STAUNTON – It's been a 15-year journey for Co-founder and Executive Director of the ARROW Project Sabrina Burress since she first began to work professionally in mental health for the Staunton community.
Born and raised in Staunton, she knew early on that she wanted to do something to help others and started out in nonprofit work where she learned how to build programs to accomplish this. After noticing the lack of behavioral health treatment options in the area, Burress left her career in business administration to work at a mental health agency. She ultimately determined she could do even more to remove barriers to mental health care in her community, and in 2018 formed the ARROW Project, an organization that works to identify and address behavioral health needs in Staunton, Augusta County and Waynesboro.
ARROW stands for Augusta Resources for Resilience, Opportunity and Wellness.As executive director, Burress works tirelessly to form community partnerships and secure funding that allows ARROW to provide care to those with no insurance. Burress also developed a model that pays Master’s-level students working towards their degree or licensure for their services — uncommon in the world of therapist training.
"We connect folks to counseling when they need it, but we meet them where they are in the community, and we provide them some supports that help them maintain mental health stability," she said in a 2019 interview."So hopefully we're preventing these larger things from happening."
For her efforts, Burress received the Mental Health Champion award from the Virginia Health Care Foundation. The award is given to those in Virginia who go above and beyond to help serve those in the mental health field.
She said winning the award was humbling because of how important her work is. Burress described mental health and the aspects of it as a foundational piece of herself as a human being and to have won this award felt both humbling and rewarding.
“It feels humbling, but also really rewarding for the organization itself, like it puts our name in a different sort of category of work,” Burress said. “I’m so incredibly excited to be acknowledged in that way. I don’t have all of the words for it, I just know that I feel grateful.”
Burress received the award in a ceremony held by Virginia Healthcare Foundation on June 6. Present for the event were awardees, guests, as well as Virginia Health Care Foundations board of trustees and John Littel, Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources.
During the ceremony, Littel introduced and recognized VHCF’s six Mental Health Champions, who went above and beyond to improve the mental health of their organizations and/or their patients/clients, communities. ARROW Project Executive Director Sabrina Burress in Staunton was one such honoree.
Littel served as the chair of the nominations committee, and was quoted saying “we need an ARROW in every city in the Commonwealth.”
Burress is an active member of the community, not just in the area of mental health. She holds many positions outside of ARROW Project including: Second Vice President of the NAACP Staunton Chapter, Chair of Staunton City Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Commission, the advisory board of Valley Program for Aging Services and several other boards, commissions and collectives in the SAW region. In December, she presented the DEI commission's first report to Staunton City Council.
“I’m like in the community as much as I possibly can be with the message being around mental health,” Burress said. “Supporting other agencies, organizations, and individuals in their mission and vision helps us build a stronger network that can support ARROW, as well as expanding the conversation of mental health across more platforms.”
When asked about her inspiration to excel in the mental health field, Burress said this is the most fulfilling type of work she’s done in her professional journey. Burress has done mental health work for 15 years and said her work has been fulfilling because she can be a part of other people’s stories of healing, growth, resilience and self-actualization.
“When Sabrina Burress discovered the tremendous unmet demand for behavioral health services in her area, she switched from a career in business administration to increasing availability of services and hasn’t looked back,” said Littel.
VHCF and its partners dedicated significant resources and attention to increasing the availability of basic mental health services throughout the state over the past year, via VHCF’s three-pronged, behavioral health initiative, Brighter Days Ahead: Addressing Virginia’s Mental Health Crisis.
“Virginia is fortunate to have both executive and legislative branch leaders for whom access to mental health services is a priority,” said The Honorable Margaret G. Vanderhye, VHCF Board of Trustees Chair and master of ceremonies for the event.
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