Pathways in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Careers

2:17PM May 31, 2024

Speakers:

Chloe Corcoran, M.Ed

Wendell Callahan, PhD

Michael Richards, PhD

Keywords:

work

callahan

school

school counselor

counseling

field

university

kids

wendell

students

community

children

cameron

started

youth

student

anthro

people

experience

palo alto

Hello and thank you so much for joining Palo Alto University and the Division of Continuing and Professional Studies for our podcast episode of Talking Mental Health Careers regarding Child and Adolescent Counseling and Psychology. My name is Chloe Corcoran, my pronouns are she, her and hers, and I'm the Director of Alumni Relations with Palo Alto University. A very fortunate to be joined by our experts today, Dr. Erica Cameron, Dr. Wendell Callahan and Dr. Michael Richards. Thank you all for being here for this important conversation. Now, since I just correctly refer to you all as experts in the field, I think it's important for me to share a little bit of your background too. For those listening please trust me that these Bibles are quite abbreviated for time and I hope you'll take a look at mine for more information. Dr. Erica Cameron, NCC and ACS serves as PAU's Provost and Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs. She earned her PhD in counselor education from the University of Missouri, St. Louis. She holds a master's degree in guidance and counseling from the University of Hawaii and her bachelor's degree in graphic design from Bradley University, where she was a division one volleyball player, which I think is pretty cool. She has written and co authored a book book chapters and articles on multiculturalism and social justice in counseling, counselor professional development and school counseling. She was the 2020 recipient of the Association for counselor education and supervision, counseling vision and Innovation Award. In her clinical work, Dr. Cameron has worked as a school career and mental health counselor with a variety of clients but specializes in work with children who have experienced trauma and utilizing expressive therapeutic interventions in school counseling. We're very glad to have Dr. Cameron here with us today. Thank you boy. Dr. Wendell Callahan is joining us from the University of San Diego, where he is currently a professor of practice Executive Director, USD tele mental health training clinic and USD Catholic Institute for mental health ministry. Prior to joining USD, Dr. Callahan was the senior director for integrated instructional support at the San Diego County Office of Education, juvenile court and community schools during his 18 year tenure at the San Diego County Office of Education. Dr. KellyAnn practice is one of the first school psychologist in the juvenile court in community schools, where he was an architect of Student Assessment, counseling and guidance programs and also assisted in the development of court and community schools. First special education programs including mental health services for students with disabilities. Dr. Callahan holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis in experimental psycho pathology from the University of California, San Diego and San Diego State University, where he was awarded a pre doctoral minority fellowship from the US Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to research and provide clinical service to underserved populations. Dr. Callahan also holds a Master of Science degree in counseling and a bachelor's degree in psychology from San Diego State University. Dr. Callahan. Welcome. Thank you for being here.

Thank you, Chloe. Glad to be here.

And our final panelist, Dr. Michael Richards is a scholar educator assistant professor at Palo Alto University, and is a clinic director of Palo Alto University's training clinic, the Grunau ski center. After graduating from Palo Alto University's clinical psychology Ph. D program in 2018. Dr. Richards began his work as faculty in 2019 at the University, where he's provided clinical supervision as a licensed psychologist at the renowned ski centers sexual and gender identities clinic. He currently supervises doctoral level clinical psychology students, postdoctoral fellows, and provides didactic training across the clinic. His other work at the University has included advising and teaching in the undergraduate and graduate psychology programs. Dr. Richards has clinical experience in college counseling, community mental health, and residential substance abuse treatment. He has focused his clinical career on working with adolescents and young adults, as well as LGBTQ plus clients. It has a background as a college counselor working at University Counseling Centers, including at San Jose State University, and the University of California Santa Cruz. Dr. Richards we're so thankful to have you here today. What this all means is that you're not going to hear a lot from me for the rest of this Yo, I don't have that much interesting to say about this. So let's get ready to dive into our discussion here. Helping children and adolescents through counseling and psychology is incredibly important work. And it's constantly evolving, which we'll be sure to discuss. But let's start with your Why. Why did each of you decide to set out on this path? And once you did decide how did you start to pursue your ambitions? And Dr. Cameron, I'm going to start with you on this one. Okay,

