Today we’d like to introduce you to Tammy Carvalho.
Hi Tammy, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Broken Wings is dedicated to my brother Jimbo who died of a heroin overdose on Christmas Eve 2014. He was 41 years old. He never received the help he needed from the available residential treatment homes nor AA meetings. The summer before he died, God showed me this butterfly below and spoke Broken Wings to my heart. The picture is the actual butterfly with a ripped wing from the garden. The butterfly flew beautifully with no problems at all, even in all its brokenness. It was during this time that I realized people who struggle with addiction can also live a life of fullness, even being broken down with all kinds of mental health and addiction issues. We want to help people like my brother, who never received the help he needed being as broken as he was in life.
Therefore, at my brother’s funeral, we dedicated Broken Wings Ministry, Inc., a 501 c3 non-profit organization to him. We offer outpatient counseling as you will see in this website, along with future anticipation of residential homes for women (Freedom Home), children and lastly, men.
Our goal for Broken Wings residential treatment center is to treat our clients like family in a professional, respectful, nurturing, healing, safe environment. To care for clients and to stick closer to them than a brother, when possibly their families cannot.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
We want to purchase a freedom home for ten residential ladies. We want to offer three of the resident’s scholarships while the other seven will have self means. However, the obstacle we are running into is the need for community awareness and raising funds to purchase the home.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a licensed mental health therapist. I specialize in EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) a trauma treatment. I am most proud of getting our outpatient clinic up and running. After we open our freedom home, we will offer alumni services to our clients who successfully complete the program outpatient counseling services for life. We believe addiction is a lifelong process and want to be there for those who have graduated from our program.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
Drug use and mental health have skyrocketed since the pandemic. We believe this is a bigger shift from the already opioid problem in our country. We believe with our holistic approach to healing substance use and mental health. We will be giving the community a program that will be successful in these trying times.
Contact Info:
- Email: Tammyc@bwm-inc.org
- Website: letstalkcounseling.org
- Facebook: Broken wings ministry
