Advisory Committee

Alex Hulst, PhD, LMFT holds a PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy and a Certificate of Advanced Specialization in Medical Family Therapy. Since 2012, she has provided therapy for individuals, couples, and families in various primary and specialty care settings, including pediatrics and inpatient care. She currently serves as the Integrated Behavioral Health Advisor for Rocky Mountain Health Plans, where she has coached more than 40 primary care practices in using continuous quality improvement (QI) methods to enhance clinical, operational, and financial sustainability of integrated behavioral health in primary care. She co-chaired the 2019 annual conference for the Collaborative Family Healthcare Association and serves as the Treasurer for the AAMFT Family Therapists in Healthcare Topical Interest Network (TIN). She has been published in a variety of peer-reviewed journals and published a book in 2018 titled Contextual Therapy for Family Health: Clinical Applications.

Felice Seigneur, MPH is a Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Promotion Evaluation Project Manager with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE). She lives and works in Denver, CO and oversees evaluation projects that capture impact across the state. Felice is leading the Office of Suicide Prevention's evaluation efforts, with an emphasis in building capacity to captury locally owned and driven prevention efforts that engage diverse sectors and partners. In addition, she contributes to the Core State Violence and Injury Prevention Program (CORE SVIPP) evaluation, a CDC funded project that captures statewide primary prevention activities focused on shared risk and protective factors that are upstream of Child Abuse and Neglect, Intimate Partner Violence, Motor Vehicle Crashes, and Traumatic Brain Injuries. Prior to joining CDPHE, Felice worked in mental health program evaluation, with an emphasis on children and families, trauma prevention and the promotion of resilience. She is particularly passionate about trauma-informed care, and utilizing community-driven, collaborative/participatory practices.

Heather Gard lives in Breckenridge with her family.   She works in the education system as a elementary substitute. She became a suicide survivor when her 16 year old son died by suicide in April of 2020.

Imo Succo, MSW, is a member of the Navajo Nation tribe, born and raised in New Mexico on the Navajo reservation. Imo relocated to Durango, Colorado in August of 2015, after nine years working for the Navajo Nation Department of Law Enforcement. She earned a BA in Anthropology with Fort Lewis College in April 2017. After undergraduate studies, Imo decided to embark on another journey of higher education focusing on social work, which led her to graduating from the University of Denver GSSW with a Master of Social Work degree June 2020. During her social work education, she interned with SEPT 4 the Children, the Regional Crisis Response Team with Axis Health and lastly, a mental health outpatient facility also with Axis Health System. She has experience in working as a public safety dispatcher for nine years with Navajo Department of Law Enforcement in New Mexico and one year with the Southern Ute Tribal Police Department in Ignacio, Colorado. Imo is currently employed as a Regional Health Connector with Southwestern Colorado Area Health Education Center. She is new to the position with five months in working for her agency.

"Suicide rates are higher on the Navajo reservation than La Plata County. It does have a spot in my personal life by being a Native American mother of a child who had suicidal ideation. My cultural teachings and awareness around suicide is a taboo. There is no word for suicide in the Navajo language. I believe that cultural sensitivity and knowledge for healthcare professionals would benefit in understanding in working with indigenous people."

Meghan C. Francone, MHA, BS SLP/Aud., CFI, CISM, Director of Open Heart Advocates and Moffat County Coordinator for Reaching Everyone Preventing Suicide (REPS). Meghan joined Memorial Regional Health (MRH) as the Director of Open Heart Advocate in June of 2019. In this position, Meghan offers free assistance to all victims of crime through services, such as: a 24-hour hotline, counseling and support, an emergency safe shelter, referrals and information, protective order assistance, personal advocacy and support, criminal justice and judicial advocacy, community education, safety planning, and Latina, children’s, and LGBTQ advocacy. As the Moffat County Coordinator for REPS, Meghan is also a Master Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training Trainer (ASIST) and Question, Persuade, and Refer (QPR) Trainer since 2012. In this role she has trained over 7,000 individuals in multiple counties in evidence-based suicide prevention and intervention skills. In 2020, Meghan also became a Certified Forensic Interviewer.

Through her personal and professional experiences and careers, Meghan seeks to promote the notion that every resident has the right to a safe, productive, and responsible life. Mental Health and Addiction challenges are a largely present in Moffat County as Moffat County has some of Colorado’s highest rates of domestic violence, alcoholism, suicide, and sex assaults. Meghan realizes the need for agencies to come together to create established referral processes to widen safety frameworks for individuals in crisis and she is passionate about being a part of positive effective movements towards this outcome. Restoring hope to the hopeless has, does, and will save lives.