Annie Fahy RN , LCSW is a behavior change specialist in the areas of health wellness and letting go of destructive patterns. She has been a MINT member since 2004 and makes a practice of having her training and MI practice reviewed regularly by her peers She is recognized as a dynamic national trainer, and presenter in motivational interviewing, harm-reduction, reducing compassion-fatigue. Her training skills have been certified by the MINT trainer certification process. In past lives, she has been a hospital based nurse as well as designing substance use disorder programs for women and their children and offenders in drug/dui court programs. She developed and extensive harm reduction practice and consultation business with the Harm Reduction Therapy Center and often assists teams in thinking more coherently about high risk presentaions using an Motivational Interviewing and incremental change approach.
Currently, she is a consultant and trainer facilitating organizational change through adaptation of Motivational Interviewing and other client centered and strength focused appraoches through her buiness Annie Fahy Consulting based in Asheville, NC. She brings her clinical skill working with the most difficult people into training and consultation work across health and behavioral health settings.
Annie has been training and affiliated with the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT) since 2004, the Harm Reduction Therapy Center in San Francisco (HRTC) since 2007 and the Amherst Writers and Artists Asscociation ( AWA) since 1998. Her trainings are multimodal and experiential and she consistently gets high ratings from participants. For a taste of Annie's training style check out this youtube. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izrwA9gYlEs&t=8s). Annie specialises in getting participants moving and practicing MI from almost the first 30 minutes. She believes that listening is the default setting for helpers and that Motivational Interviewing skills build resilencies and decrease comassion fatigue in workers.
Annie is a writer and an artist. She has authored two chapters in the The PraegerHandbook of Community Health (ABC-CLIO LLC) : We are all addictions counselors now, ( 2007), and Invisible and Overlooked: Substance use disorders and aging populations, (2017). She composed a feature article for The Journal of Social Work: The Unbearable Fatigue of Compassion: Notes from a Substance Abuse Counselor Who Dreams ofWorking at Starbuck’s.
Annie has published her first book of poems The Glass Train, (2017) from Amherst Writers and Artist Press. She often publishes her art, poems and essays on Medium (https://medium.com/@AnnieOFahy). She uses writing as a clinical tool and often runs writing workshops for marginalised populations.
My diverse clinical experience translates into a real world focus in my trainings. I believe that participants learn best when they experience the MI through multiple portals, i.e. modeling, watching, reflecting, practicing, thinking and resting. I want them to walk out ready to try something new and I utilize all my own MI skills to make this happen. This makes the learning itself fascinating on several levels. I love what I do!
