It’s a virtual event. People come in, they attend virtually through resume or whatever. Yeah, it’s a recorded and available for recall.
00;10;11;26 – 00;10;36;22
Speaker 2
Right? Right. So the recordings are typically 90 minutes that you get for for going. There’s no cost moving forward. We just moved over to a new learning platform. The goal is all of the recordings of all the live events will be also available for for CTE as well. So on our on her website CPG, that org, if you look under events, the recorded webinars from the past several years are available.
00;10;36;29 – 00;10;54;15
Speaker 2
Not all of them have attached yet, but we’re that that’s one of the projects we’re working on right now. In addition to the 90 minute webinars where we have offered some a little more advanced training, like maybe like a 9 to 3 on a Friday, a couple of Fridays in a row that focus on the more expanded topics.
00;10;54;15 – 00;11;21;07
Speaker 2
So again, just trying to get some variety. You know, we’ve we’ve had some great speakers and some great topics and in addition to virtual now we also have we have in-person events. So in the in the calendar year 2024, we’re going to have six in-person events. We have our three underserved population, multicultural and underserved population that are free and advanced training.
00;11;21;07 – 00;11;27;22
Speaker 2
We have a RUSH symposium and then we’ll have our 14th annual problem gambling meeting.
00;11;27;24 – 00;12;03;09
Speaker 1
Okay, So you’ve got you’ve got the 90 minute webinars, some activities that are training sessions that are taking place live. All of the all of which are available on demand. But there’s also some multicultural events that are specific for underserved, underserved communities. To run me through that, I think I at least I know of one because we were involved with that last year was the Latin X conference and we did an on site remote for a major danger there.
00;12;03;09 – 00;12;06;23
Speaker 1
So we had a lot of fun with that one.
00;12;06;26 – 00;12;35;03
Speaker 2
Hopefully will have you out our other events like that as well. The prevalence study identified three underserved populations the Latin ex population, the community, the Black African American community and the Asian Pacific Islander community. So our our goal based on on the data from the prevalence study is it’s not a one size fits all. So what we’re trying to do with with these, these multicultural, underserved populations is to bring some of the nuances to, you know, to that audience.
00;12;35;03 – 00;13;01;08
Speaker 2
So it’s, you know, we have our black African American Black Symposium conferences coming up February 23rd at UIC Chicago. The goal there is to have have some people talk about, you know, different nuances within that population. So, you know, treatment providers who work with that population can come and, you know, expand their skillset. It’s often in the community to learn about how to support one another.
00;13;01;11 – 00;13;17;04
Speaker 2
And that’s that’s kind of the focus for all three of these events, is we want to we want treatment providers there. We also want the community to learn to help one another. You know, I think problem gambling. One of the things I’ve learned about problem gambling is it’s not something where you automatically just go to your, you know, your counselor.
00;13;17;09 – 00;13;33;10
Speaker 2
As soon as you’re having an issue, you might tell a friend, you might tell a clergyman, you might, you know, tell a community leader or somebody a coach, somebody that can we’re trying to teach those people to know we’re not going to teach them how to be counselors, but we want to teach them This is what you do.
00;13;33;10 – 00;13;53;24
Speaker 2
If somebody comes to you with a problem. This was how you get them health. This is how you talk to them. You know, don’t judge, don’t. Yeah. So that’s that’s the goal with those three events coming up this year is is just to try to get a little more unique education out there for the communities that that might not be fully supported by the main the main message.
00;13;53;24 – 00;14;17;05
Speaker 1
Sure that’s great and our each of these I know last year Latin X conference was at a college, if I understand correctly, the conference here next month is at UIC. Are the other two also on college campuses. So the little bit different for each one.
00;14;17;07 – 00;14;34;25
Speaker 2
It’s you know it’s it’s going to be a little different for each one. I really you know, we want to we want to do what what is going to work best for that community? I think we we we had a planning committee. We chose UIC because it will accommodate a lot of people. It’s it’s kind of central to the, you know, some of the areas that we want to work with.