thanks, Chloe. And I'm just so honored to be here with Wendell and Michael's. So I looking forward to this discussion. In all honesty, I was looking for a summer job. And I was in Hawaii in my undergrad program. And I came across a job opportunity for college students to work for a city and county agency. And in that position, it provides work to with out of school, low income and disabled youth helping them to get pre employment skills, to also learn some job skills and work for the county, different county agencies, that from Parks and Rec to different departments where they were learning pre employment skills. And through that work, it made me realize that I had a passion working for children with children and adolescents, and helping them and supporting them. And so when you know, in my population being students that were low income, so all of their families were on welfare, or they were had a physical or mental disability. It made me realize the diversity of issues that were stopping them from feeling self confident in themselves, or feeling like they had hope and choice of, you know, going on and pursuing other things in their life. And just the loose, short summer, you know, three months that I would work with them every year, was so fulfilling, and seeing at the end of summer, how students grew, and how they were able to feel like contributors to their families and contributors in our community. And to me, that was really what sparked kind of the why and, and made me really look into how I wanted to maybe get a graduate degree and really do some work that could support more and more students. And I was seeing, you know, homelessness, I was seeing food insecurities I was I was seeing drug related issues. And so the fact that I could maybe have an impact for, for not only the students, but their families and the community in general, was really how I started to get my why.

Dr. Callahan, can we hear from you a little bit, please.

So I have kind of a humorous backstory on this. So I started out as an undergrad in field archaeology and anthropology. And this was it was the 80s. I'm a kid from the grew up in the late 60s 70s, and very early 80s. And I graduated in the middle 80s, from undergrad. So as a young 18 year old, I wanted to be Indiana Jones. Right. And so I was doing field archaeology Anthro really enjoyed the field work. The Anthro classes, were just kind of not my cup of tea. And when one of my professors said, if you really want to do field archaeology, the place to be is either a central America or the Middle East. And both of those as they are today, our hearts were hotspots and so people were getting blown up, and it was just political chaos. So the so I need to rethink this. And so my end of my sophomore year, that's true story. I looked at the SDSU catalog, said what can I do with all these Anthro credits, and they transferred into a psych degree without me having to stay for an extra year. And so that and so that's how it started really. And so I really got involved in STS us Psychology program is in the College of Sciences. So it's a pretty hard headed empirical program. And so I got involved in you know, experimental psychology and psychometrics and then a lot of interesting lab. Lab studies set up and so those instructor was taught those courses and one of the and so the way it worked, you took a sequence in stats psychometrics experimental psych then advanced lab. And so after the experimental psych course, I took the advanced lab in child psychology, and they just fascinated me. And we would want to remember one of the studies, we did an observational study of the kids at the SDSU, childcare center, right. And then the professor had assigned a lot of reading and primate behavior. And, and so you know, what the task was, is complete this behavioral study, right, and cat, you know, do the analysis of the observations on these specific target behaviors, and then try to integrate the primate literature, and that, that and so that kind of filled my Anthro background too. But that really opened my eyes as to how much of our behavior is, you know, sort of species driven by this larger species that we're part of, which are, you know, the primate, the, you know, the primate family, right. And so you saw a lot of parallels between specifically chimpanzees, what juvenile chimpanzees look like behavioral and what juvenile humans are very young humans look like so, so that got me interested in working with kids. And I got a part time job as a classroom aide, because I spoke better Spanish to them, but it's fluent in Spanish. And so I was a bilingual classroom aide in Senegal Unified School District. And that sent me down a path where I wanted to continue graduate work in Counseling and School Psych. And the rest is kind of history. But that, you know, switching over into psychology, then getting involved in the research aspect of it, but then specifically looking at Child Behavior, and then getting a job in that field. And that that really piqued my interest. And I've never looked back since then.

That's great. So we've heard a little bit of a more straightforward path, we've heard a little bit of accidental finding fortunate circumstances that lead you down the path. Dr. Richards, what's your story behind this?

