Bay Area Reporter - October 4, 2007
Heather Cassell, h.cassell@ebar.com

Ann Harrison, 54, a lesbian, was hired in September to revitalize the counseling agency and to take it to a national standard of excellence. She will start October 22. Harrison brings to New Leaf 20 years of experience in mental health and substance abuse issues as well as deft financial knowledge and know-how.

Harrison will earn $115,000 annually along with a standard benefit package. She will oversee an agency with a $2.8 million budget that has provided mental health services to the LGBT community for many years.

She jokingly said, "No trips to exotic locations or anything like that." But she hopes to get a dog that she can bring into the office.

"I'm just really looking forward to jumping in and getting started," said Harrison, who said she has a strong background in funding diversification, which the agency needs.

According to Christopher Scanlan, New Leaf's board president, the agency had a budget deficit of approximately $297,000 as of the 2005-2006 fiscal year. In spite of the deficit, he said, New Leaf produced a surplus of $122,000 for 2006-2007 and estimates an approximate $60,000 surplus for 2007-2008. All of the surplus funds, which occurred after a two-year period in which New Leaf had to increase borrowing and defer hiring to avoid layoffs and program closures, are going toward reducing the agency's deficit.

"We managed to avoid layoffs of staff or program closures," Scanlan said.

New Leaf currently has a staff of 45 employees, 38 of whom are clinical or other program service providers, as well as 18 intern clinicians and 15 volunteer therapists.

The agency will now seek to improve its financial stability in order to build a reserve fund and increase services, Scanlan said.

"I've seen the foundation is here to make New Leaf a nationally recognized center of excellence for what we do," said Harrison. "If I really want to go for it, I would say that eventually I would like to see us be able to develop a replicable model that we could teach around the country for other people who are either providing the services that we provide or want to [provide]."

"Ann's special gifts in fundraising and sound financial management give us confidence that we will reach that goal and so that we can expand our services, serving more people in our communities," Scanlan wrote in an e-mail.

During her first few months, Harrison told the B.A.R. she would conduct an extensive review of New Leaf's financial situation, services, and community partnerships to find areas that can be strengthened and areas that can be developed.

A good fit

New Leaf's eight-member executive search committee, comprised equally of board members and staff, conducted a nationwide search using McCormack and Associates, a Los Angeles-based diversity consulting firm with a primary focus in the LGBT and HIV/AIDS communities. Joe McCormack, a gay man and a principal of the firm, contacted New Leaf, Scanlan said, after reading about its transition in the B.A.R. McCormack was paid a flat fee of $28,500 for its services.

The paper reported earlier this year that longtime Executive Director Joseph Neisen was stepping down. The announcement came as the agency's board said it was looking to expand its private fundraising over its government contracts and sought a new top manager with a strong development background.

The firm found Harrison in San Francisco's back yard. Harrison was recruited from Marin Services for Women, an inpatient and outpatient substance abuse services agency in Greenbrae, where she was the executive director for eight years. During her tenure there, Harrison said that she increased the organization's revenue through raising private and corporate donations. In 2004 the United Nations recognized the center for its successful treatment programs.

Harrison, who recently celebrated 22 years of being clean and sober, started college as a re-entry student when she was 32 at Hartnell College, a community college in Salinas, California. She obtained a specialized certificate in alcohol and drug abuse and then transferred to San Jose State University, where she earned both a bachelor's degree in public relations and marketing and a master's degree in social science with a focus on women's studies and gender studies.

After graduate school, Harrison took a position as program director of the Friends Outside's community prisoner mother program in Salinas. During her six years in that position, Harrison designed a recovery program for women incarcerated in state prison.

Born in Virginia, Harrison moved to the Monterey area in 1970. Harrison recently settled in a restored 130-year old Victorian in Vallejo's historic district, home to many in that city's LGBT community.

She has two grandchildren by her daughter, Amber, 34, an artist who is married to another artist. They live in Watsonville, California. Her son, Justin, 25, works on motorcycles and in construction in the East Bay. The family, Harrison said, is very close.

Serving the community

Harrison brings to New Leaf the skills that the agency needs beyond financial literacy. Harris is ready to meet the challenge of redesigning New Leaf's services to reach out to more lesbian and bisexual women.

New Leaf, according to its Web site, serves nearly 1,600 San Franciscans and provides nearly 17,000 counseling and support sessions annually. In 2005, the mental health agency moved to Fox Plaza in the Civic Center area, enabling the agency to provide one-stop services for mental health, substance abuse, HIV/AIDS mental health, social support, senior services, and psychiatric medical evaluation and monitoring.

Harrison and Scanlan expressed the importance of LGBT-focused mental health and substance abuse services.

"There are specific issues to the LGBT communities that cannot be addressed in other settings or can't be addressed as deeply and as thoroughly," said Harrison, who listed "issues of oppression, the questioning that goes on, the violence, the trauma ... it creates a particular complexity of experience that I think healing can be nurtured best in the environment that reflects the individual's experience."

Scanlan added, "We have people who come into this agency that have had experiences where they wanted treatment for what was really ailing them and instead they got pathologized and felt that they were put on the defensive about their sexual identity, and that's why we need LGBT-focused services."

In spite of all of the services that New Leaf provides, more services are needed to reach those within the LGBT community that aren't being served, Scanlan and Harrison said.

"In my experience, there are never enough services provided in the nonprofit sector," said Harrison, who looks forward to working in partnership with other mental health services in the city that already work with New Leaf and agencies that don't currently collaborate with New Leaf. "I would prefer to see us collaborating with other agencies rather than seeing ourselves as competing."

The agency wants to move away from the perception that it serves primarily gay men, Scanlan said, and reach out to lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals.

Currently, according to Scanlan, 15 percent of New Leaf's clients identify as lesbian. New Leaf also provides mental health services, a substance abuse support group, and a youth support group services for transgender individuals. The transgender youth support group is in partnership with Dimensions Clinic. The agency also assists more than 500 San Francisco LGBT seniors through its Outreach to Elders program.

Currently, New Leaf doesn't have services specifically for bisexual clients. Scanlan pointed out that New Leaf does provide individual mental health and substance abuse services to all LGBT individuals.

Harrison isn't worried about expanding services for women, which is one of New Leaf's and her goals, but first she plans to speak with staff, who she sees as the "experts" because they "are on the ground day in and day out providing the services," about how New Leaf's services can improve, in particular for lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals.

"Given my background in women's services," said Harrison. "I'm sure it won't be a problem to figure out."

Scanlan added, "This agency can be a real voice on those issues and we think that Ann is going to be a great part of taking us to the next level."

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