00;14;34;28 – 00;14;58;12
Speaker 2
The Asian American Conference are Asian Pacific Islander. I think where we’d like to have that someplace in the area around Chinatown that’s where, you know, a large portion of that population is. There are no colleges around there. We’re actually we’re we’re in the process of planning for that right now. And there’s not a lot of places there that will easily accommodate, you know, 150, 200 people that also has parking and.
00;14;58;12 – 00;15;10;02
Speaker 2
Right. So we’re we’re in the process of of going through that right now. I’m sure we’ll find a great place for that. So it’s really you know, we don’t want a cookie cutter these we want we want to cater them to the you know, to each community.
00;15;10;02 – 00;15;43;21
Speaker 1
Yeah, definitely. It makes sense. I do want to shift gears a little bit because we’re we’ve been focused on Illinois, and that’s totally appropriate because we both support the state of Illinois. But there is a there’s a national organization that provides a structure for each of the states, right? That’s the National Council on Problem Gambling. Can you can you tell us a little bit more or walk us through a little bit of of how that relationship works from state to state and with the national banner?
00;15;43;24 – 00;15;46;14
Speaker 1
Well, mostly in CPG.
00;15;46;17 – 00;16;10;08
Speaker 2
Sure. I again, I’m going to play my my new guy card here. I’m still I’m still learning a lot of the ins and outs. So since I’ve been in the role, I’m trying to reach out to another state organization that you know, somewhat off and I’ve probably talked to five or six different state gambling Association leaders. And yeah, my my goal is to, you know, learn what works for them, what doesn’t work for them.
00;16;10;08 – 00;16;34;06
Speaker 2
And I’m not above stealing good ideas. So I’ve been reaching out to them from the national standpoint. You know, I CPG, as you know, are the affiliate to the end CPG. We we attend the affiliate meetings. The first few that I attended last year, I was really trying to get my feet where they are in CPG. I think they’ve they’ve made some changes at the end of last year.
00;16;34;07 – 00;16;54;05
Speaker 2
They’ve revised some, some they’re there. I feel like I’ve put in a way that I’m not I don’t want to say that they weren’t supportive before, but I feel like they’re providing more resources and more support for the state. They’re acting on a on a national as the national representative. You know, there’s no there’s nothing that ties all the states together.
00;16;54;09 – 00;17;27;23
Speaker 2
We all we are all independent and CPG can’t tell Ikeji you have to do this. You have to do that. So we’re all we’re all there voluntarily. But obviously their strength in numbers and the more the more we can work together to support CPG, the more they can support us, the stronger. So, you know, I’ve, I’ve seen some things that are coming out of in CPG, you know, they’re working, they have the status to where, you know, they can go to the legislature, legislators in Washington, D.C. they can go to the NFL, they can go to the they can go to the big guys and do things that individual state really couldn’t do.
00;17;27;23 – 00;17;36;20
Speaker 2
So, you know, there there are some good things coming forward from in CPG. There definitely put forth some great efforts to help all the states.
00;17;36;22 – 00;18;14;10
Speaker 1
Yeah, well, that’s that’s kind of the way my interpretation has been with the in CPG as they are, as you mentioned, they can do some things that it would be very difficult for a state run organization to do. Not to say that a state run organization couldn’t do it, but with them being headquartered in Washington D.C., having a very direct link to the legislative body for the country, that helps out a lot for them to be able to do some things that hit on a national level.
00;18;14;13 – 00;18;42;04
Speaker 1
So and, you know, Keith and his team over there, Keith White is executive director for the and CPG. He and his team I think have been have been very instrumental in kind of setting the setting the pieces setting the framework and foundation and putting that in place. And I would agree with you what I’ve seen over the last couple of years tonight, I think can kind of go off on a little bit of a tangent here.
00;18;42;06 – 00;19;06;03
Speaker 1
I think part of it is gambling has been rolled out to so many states so quickly over the last 3 to 4 years that I think it took a couple of years for people to just get their footing. But now all of the states are kind of have an idea of what, All right, this is kind of the playing field, so to speak, that we’re working with.
