A note from Trish Thacker
As the year draws to a close, it’s a reminder to both reflect and look forward. For 2024, I reflect with gratitude and look forward with hope. I joined Guild as CEO in March 2024, and my experiences during this time remind me both how grateful I am to be a part of this team and how much hope I have for the future of this organization and the people we serve.
One of the things that caught my attention when I joined the team at Guild was the very real sense that the people who work here feel like they can be themselves when they come to work. In fact, in some of the very first team meetings I joined, staff talked about how they felt like they had found their professional home when they came to Guild. This is a powerful sentiment, and it’s something that any leader would hope for when starting at a new organization. When staff feel accepted, it influences the kind of care and support they can offer clients. Acceptance infuses that support with depth and authenticity.
I’m grateful that Guild values perseverance and tenacity. I’ve witnessed the level of dedication and commitment that our team has — both to each other and to the people we serve — and how people strive to show up in meaningful, authentic ways to meet our clients where they are and to bring them what they need vs. what we think they need as the service provider. That may sound small, but it’s the best part of the work: connecting with the people we serve and helping them meet the goals that they identify, instead of coming in and assuming that we know better. When we meet people as equals, it’s a much more powerful, authentic, and engaged manner of doing the work.
This brings me to hope. We all need hope. Hope is powerful. It has depth and substance. Hope is the belief that things can get better. More specifically, hope is the belief that what we do matters. It’s the belief that we can positively impact our own lives. No matter our role or responsibilities, we all have an opportunity to build hope by showing up for the people we serve. Showing up communicates value. It tells people that they are worth our time and effort, even if they can’t feel it at the moment. Sometimes the people we serve have lost hope, so we carry hope for them, until they are open to the possibility of it.
Looking into 2025, I’m hopeful. We have a great team at Guild, a team with the grit and tenacity to continue the good work of empowering the people we serve as they move through the process of recovery. There’s always room for innovation, of course, and creativity and innovation can only happen if there’s enough safety in our organization’s culture. We are growing that culture here at Guild, and I’m eager to see what comes next.