Yeah, thank you. I've kind of described mine as, maybe not maybe not sort of accidental, though, sort of letting things kind of develop, and just seeing where were interests over the years kind of have taken me. So. You know, throughout graduate school, I started realizing I had a really strong interest in working with young adults. I don't know if that was my primary goal when I came into graduate school, but I was starting to realize that sometime around my third or fourth year, and I was doing a training site, working at a training site that had focus on transitional Hu 16 to 24 year olds, from a lot of different kind of economic and in a very diverse backgrounds, in terms of different identities, and, you know, a lot of a lot of challenges that these students were facing. And I found that, that work really, really rewarding that year, because there's just so much potential for change at that point, you know, you meet with clients, you know, one week, and then you see them a week or two later, and things would be completely different. And, you know, sometimes that was, you know, in challenging ways. But that was also a lot of times in ways in which people were making a lot of positive growth and finding new things for themselves. And so I kind of continued that with, you know, going from that residential job training program with the 16 to 24 year olds to college counseling centers for the next few years. And that was kind of similar work in a lot of ways, a little slightly older group. But, again, very rewarding. And I think part of it at the time was, you know, just being a graduate graduate student myself. It seemed, you know, a group that I could really connect with, but but I think as I've gotten just a little bit older, now, I still have a lot of that passion, because there's just so much learning so much new things happening at that point. And people really do, you know, specially, in my experience from like, age 18 on as they become adults have so much chance to make new experiences and new changes in their life that maybe they haven't had up to that point as a as a minor. So, I think that's kind of where most of my interests really came in. And, yeah, it's whether I'm teaching or providing therapy or supervision, in one way or another. A lot of my work has just always centered on it. And yeah, ultimately, it's very rewarding in my experience.

Thank you for sharing that. You touched on a couple of things about how quickly things can change. You're working in with a population that that is in community, whether it's a school community, it's a university community, whether it's their family, community, whatever that may be. And that seems to be incredibly important in this area, because, as you said, they're experiencing a lot of firsts. And as professionals in the field, you also experience a lot of firsts in perpetuity, because the landscape keeps changing. How do you adapt and stay current not only on practice and research, but also on the quickly evolving circumstances that youth are experiencing, even just with technology. And, Dr. Callahan, I'd love to start with you on this one. Well,

clearly, the first thing that comes to mind for me is staying clinically active. And Michael kind of alluded to this, I was at a school site this morning doing supervision for an associate, and it's a it's a K eight school site. And I still do some clinical practice myself. Thursday is my clinic day. And so I was, you know, seeing kids yesterday, and I work with kids that are slightly younger than Michael Michaels group that he mentioned. So they're, I would say, all my older adolescents, young adults, so So kind of 16 to 20, in that at that age range, and primarily kids that have neurodevelopmental disorders. But I think that for me that that helps a lot, because it pushes me in terms of my clinical skill. And then, you know, what, let's say let's say a first happens, right in practice, and then it's something that, you know, I need to either talk to a colleague about or find some some resources in the research literature, or through our professional associations, those are wonderful resources to stay current. You know, there's a group of close colleagues that we basically have formed over the years a kind of informal supervision group have our own. One fellow I've been talking to, since we were both interns in the 90s. Right, and he's actually up in the bay area near you all. And so I think it's, it's a number of things one, for me, it's it's stay active clinically, when you do and, you know, when you're stumped, right, kind of swallow your professional pride and go go seek more learning, right, either through colleagues or through more traditional methods. And, you know, just stay you mentioned community, I mean, stay in community with your peers. Right.

Thank you for that, I can see how important that is across the board. And, Dr. Richards, I'd love to hear a little bit from you on how you adapt and stay current with your work.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think that is, I think the sense of connection with others is so important. You know, of course, there's, there's research and following the literature, and, you know, I highly encourage that, you know, in any field, or any sub specialty, but, you know, I, one other thing, I guess I'll add is that, I find a lot of staying kind of current with where the field is where young people is a lot about just engaging with culture. Personally, I'm not the biggest user of social media myself, but I really want to know what's happening with it a lot of times, because I know that is really important to, you know, current generations of young people, and so, like, you know, understand what's going on being aware of, you know, not only the the risks and challenges that I think a lot of people talk about, but also like how this informs, you know, how this creates meaning for people and fulfills important functions for them, you know, things that, that they, you know, helps them with, with meet needs that they have. So, you know, understanding that, and generally following pop culture, I think even is really useful, too. And I'm sure there's a point where that might be harder than, you know, than it is for me right now. But I think just staying current with what are people watching? What are people reading? What are you know, what are people engaging with just helps you kind of understand where people are at and making that connection, especially as a therapist is just so crucial and having some sense of rapport. You know, that, for me that that seems really important for staying kind of up to date with the field as well.

