Longwood, FL, March 28   – The National Council for Behavioral Health hosted its annual Awards of Excellence on March 26, 2019 in Nashville, TN. The 50th anniversary event recognized individuals and organizations working to strengthen behavioral health care, enhance access to care and support our communities with visionary leadership. IMPOWER, a Central Florida based mental health, substance abuse and child well-being organization was selected as the 2019 Excellence in Technology Honoree for its visionary work developing and implementing a telehleath solution for the provision of mental health and psychiatric care. IMPOWER President/CEO accepted the honor and addressed the crowd stating, “The ideas of community and service delivery are evolving and we need to evolve and elevate our own thinking…Because in the end, it’s not about us, it’s about those needing our services”. Baznik also shared that since 2016 the organization has been on a mission to increase access to behavioral health services, increase quality and reduce the ever-present stigma. To date, IMPOWER has provided more than 200,000 services via telehealth, averaging 400-700 per week. The agency’s wait list reduced from 3-6 months to virtually 2 days, sometimes sooner, and no-show rates went from 60% to 10-12%.