Sharon C. Ekleberry

Author Biography

Sharon C. Ekleberry, MSW, LCSW, LSATP, has been the Division Director of the Adult Community Services Division and Director of Transformation Initiatives for the Fairfax County Mental Health Services in Virginia. She has years of experience as a clinician, supervisor, and trainer specializing in Axis II co-occurring disorders (personality disorders and addiction). Ms. Ekleberry has served two terms on the Virginia Licensure Board for Social Work. She has been the Chair of both the Board and the Discipline Committee. As a result, she also focuses on the ethical and standards of practice issues involved in working with a personality-disordered client population. Ms. Ekleberry has authored articles on dual diagnosis and was one of the authors of "Treating Co-Occurring Disorders, A Handbook for Mental Health and Substance Abuse Professionals," 2004. She also served on the Consensus Panel for the revision of the "Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) #9, Assessment and Treatment of Patients with Coexisting Mental Illness and Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse," for the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (2005).

Ms. Ekleberry has provided training in Axis II Co-Occurring Disorders (personality disorders and addiction) for 15 years in Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia, North Carolina, Alabama, South Dakota, Delaware, Tennessee, Michigan, Colorado, and New York. She has met with corrections, rehabilitation, mental retardation, mental health, substance abuse, and social services professionals. In every audience, no matter what services they were providing, there was immediate recognition of this client population and an overwhelmingly positive response to learning about effective techniques in working with them.