Michael, I think that is so important for working with older adolescents. I'm sure the younger kids as well, but I find that in terms of facilitating rapport, you've got to understand youth culture, right? And believe me, I've learned a lot over the years about things I never thought I would know anything about it Five Nights at Freddy's, for example. I have no clue what that was. Now I, you know, I mean, I can have a conversation about the NAF and related lore. So, ya

know, and you both are so right on this, I think there's a level of I will always proclaim and say this to anyone is that I'm still a kid at heart. Yeah. And I'm gonna always feed that emotion that need first. And in some ways, when I'm when I was working, you know, clinically working with children, you know, I, I had to have a sense of curiosity about the world, I had to have a want to explore. And when I think about young children and their development, that's truly what it is. They're, they're seeking that knowledge they're exploring. And so it's keeping those same habits, it's keeping that growth mindset, it's, you know, all of the things that we did, you know, in our formative years in our development, I think that's also a practice that clinicians also have to maintain. And to have that curiosity and, you know, I can tell you a whole bunch about Pokemon. Now, you know, and things that I never, like, whatever know anything about or, you know, have any reason to know what it is. And Michael, you said it, so you have to keep up on pop on pop culture, you have to kind of understand the lingo, you have to understand, I'm not also a big social media person. But I will engage and look and practice and I'll try out the newest tic tock dance, so that I am, you know, slightly connected to the world. And like, Wow, it's really harder to do that, Dan, so are you know, like, really understand it and celebrate it. I think there's also one thing that you both have said, but I just want to reiterate, is that working with children and adolescents, it's never boring, right? It is, there's always something new. And Michael, you said this, it's like you could see them next week, I could see him as a school counselor the next day or the next period, and the whole world has changed for them. And that's exciting. And so you know, I think like for myself, I love new things. I love learning new things all the time. And I think that's what really kept feeding my ability and want to work with kids. So I think there's just like having that flexibility and openness. And the day is never the same when you're working with with from one kid to the next. That's just amazing.

Well, Dr. Cameron, I may have to book some time with you for Pokeyman primers, so I can chat with my nephews a little bit more intelligently. And one of the things that I did hear a lot, pretty much from everyone was the importance of community, knowing where to go, having colleagues that you can count on. And since we are talking mental health careers, there's probably some people listening who are thinking about going into this field are currently in this field and wondering, a lot, you know, I have my classmates, but maybe I'll go out into the professional world and things, you know, well, we'll still talk, but things might be a little bit different. Do you have any tips on ways that people can start to build their community, or also continue to grow their community? And Dr. Richards, I'd love to start with you on this one?

Absolutely. Um, I think there's a lot of different ways. I mean, some are more formal. There's like professional organizations, of course, which I think some people have alluded to, for if you're interested in college counseling, one of the big ones is the American College Counseling Association, which, you know, kind of has different offerings in terms of information, different initiatives they're doing. So there's, there's things like that. But I'd say for me even more, so as the more immediate things, maybe more informally. And I think I think Wendell, you were kind of speaking to this earlier of, of just having a team of people that you can talk to, you know, we've talked about how exciting this work is, but it can be very heavy too at times and being able to have that support from from your teammates, like if you're working at a college counseling center, your your fellow co workers around, you know, how you're how you're dealing with a hard case, you know, what, what, what kind of interventions are you using? Or just just how do you handle the heaviness when, when something isn't going the way you're hoping for for one of the young people you're working with? So, you know, I think I think that ends up being so crucial. You know, I think if someone's in graduate training, you know, they're probably getting to know their classmates a lot. And that's can be an amazing community. I'd also encourage people as if they're getting training in different sites to start building community and relationships with people who are at different, you know, parts of their career. People who are your supervisors or other co workers who'd been in the field for a long time, people are in different disciplines and other professions, you know, other related fields. I think all those things both really create a lot of knowledge. And you can feel a lot more informed about how these systems work, but also can create a real sense of community and warmth and belonging, which can be really nice. And so necessary, I think, when when when things get tough. So, yeah, that's, I guess, those are the things I would think about there.