00;19;06;06 – 00;19;36;10
Speaker 1
And I think it’s okay that we’re borrowing from each other, that we’re learning from each other, that we hear new ideas because it helps each of us. And if the CPG can help facilitate that, all the better. I mean, I we were both at the national conference for the CPG this year. And one thing that I noticed between last year and this year is, one, there were way more people attending this year than there were last year.
00;19;36;13 – 00;20;02;15
Speaker 1
And two, there was a lot of collaboration that was taking place in the hallway. At least I noticed what I think was more collaboration. More people know each other from the different states because it’s still a relatively small community. So I think everybody, you know, the camaraderie there, the ability to learn from each other is very open and the sharing takes place.
00;20;02;15 – 00;20;11;14
Speaker 1
So I think it’s all a good thing. And to have that organization provide that foundation only makes us all better.
00;20;11;17 – 00;20;37;15
Speaker 2
As as I as I talked to, you know, leaders from different state organizations, I’m learning that we do share a lot of the same problems. But we all have we all have different resources. We have different funding sources, different, you know, different laws. There are so many there’s no apples to apples in any way. And one of the challenges that CPG, I think has is that, you know, because we all we all have different challenges, different focuses, that we’re all going off in our own different directions.
00;20;37;15 – 00;20;41;04
Speaker 1
So yeah, so it’s a little bit like herding cats for.
00;20;41;07 – 00;20;42;13
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah.
00;20;42;15 – 00;21;10;05
Speaker 1
Right now I could see that definitely. But they’re doing a good job of, of juggling the cats, so to speak, from my, from my perspective. But it appears that they’re doing a pretty good job and having, having that conference once a year. I think it’s a good opportunity for people to come in and share and share what each state’s doing and maybe resolve some of the conflict that may exist or maybe some of the conflict that arises from that.
00;21;10;05 – 00;21;37;11
Speaker 1
Not that I think there would be any conflict, but give us an opportunity to kind of share resource this across states and ideas and maybe help alleviate some conflicts that may be occurring in each of the states, like not right or understanding how to get from A to B somebody else has done it, has a new way of thinking about it, and sharing that information is helpful.
00;21;37;13 – 00;21;57;19
Speaker 2
Right? You know, as you said earlier, the gambling is still it’s still fairly new to a lot of us. And there are there are not a lot of resources available to the individual states. I’ve talked to state leaders that have a staff of 20. I’ve talked to state leaders that are doing it by themselves. So and I think anytime we can share resources, we’re just going to make each other stronger.
00;21;57;19 – 00;22;03;18
Speaker 2
And that’s just going to make the overall the overall movement stronger to to help with growth problem gambling.
00;22;03;25 – 00;22;21;05
Speaker 1
Right. So if you were to pull out a crystal ball and look five years into the future, what what would you anticipate for ICP game? What types of things where would you be involved? So these are the big ideas that are down the road.
00;22;21;07 – 00;22;41;16
Speaker 2
So big ideas, I will see how clear my crystal ball is. But one, you know, as we are primarily grant funded right now, we would we would like to over time develop some other sources of funding so that if if the grants did go away, hopefully they don’t. But if they do, we want to still be able to provide these services.
00;22;41;16 – 00;23;07;24
Speaker 2
You know, we’ve we’ve we’ve gotten a great start. We’re I really feel like we’re reaching out, touching a lot of people. And it would be nice to, you know, to to work on that. As I mentioned, one of the things that we’ve we’ve seen when we’ve go to some of these conferences with counselors who who are not problem gambling counselors is again, they don’t you know, they don’t know about ICP and a lot of them behavioral health counselors don’t realize that gambling is a problem.
