about briana
Honey and Badger, Same Woman
Briana F. Harden, CPS-MH, CPRS Apprentice, PBT — founder of Heart of Care, driver of the Red Bullet.
Briana with Jesse James and the Honey Badger — the whole heart of the operation.
I'm Briana. Certified Peer Specialist — Mental Health, CPRS Apprentice, Phlebotomy Technician, and the Honey Badger you've been hearing about. Honey because I'm sweet. Badger because I'm salty. Both, most days, usually before lunch.
The credentials matter. The lived experience matters more. I know what it is to live in survival mode for years and not know there was anything else on the other side of it. I also know what it is to come back — slow, stubborn, snack in hand.
Heart of Care grew out of all of it: the cats I rescued, the cloth I stitched, the gardens I planted, the chickens at the Cluckshack, the people I love hard and the ones I had to let go. The Cat Nap Inn, the Soul Cloth Sanctuary, and The 99 Retreat are all chapters of the same book.
I love hard. I cry hard. I sing in the car. I'll show my teeth for justice and truth, and I'll stand up for the people I love — and for myself. Some folks find me too much. That's alright. The ones who can take me are my people, and there's a porch chair here with their name on it.
Everything I make here — workbooks, courses, art, the shop, every word on every page — is built on one belief: you can move from survival mode to stability, and you don't have to do it alone. I'm not going to hand you a tidy program in a beige folder. I'm going to sit with you in the rain, tell you the truth, and pass you the Oreos.
"Softness is a survival skill. So is stubbornness."
— Briana, the Honey Badger herself
You are more than your hardest season.
healing happens when people feel seen, heard, and connected
Grief Containment
Grief needs a container, not a lid. Together, we shape practices that let you carry loss with care — including the grief nobody else seems to see. Estrangement, addiction, dementia, distance. Ambiguous grief is real, even when no one names it.
Recovery & Resilience
Lived-experience peer support for substance use recovery, mental health, and the long work of rebuilding. Recovery is rarely the cinematic transformation we're sold — it's quieter, slower, more honest, and available to anyone willing to keep showing up.
Whole-Person Wellness
Emotional, physical, spiritual, intellectual, social, occupational, financial, environmental. All of it counts as healing. The Eight Dimensions are the lens, not the curriculum — woven into the everyday, not handed over in a beige folder.
Dignity Beyond Labels
People are more than diagnoses, circumstances, mistakes, or labels. Healing happens in the company of those who refuse to look away. People first — always.
"A sustainable practice is the one that's still standing — and still tender — in five years."
— Briana
The receipts
paperwork the Honey Badger earned the hard way
Credentials
- CPS-MH — Certified Peer Specialist, Mental Health
- CPRS Apprentice — Certified Peer Recovery Specialist (in progress)
- PBT — Phlebotomy Technician
Certifications & Training
- ASIST — Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training
- WHAM — Whole Health Action Management
- WRAP — Wellness Recovery Action Plan
- Trauma-Informed Care
- The Respect Institute
- CPR & First Aid
More to add — pass them along and they'll land here.
Professional Experience
- Peer support
- Advocacy
- Case management
- Recovery support
- Group facilitation
- Community outreach
Get in it to win it, Captain.
no dieting, no shame — just showing up
Recovery is a beautiful experience. You are living. You are healing. You are giving yourself LIFE.
Plain words, on purpose.
brass tacks, no beige folder
Heart of Care is the short name. The whole name is Heart of Care Full Spectrum Community Treatment Service — a service, not a treatment center. Trauma-informed, whole-human, walking alongside folks where they actually live. Right now we're working in collaboration with HARTS Home Care, navigating patient care assistant work and certified peer specialist of mental health work side by side.
When I talk about the folks I serve, I say people first. Sometimes I'll say client. Sometimes — in a clinical, PCA, or phlebotomy moment — I'll say patient. All three are honest. What you won't hear out of me is consumer. The community service boards and behavioral health systems I came up through used that word, and it never sat right. People are people. Whole humans. That's the lens.
You'll also hear me reference the Eight Dimensions of Wellness. I don't run it as a program. I don't hand anybody a book and a worksheet and say "today we're doing dimension three." I just live it with the people I'm with — emotional, physical, spiritual, intellectual, social, occupational, financial, environmental — woven into the everyday. The lens, not the curriculum.
This is me, Briana. The Honey Badger. Point-blank, brass tacks, and all. Nice to meet you.
If you want the ground underneath all of this — the faith, the philosophy, and how the two foundations walk together — read Our Foundation.
The way I do anything is the way I do everything.
healing is not instant — and it isn't meant to be
At Heart of Care, we believe the way you do anything is the way you do everything. Healing is not instant. Recovery is not rushed. Stability is built one choice, one habit, one resource, and one dimension at a time.
We help people start at the beginning — identify where they are in survival mode, and begin building discipline across all eight dimensions of wellness. Like eating an elephant one bite at a time, we take the process step by step.
Through trauma-informed care, peer support, education, advocacy, and practical resources, we walk alongside people as they move:
- from survival to stability
- from stability to recovery
- from recovery into successful living