And you're totally you're totally right, Michael, I mean, I, when I was an elementary school counselor, oftentimes, it was a lonely place, because at a at a elementary school, you typically only have one school counselor, for all five to six, three to 600 students, let's just say, and potentially the staff. But it is also there's a district community, and knowing who my other co you know, other counselors who are in my district, and really developing those relationships, were the folks that I leaned on, you know, they understood the policies that we were under the understood the regulations, you know, how we had to report things. And so you could really lean on that community, in order to get a sense of support. And then I think you also need folks who understand outside of outside of your system, you know, outside of your district. So were there other colleagues who are clinicians who understand the scope of the work, but maybe could give me an outsider perspective, in order to think creatively, you know, creatively about issues that I was facing with students. And you know, Michael's right, the work is so good, and also so hard. You know, I had my, when I was a school counselor, a neighboring elementary school, had a student who passed away. And that was rough and having to the other school counselors in our district, we all pulled together, because not only our colleague, who was the school counselor there, she was impacted by the death. And so you know, there was a level of we still need to provide care and support. And so, you know, you rally around each other. And I think that's kind of the beauty of folks who do work with children is that we know that it's more it's not just you, there's a village, there's a team that's always working and supporting children and their families.

And duct Callahan, I'd love to hear your thoughts as well. So

I'm thinking about, in closing, you mentioned the sort of the pre professional folks that are maybe considering the profession. And I know what helped me kind of make the decision once I moved out of Archeo and Anthro was I got involved working as a coach with a youth sports and then also working as a paraprofessional and in schools. And so I think those kinds of experiences and and, you know, in our in our program at UCSD, we have a school counseling program, part of the faculty for that and we look for that on applicants, materials do they have, you know, youth either youth development experience, youth coaching experience, paraprofessional teaching experience, maybe were they an ABA therapists, things like that. And I think that's a good way to get a view into what life is like for kids, right? And like, like, Eric, he made a great comment. It's like, you see a kid, especially on a school site, one day, maybe it's in the morning, and then you might see him even later that same day. And everything's changed, right? Because, you know, there's so in the moment, and, you know, a lot of the what's going on with them emotionally can be very curial, which, which is great. I mean, you're their kids, right, that should be part of it. So I think having been able to see them in kind of school environments, but then also maybe in youth sports environments, or clubs or things like that music, you know, that kind of thing. It's very helpful. Just to, you know, again, if you're trying to discern, is this something I want to do? That's a great way to help help with that decision making.

Can I add one thing to to piggyback I have this thought as we were talking and I was listening to my other panelists have, you know, their, their why and how they got into it. I don't think any one of us woke up and was like, I want to be a child and adolescent counselor. And you know, for those that are listening, that are maybe exploring or You know, in their undergrad program, I think a lot of the messaging when you think about a job that works with children, adolescents, the first thing that is thought of as teachers, and that is a noble profession, and I love my teacher colleagues. But that wasn't what I, you know, would have said, what I wanted to do. And so as Wendell talks about, there are a lot of professions that deal with a child and adolescent population, that actually could lead to different to lead to a career as a school counselor, child and adolescent counselor, or a child, adolescent psychologist, or college counselor, there is a plethora of different jobs and pathways, and also could connect with your interests. As you noted, in my bio, my Bachelor's was in graphic design. And it's like, oh, that's a wasted, you know, like, that was great for an undergrad. But I actually really incorporated that into my work. As a school counselor, I started bringing elements of art therapy into it, I started doing more play therapy, as a result are getting into creative, you know, like creative arts within the counseling world, and so many of the careers and jobs and majors that are out there can connect to let children and are going through. And so I think there are a multitude of avenues. And, you know, trying to find that why, you know, I think for all of us, there was a connection of also, it was rewarding work, you know, there that I think is a piece to connect to and is often not always talked about. I

