Meet The Team
The Minds Behind the Mission — Meet the dedicated team driving Via Positiva’s commitment to clinical excellence, cultural integrity, and sustainable behavioral health innovation across the nation.
Sylvia Barela
Sylvia Barela, MBA, who has served as National Managing Director for Via Positiva since April 1 of 2022, was born and raised in New Mexico. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from New Mexico State University and a Master’s in Business Administration degree with a Healthcare Concentration from the University of Phoenix. Sylvia has dedicated her twenty-four year career to behavioral health. She has twenty years of experience working with three non-profit residential treatment facilities in Colorado and New Mexico. She spent four years doing behavioral health consulting for four New Mexico Behavioral Health Providers, helping them navigate Intensive Outpatient Treatment certification with the State of New Mexico Human Services and Behavioral Health Services Division.
For sixteen years Sylvia Barela served in various leadership positions for the Santa Fe Recovery Center (SFRC), a statewide substance use disorder treatment program providing integrated care to a population with multifaceted behavioral health, mental health, and physical health disorders. From 2015 and 2022, Sylvia served as Chief Executive Officer of SFRC.
As CEO of SFRC, Sylvia led the organization in significant growth and expansion to ten times its capacity and revenue between 2017 and 2022. By 2022, it became the largest residential substance use disorder treatment program in the state of New Mexico with an exponentially increased budget, and capacity to serve ten times the number of clients as it did in 2015. Under her leadership SFRC expanded services to provide a continuum of care including detoxification, short-term and extended residential treatment, recovery housing, transitional living, supportive employment, an array of outpatient and medication assisted treatment services, gender specific services, and a women and children’s residential treatment program where young children can enter treatment with their mothers. Sylvia is committed to the support and improvement of behavioral health and integrated healthcare services, strives to make an impact in policy, funding, organizational management, and treatment innovations, and is dedicated to being of service and making a positive difference.
