Lella Still, LCSW, serves as the director of behavioral health social work for UK HealthCare. In her role, she provides leadership and management of behavioral health social work services at Eastern State and Good Samaritan Hospital, which includes adult and adolescent behavioral health units. As such, she works diligently to integrate and improve social work outcomes in behavioral health throughout the health system.
Still has 13 years of inpatient psychiatric experience serving those with serious mental illness. Shortly after graduating from the University of Louisville Kent School of Social Work with her Master’s degree in 2010, she began her social work career at Eastern State Hospital. Since then, she has worked as a unit social worker, the manager of transitions, and, most recently, as director of social work for the last five years.
She is currently working on her doctorate of social work (DSW) from the University of Kentucky College of Social Work, focusing on leadership and administration. Her research interests include transitional care interventions to reduce readmissions and clinical social work supervision programs, which she has worked to improve at UK Healthcare.
She is responsible for creating a Caring Contacts program at Eastern State Hospital, a social work-led transitional care intervention supporting patients after discharge. In addition, she helped develop and present the revised clinical supervision training required for LCSW clinical supervisors by the Kentucky Board of Social Work. Still works diligently to apply research and theory to social work practice to improve care for Kentuckians experiencing mental illness.
Still has been published in the New Social Worker magazine and presented at the first national DSW conference in 2022.
In 2022, she was appointed to Lexington’s Office of Homelessness Prevention and Intervention Board. She is also a member of the Kentucky Society for Clinical Social Workers and the National Association of Social Workers.