really like hearing that, because it sounds like there's a lot of ways to get here. So if somebody is thinking about, you know what, maybe this is a career path for me. Don't let things like your background stop you if this is what you're thinking, you should definitely explore it. And I like what you said, and what keeps coming up throughout our conversation is, is impact making a difference in those types of things? And we did start this conversation with the question of why. And I'm curious, and maybe this is getting a little bit more personal. But have you had a moment, or moments where you thought okay, yeah, this illustrates this is why I chose to do this. And Dr. Cameron, I'd like to come right back to you on that one. Okay,

well, yeah, I mean, I feel like that's a daily occurrence when I was a clinician, um, but moments of the of the why. You know, I was working, I was working for the City and County of Honolulu. And I was an out of youth school counselor. So what that means is I had a student who actually were kicked out of public school. Or maybe they were in juvenile detention, or they just dropped out, and we're trying to come back. So I had all of these out of school youth who were trying to come back and get their high school diploma. And through that process, I had one encounter with a student that, you know, just literally was the class clown, not taking their education seriously, always kind of rallying the group up, getting in trouble. And I tried everything, you know, I was trying everything, you know, trying to connect with them trying intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic mode. I mean, I was, I was going into the tool bag, I was talking to colleagues about it, I mean, but it just didn't, nothing seemed to work. And it was having an impact on all the other students in the program. And we happen that we had scheduled kind of like a field day retreat, where we took the students to go do a ropes course. And this particular student, we show a whole group shows up the ropes course. And he's like, nope, not doing it. Too high, don't want to do it. And so then everybody else was like, Nope, we're not gonna do it. And it's eight o'clock in the morning, we just got here. So, me being who I am, I'm like, Okay, I'll do it. I'll go first. You know, maybe I'll have to see me, you know, like, I'm just like, we're not going to waste our buddy. Let's go. And I told him that he needed to be the person who held on to my rope. And so there's always a ground support and literally your life is in their hands. If I fall off the rope, he's got to be able to stop it to save me. And so I put my life into this student's hands and so you know, I go up, he's got me, I get across no problem. Well, then, he's like, Alright, I'm gonna do it and From there, everybody else started to do it. And so at the end of the day, we reflected and I was just like, why, you know, why? Why do you all of a sudden want to do it. And he said, you know, you put your life in my hands, I was responsible, and I couldn't stop my own father's death. And I said, What? And he was like, when I was six, I witnessed my father committing suicide. I've never told anybody that. And so he felt since he was six years old, that he had no control over his life. And so by me putting control my my life in his hands, it felt like he could do something with it. And so that moment was really that moment of like, this is why I do what I do. This is why I went through all those struggles, why I was sticking with him while I was trying to work with him. And that is that was just life changing. And the impact of the work, you know, I feel it now. And that was 3040 or 30 years ago. But it's really those moments that makes the work. So worth it and makes you continue to want to do it and why it's so important.

Yeah, it seems like that may have been life changing for more than one person. And thank you for sharing that incredible story. And, Dr. Callahan, I'd love to hear from you if you'd like to share. Yeah,