00;23;07;27 – 00;23;28;22
Speaker 2
Again, as as as we’ve we’ve seen, the big thing I’ve learned is, you know, gambling is is just like, just, you know, just don’t go to the casino. Just stop gambling and you get over it. So our goal over the next year, the next five years, is to really expand our audience. And, you know, Heather, Heather, when I started, Heather’s passionate about she’s all about brand recognition.
00;23;28;22 – 00;23;49;17
Speaker 2
And we would love for every counselor and really every health care provider in the state to know that if you need education on problem gambling, there’s only one place to go and it’s CPG. So we want to spread the word, get our name out there. We want to really expand our audience as well because it’s not just behavioral health counselors that, you know, might be that first, the first stop for for somebody with problem gambling.
00;23;49;17 – 00;24;05;26
Speaker 2
I, I came from from the health care field and I know that, you know, I’m thinking back when, you know, one of our physician offices if if somebody goes into a doctor’s office and, you know, they have a problem with with drugs, you know, they know them, do it. On Sue the counselor. They have a problem with problem gambling.
00;24;05;28 – 00;24;24;06
Speaker 2
They would have no clue what to do with them. So there are a lot of of entry points to the problem. Gambling treatment program. And, you know, we’d like to hit all of those as many as possible so that people know, you know, it may not really treat it, but we want to give them the resources to, you know, this is how you talk to them.
00;24;24;06 – 00;24;31;26
Speaker 2
This is what this is the next step to get them the help they need. So it’s going to be a big task, but I think think we’re up to it.
00;24;31;29 – 00;25;00;17
Speaker 1
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. And that’s it’s definitely like everything you mentioned there is in line with your current mission. It’s just a matter of implementing and achieving a ubiquitous understanding of how I see Pgx can make everybody’s life a little bit easier when it comes to disorder gambling. So I think that’s a fantastic goal to have, and I think you’re well on your way to achieving it, to be honest.
00;25;00;17 – 00;25;20;10
Speaker 1
I mean, with the infrastructure that is currently in place, it seems very solid to be able to grow on and really start to achieve that. Is there any additional thing that you’ve thought of that you would perhaps maybe like to tackle alongside of that?
00;25;20;12 – 00;25;44;03
Speaker 2
Yeah. So one thing that we’ve noticed is there are not a lot of gambling certified counselors in the state right now. I don’t have that specific stat I want to. It’s fewer than 100, quite a bit fewer than 100. And I think the majority are centered in the Chicago area. So especially downstate, if you need to see a certified gambling counselor, you know, you could drive an hour, a couple of hours to see somebody.
00;25;44;06 – 00;26;13;05
Speaker 2
One of our goals is is to collaborate with was hired and we can’t change the rules on the certification process, but we can try to gather that data and I guess translate we can present it. So that’s easier to understand, easier to to follow through with so that it’s accessible to more people. And it’s really we want to help kind of walk, walk people through the process, you know, and we know we’re offering the components, the 30 hour on demand training, the supervision, those things are the key components.
00;26;13;05 – 00;26;17;22
Speaker 2
Really, once they get through that, you know, assuming the advisory hours.
00;26;17;25 – 00;26;45;22
Speaker 1
Yeah. So the certification is the last mile. So to speak, to close the loop on that. So I think that’s a fantastic goal as well. I know all from the provider standpoint and looking at it from that side, certainly we’re all looking for GC certified candidates to come join our organization. So the more we have there available, it’s going to help everybody out.
00;26;45;22 – 00;26;50;24
Speaker 1
So I appreciate you having that as a as a focus area going forward.
00;26;50;28 – 00;27;12;28
Speaker 2
One one of the reasons that we that we want to increase the number of certified gambling certified counselors in the state is that there are rumblings of of some some things going on in Washington, D.C. to try to get gambling the recognition it needs as a as an addiction disorder if if it can you know, get a get up there with with, you know, substance use disorder.
00;27;13;00 – 00;27;36;17
Speaker 2
I think more resources, more resources could come forward as, you know, gambling disorder. Well, Shane, you and I were at the International Responsible Gambling Conference in Las Vegas, and we heard a presenter talk about there are there are no states that recognize gambling as a as a disorder, you know. So in other words, if you have a gambling disorder, you have to be going for something else if the person wants to get reimbursed.
