Drug Rehab Workers Seek New Jobs

Jamen Vandervort’s family went ​“from three house incomes to just one” when he and his father suddenly lost their jobs at a drug rehab clinic that closed amidst corporate chaos.

So on Tuesday the father-son duo joined dozens of their former colleagues at a job fair designed to help get Retreat Behavioral Health’s abruptly unemployed back to work.

The job fair was co-organized by Jackie James, a former Hill alder and local director of public relations for Retreat, in collaboration with the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce.

It took place Tuesday afternoon in Gateway Community College’s Curran Community Room at 20 Church St., where ten health care organizations manned booths and distributed employment materials to job seekers.

Tuesday’s job fair came in the wake of Retreat’s corporate collapse over the past two weeks, with the sudden closure of its 80-bed in-patient addiction treatment center on Ella T. Grasso Boulevard on June 21 and its outpatient clinic at 1 Long Wharf Dr. on June 24. Retreat also shuttered its Pennsylvania and Florida facilities at the same time, stopped paying hundreds of employees — including more than 160 full-time and part-time workers in New Haven — and discharged patients en masse. All of this came as two corporate executives died by suicide within five days of one another, and the company’s financial woes continued to mount.

The job fair put faces and names to the many employees hurt by that corporate drama. According to Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce Vice President Anne Benowitz, more than 70 job seekers attended the event.

Jamen Vandervort and his friend Adam Enders said they both previously worked as behavioral health technicians at Retreat.

They’re now looking for work wherever they can get it.

When the Independent spoke to Jamen and Enders, Jamen was filling out a personal information form for Yale New Haven Health. ​“I’m up for anything,” Jamen said, ​“preferably something computer-based. Just need to pay the bills.”

Jamen and Enders described a group chat with their co-workers in it as one of the best parts of working at Retreat: ​“They made it bearable,” Jamen said.

Neither has received a paycheck for the last weeks of their employment at Retreat; both are now locked out of their work e‑mail accounts.

Jamen’s father, James Vandervort, was the Chef Manager at Retreat. He had been overseeing the kitchen for nearly three years when Retreat closed. ​“I loved it,” James said. This is uncharted territory for him and his family: ​“It’s the first time in 22-and-a-half years I haven’t had a job.”

James would prefer to stay in his field. He also has some experience in direct patient care. And, like his son, he expressed that he’d take work wherever he could get it. ​“You gotta do what you gotta do,” he said.

Tommy Ferraiolo, a server who worked for James Vandervort in the kitchen at Retreat, said he loved coming into work. The patients and staff called him ​“Uncle Tommy” — and he ​“didn’t miss a day of work” in two years.

Ferraiolo owned a car lot in Branford for 22 years before retiring. ​“I sat at home with Netflix for a month” after retiring, Ferraiolo said, ​“and I was like, ​‘What the hell? This is it?’ ” That’s when he decided to work for Retreat.

Now he’s looking to get a new job to avoid being ​“bored at home” again. He came to the job fair with James Vandervort, hoping to stay with him: ​“Wherever he goes, I’m going,” Ferraiolo said.

Sandy Enders, Adam Enders’s mother, who worked as a per diem therapist at Retreat for over three years, said the ​“culture was excellent” and that she was ​“shocked” by the closure. ​“It’s a beautiful facility,” just renovated during the pandemic, Sandy said. She’s hoping someone will buy the site and continue its operations.

While former Retreat employees sought out work, local and regional employers sought out new workers.

Mountainside Treatment Vice President of Strategic Operations Dan Smith talked to job seekers behind a table featuring T‑shirts, granola bars, stickers, and various pieces of Mountainside merch. The Canaan-based treatment center offers various forms of addiction treatment, including detox, extended care, residential, outpatient, and recovery coaching.

According to Mountainside’s profile on job search platform Indeed, the treatment center currently has 19 openings at its facility in Canaan, Mountainside’s only Connecticut location. ​“We’re looking for everything from social workers to transportation,” Smith said.

New Haven-based social services nonprofit Continuum of Care sought job applicants with diverse qualifications for 60 open positions ranging from direct support staff to clinician. ​“We’re looking for devoted individuals, because we work with a unique population,” said Margarita Landelius, Continuum of Care’s human resources department manager.

“We’re open to hiring anyone with the qualifications, even if they have a criminal past. Several of our programs rely on people with lived experience to guide our patients through the recovery process,” Landelius said.

Continuum of Care offers services including alternative forms of residential support for individuals who would otherwise be institutionalized, aid for veterans in crisis or suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and guidance for those who have aged out of the foster care system.

“I don’t have the words to explain how important this work is. It allows people to continue with their day-to-day lives,” Landelius explained, noting that the collapse of Retreat limits individuals struggling with addiction or mental health to constrictive forms of care. Recently, Continuum of Care hosted a prom for its entire agency so that ​“those who may not have been able to enjoy that chapter of their life can still celebrate the fun tradition.”

Across the room, American Job Center (AJC) Ambassador Darlena Young reached across her booth to hand a stress ball to a job seeker, courtesy of a prize drop that ​“left everyone feeling like a winner, because it’s nice to be able to return to our inner child.”

The AJC matches job seekers with employers across the state that align with their qualifications. ​“Sometimes people will apply to transportation jobs with experience in social work, which doesn’t make sense. Our role is talking to organizations to find out who is hiring, and connecting them with qualified applicants,” Young explained.

In addition to external employers, if she ​“meets someone who aligns with what AJC is looking for in its own offices,” Young will offer employment opportunities within AJC to customers.

Director of Recruitment Chez Ruiz represented Marrakech, a nonprofit organization aimed at uplifting individuals from underserved communities via family support, employment guidance, and personal well-being services.

Across its three locations in New Haven, West Haven, and Woodbridge, Marrakech currently boasts over 500 employees with around 100 vacancies. ​“We have openings in direct support, paraprofessional positions… We also have a human services training program, for individuals looking to work in human resources-related fields,” Ruiz said.

“The main challenge [of hiring in the human services field] is passion. You’re dealing with a lot, whether that be patients with trauma or specific needs, which can result in burnout,” Ruiz explained. ​“Human services is also an underfunded field, so there’s that.”

In a statement provided to the Independent, local Chamber of Commerce VP Anne Benowitz recognized how difficult it has been for all of the Retreat employees who have lost their jobs, and praised the fair as helping connect healthcare-sector workers with employers.

“We hope this leads to new opportunities for everyone trying to find a new job,” she said. ​“It’s also a great opportunity for the business community to retain talented workers in the region.”

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