I'm going to share an example of that's more something more systemic. And one of the things we really emphasize in Counseling and School Psychology is kind of understanding the social systems aspect or the social ecology of schools, right. And so I for a check on my career, I got involved in school board leadership. And so I was a district director inside schools that I oversaw and programs. And one of one of the way I got into that role was through district wide assessments, so administering tests on a large scale. And that the the school programs much like the ones that that Erica described, I was working with incarcerated youth, and then youth on probation and youth who are at risk of being expelled or had been expelled from school. And so the in California, the counties, the county superintendent has the responsibility for educating those those youth. And so this would have been in the like, early 2000s, to about 2018 or so. And these programs were big, they've thankfully, they've scaled back because fewer kids are being incarcerated, because of changes in policy. But at that time, we were seeing about 15,000 students a year in the San Diego County Court and community schools. And what I started working on was implementing assessment programs for because what would happen, I'm not to get in the weeds on this, but the kids would come in all throughout the school year, and we're talking primarily adolescents and young adults. And the teachers would receive them in either in the schools inside the locked facilities or out in the community schools. And they would have met very minimal information on where the kids were in terms of their academic levels. And we even did some basic psychological testing. And so I worked with a team to really systematize that. And we created a assessment database. And the Our goal was to make sure if a if a student arrived, either in juvenile hall or in one of our community schools, the teachers within three or four days, they had a dossier of assessment information on that student, so he can get started with with instruction. And at first, the, you know, the teachers were like, well, what am I supposed to do with this, because I've got a packet or I do this or that. And over time, I could hear the conversation with teachers start to shift, or when they wanted the information, it's like, we're always the test called the map primarily, where the MAP scores, I need the MAP scores. And, and then I could hear the teacher start to use, you know, terminology that indicated they were using the data to then tailor instruction to the individual student, and that that was, you know, that was a win, right? And that it happened over a few years. But we're talking about, you know, a system that at that time, like I said, was dealing with 15,000 kids a year. So I felt like you know, if you can shift systems like that, you can really have a positive impact for a lot of kids. And then over time, our graduation rate started increase. We keep track of things like credit completion rates, those started increase re incarceration. rites, things like that. And there was really, I mean, again, I mean, working in community working with a team of really, you know, motivated other professionals really helped push that forward. And so that's, that's always been like, Yes, this is why I do this, right? That's, that was very gratifying. It

sounds like there's ways to have impact and have these moments on various important levels. And Dr. Richards, I'd love to hear from you as well.

The thing that comes to mind was this this case where I was working with a graduate student leave as their first year of graduate school. And this was a student who was a first gen college student, they had been working immensely hard. They were, I believe, commuting like two hours to the campus multiple times a week from from the town they lived in with their family. And we're also just providing an immense amount of support to two parents, siblings, all at the same time. And this graduate student was, was having a little bit of a tough time was going, you know, having a little tough time of classes with kind of managing some family conflict, and was also just really have a tendency to be really, really self critical. And so was, you know, really doing amazing work from, you know, from an outside perspective, but, but couldn't always give herself credit for that. And so, you know, we didn't meet for for that long, maybe just a semester or two. But, you know, we did a lot of work on thinking about self compassion, and how that can create sustainability, and, you know, to meet all these goals, and to accomplish all these things, and to be the person that she wanted to be able to be to show up with her family. And I really have to give credit to her, you know, because she, she took to it so well, but, and really, really, you know, engaged so thoroughly in that. But I think one of the moments in this whole process was really lovely and rewarding. But I think towards the end, she had told me that she had started talking with her own mom about a lot of the ideas she had learned about in therapy, and her mom had never been to therapy, therapy before, either. And now her mom was trying to, like, try to incorporate some of those ideas to around like, the way she kind of treated herself and engaged, you know, kind of showed compassion to herself. And, and, you know, the client says, very specifically, like, I hope, you know, you're making a difference with with more than one person here. And, you know, just thinking about now it's still, I, you know, it's still feel the emotion of that, that sense of that ripple effect. And in a lot of different ways, and maybe not always so, you know, explicitly, but I think that when you're working with young people, you do have that chance to create change, you know, across community change across time. And, and yeah, I'll just never forget that moment. Because just just that, that sense of like, Yeah, that's exactly where I want to be doing. You know why I want to be doing this. So. Yeah, very, very gratifying. And just, yeah. important moment, I guess, for me.

I mean, I'm just blown away. I mean, we've heard from three people. And I think our audience can can imagine how many lives have changed, because of what we've just heard from three people. And I think we have time for one more question. And what I would love to ask, and I'm going to come right back to you, Dr. Richards, is we do have people listening who are thinking about coming into the profession, who are in the middle of their education, or maybe they just left their education and starting their career. If you could give a piece of advice or share a final thought with those people, I would invite you to do so.