00;27;36;20 – 00;27;48;24
Speaker 2
So, you know, there’s there’s not a lot of counselors right now because there’s not really motivation to get that. But if and when gambling does receive that recognition, then, you know, I think there’s going to be more of a more of a need and more.
00;27;48;24 – 00;28;13;04
Speaker 1
An incentive to to go certification. Yeah. So yeah, so it’s it’s, it’s providing the solution but creating the need for at the same time. So this, this is just a classic example of the tides rising to meet the boat. Right. Right. And it’s so you know. Yeah. Good point.
00;28;13;06 – 00;28;31;11
Speaker 2
I don’t I don’t think every every counselor, every everybody that I’ve met at all our events, the the passion is there. You know, nobody’s doing this for a 9 to 5 job. But the passions there, they’re not doing it for the money. But you did you get reimbursed for what you do. I mean, you you know, nobody nobody can afford to do it for free.
00;28;31;11 – 00;28;32;07
Speaker 2
So.
00;28;32;09 – 00;28;33;01
Speaker 1
Yeah.
00;28;33;04 – 00;28;37;23
Speaker 2
Get the certification, get the recognition, and you can actually get paid for for what you need to be doing.
00;28;37;25 – 00;29;07;20
Speaker 1
Yeah, well, I think that’s fantastic goal to add in there for the next five years. I know all, all of the behavioral health service providers that are exploring gambling certainly be appreciative of that. So fantastic man. Love this conversation. Dave, I appreciate you stepping in and I see CPG over the past year and taking taking control of the broader here and in steering the ship forward.
00;29;07;22 – 00;29;23;17
Speaker 2
You know, I, I definitely I need to thank everybody. I’ve been in the state has been very supportive. You know, Shane, you were one of the first people I met when I started Bill introduced us and you’ve you’ve been a great friend and a great supporter. I know I’ve turned to you for some some advice on a few things.
00;29;23;17 – 00;29;42;23
Speaker 2
So, you know, we we want to continue to grow. We want to continue to to serve serve the people in the state. So again, our email is always open. Any ideas, any feedback, you know, please, please share it. We we want to you know, we want to we want to serve the audience and grow.
00;29;42;25 – 00;29;49;04
Speaker 1
Yeah. And do you want to do you want to share your website address again or.
00;29;49;07 – 00;30;06;05
Speaker 2
Yeah, thanks for that plug. So that’s Illinois problem gambling dot org is the website. There’s a contact form on there. You can email info at Illinois problem gambling dot org. You can email me at dual dw0hl at Illinois. Problem gambling dot org.
00;30;06;07 – 00;30;22;19
Speaker 1
Okay, perfect. We’ll include all of us in the show notes so people can reference them down below the description, but really enjoyed having you on the show today, Dave, and look forward to all the great things that you’re planning to achieve over the next five years.
00;30;22;21 – 00;30;23;20
Speaker 2
Thanks Shane. Appreciate.
00;30;23;20 – 00;30;25;21
Speaker 1
And beyond.
00;30;25;24 – 00;30;26;26
Speaker 2
Thank you.
00;30;26;29 – 00;31;03;04
Speaker 1
All right. We love hearing from you. So please take a moment to like, share and comment on our podcast. You can reach out to us directly via email at Wager Danger at Gateway Foundation dot org. Look for us on Facebook and Twitter at Recovery Gateway on LinkedIn, at Gateway Dash Foundation or through our website at Gateway Foundation. Dot org Wager Danger is supported through funding in whole or in part through a grant from the Illinois Department of Human Services and the Division of Substance Abuse Prevention and Recovery.
00;31;03;06 – 00;31;19;03
Speaker 1
And remember, recovery is a lifelong process. If you are a family member struggling with a gambling problem, call Gateway at 8449753663 and speak with one of our counselors for a confidential assessment.
