Elizabeth Woike-Ganga, LCSW-R

Elizabeth Woike-Ganga is a licensed clinical social worker and Chief Operating Officer at BestSelf Behavioral Health, Inc. in Buffalo, New York.  BestSelf is the result of a merger in June 2017 of Lake Shore Behavioral Health and Child and Adolescent Treatment Services.  BestSelf is a nonprofit organization providing comprehensive treatment and rehabilitation services to individuals with mental illnesses and substance abuse disorders. The organization employs more than 800 staff and has an operating budget of approximately $50 million.  The organization served more than 15,000 consumers in 2017. Liz is from Buffalo, NY.  After graduating with a BA from Yale University, she spent a year in Costa Rica on a Fulbright Scholarship followed by two years as a Peace Corps volunteer and trainer in Gabon, Central Africa.  After returning to Buffalo, Liz worked at Vive, Inc., an Organization for World Refugees, as Assistant Director while pursuing a Master of Social Work at SUNY Buffalo.  Elizabeth started at Lake Shore Behavioral Health as an intern in 2002, was hired as a counselor in 2004 and was offered various promotions until joining the BestSelf Executive Management Team in 2012 as Director of Chemical Dependency. She was promoted in 2014 to Vice President of Clinical Operations and then to Chief Operating Officer in November of 2015. Liz was instrumental in realizing the merger between Child and Adolescent Treatment Services and Lake Shore Behavioral Health.  The company has grown from about 350 employees in early 2017 to more than 800 employees in 2018. Today, BestSelf Behavioral Health is the largest community behavioral health organization serving children and adults in Western New York. This tremendous growth is due to a number of new programs spearheaded by Liz. BestSelf is one of 13 behavioral health organizations selected by New York State to participate in the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) pilot program. This federal pilot is revolutionizing the way behavioral health services are delivered and reimbursed.  It allows for comprehensive, integrated behavioral health treatment with additional services such as vocational supports, targeted case management and peer services.  BestSelf has the largest CCBHC in New York, with twelve integrated locations serving children and adults. Liz has also been instrumental in developing mobile mental health services, allowing BestSelf to provide services outside of a traditional clinic setting and instituting open access at all BestSelf clinics, enabling people to have immediate access to mental health and substance use disorder treatment. In the fall of 2017, Elizabeth worked to implement our Recovery Connections Program. The program is a fully mobile team providing rapid access to medication assisted treatment (often within 24 to 48 hours), counseling and peer supports to people who have had difficulty engaging with treatment or in areas without access to treatment options.  This program was recently recognized on NBC Nightly News as a new, innovative way to address the opioid crisis. Liz also works to ensure BestSelf remains a leader in serving multi-cultural communities.  Many of our employees are bilingual and bicultural which enables them to provide high quality services to our culturally and linguistically diverse client population. Interpreters have also been employed by BestSelf to make sure we are able to provide everyone in our communities with easy access to services.  Elizabeth has been a driving force to ensure that refugees, immigrants and other cultures find a welcoming environment at BestSelf where they are treated with respect. Liz is very active in the Western New York health care community and also is a graduate of both Leadership Buffalo (2013) and the Health Foundation of Western and Central New York’s Health Leadership Fellows program (2015).  In 2018 she was awarded a Woman of Influence Award by Business First for Inspirational Leadership.