Yeah, that's, that's a great question. You know, I think it's a couple things, I think finding community would be one of the biggest ones, because as we talked about before, it can be really heavy work and finding those things are going to help keep you going both, both in the profession. And I also say I always I always tell people, it's really important to have people close support, who know exactly what you're doing here in the field, and also having close support, maybe some people who are a little bit outside of it, because you sometimes need that space from the work too. So I think those two things are really important. And then yeah, I think, you know, coming back to the first question, two of the journey is be willing to just see how things go and learn from what you're liking about where you're at right now, what you're not liking because what you're doing right now may not be the, your your dream, it may not be the thing you want to be doing in five or 10 years, but there's something about what you're doing right now that's going to help you figure that out. If you're paying attention. It's kind of in my experience, so So just being open to Ange and unexpected directions and getting support along the way. That's what I'd say.

Great advice. I'm writing that down for myself. And Dr. Callahan, I'd love to hear from you. Before we finish up with Dr. Cameron.

Um, my advice to somebody thinking about entering the field would be two things, one, go all the way get get your doctorate, whether it's in counseling, side counseling, clinical, Psych, school, Psych, at whatever, but just go all the way. Because that that will open up so many doors for you, right. And then the second thing, think beyond whatever city you're in, whether it's San Diego, Palo Alto, you know, I have some students that have been kind of blazing a trail and doing international fieldwork. And I think that started Erica, when when you were with us. And so now though, that's, you know, it's not a lot of students, but it seems like every year we have a student who wants to do their fieldwork outside the United States. And just keep that in mind that this field is international. And there's opportunities, you know, maybe you don't end up in the bay area, but there's certainly opportunities in South America, Europe, Asia, that, may you maybe you're not considering. Thank

you for that. Yeah. And I know, I'm not stepping on toes here, I apologize, Dr. Cameron, I would love to, oh,

I feel like I needed a sticky I need these all over my mirror, you know. Um, I would say the first thing that came to mind for me was know yourself and be yourself. And I say those two, because kids will call you out if you're posing and faking it. So you really have to know yourself, and you have to really be okay with who you are flaws at all. Because kids are going to respect that the most even adolescents are going to respect that the most. And so I think someone who's thinking about this field, that's some of that inside work you have to do, you really have to know yourself, and you have to be okay with that. Because you are going to be the biggest role model potentially for whomever you're working with. And that's what we want, we want people to be authentic, we want we want kids to show up and be themselves without having to fake and pose that there's something they're not. So I think that's one of the big things that I would take, that I would tell someone is to really do that inner self work. The second thing I would say is don't take yourself too seriously. You've got to be able to laugh at yourself, you have to be able to honor your flaws and celebrate them and do goofy things, you know. So I know this, cuz Wendell and I always participated. At Halloween, we dressed up in costume every time every year at USD. And there's something about that there's something that when kids from the developments that are walking through the office, and they see people, adults in costume, they think it's amazing. And, you know, it also connects you to that younger side of yourself to be able to connect and have rapport. So I think there's a level of don't take yourself too seriously. Really try to have fun within the context, you know, because it helps you to also connect with you. And then, you know, just there's so many pathways be open to the pathways, say yes to what you can try and take every opportunity and test it out. See if you like it. So if you don't like it volunteer here, volunteer there. I would I would suggest that because the field is there are so many options like Wendell said, and even as Michael has said, there's so many options, so be able to be willing to take a risk and try some of the options out.

This is all fantastic advice. I'm going to talk to the production crew and see if we can label that last question. Talking Mental Health Careers post it notes, because this is amazing. I know I've learned a lot today. I know I felt a lot today and I'm sure our listeners have to. I know we're running up against time here. So I want to thank all of our panelists Dr. Erica Cameron, Dr. Wendell Callahan and Dr. Michael Richards, for sharing their insights today. These experiences that you've talked about are going to help clients, practitioners, and society overall and it's no secret that we're facing a shortage of mental health providers right now. And for the listeners out there if you have been considering this field and you found inspiration through our panelists today, if you've found your why, please visit us at Palo Alto University to learn about your how I want to thank our Department of continuing Professional Studies colleagues for all of their hard work and coordination in getting this series off the ground. For current practitioners. Please visit our website to learn about the wealth of C credits that they offer. And also feel free to reach out to me at Alumni Relations at Palo Alto u.edu If you have any questions, thank you so much for joining us. I hope you have a great day and hope you'll tune in next season too. Thanks, everyone.