Interview Questions

What degree(s) do you have and where did you earn it (them)?
Masters in Social Work, UM 2015

What is your title?
Lead Clinical Staff, Youth Homes, Therapeutic Girls Home: Individual, family and group therapy and oversee clinical interventions.

How did you come to work at your organization?
I have an undergrad, also from The University of Montana, I have a psychology in women and gender studies degree. And, when I graduated, I was looking for really any work at that point. I had a good friend that had been working for Youth Homes for a number of years and she encouraged me to apply. I started working there as staff in 2010, then I just fell in love with the work and became passionate about the work at Youth Homes. I then decided to go back and get my masters. The timing worked out really well and I was able to take the Lead Clinical Staff position.

What do you appreciate most about supervising practicum students?
Love their ideas, new information they bring, their passion, excitement and motivation. Those things can get lost when you’re working in a position. Students are at a place in their life when they are seeking and more open.

What does being a social worker mean to you?
Looking to advance everyone’s life. Giving people the opportunity to equal access and resources. Helping people make sense of their life and reframing their perspective. Helping people find peace, calmness and relationships. Teaching people how to be in a relationship and be a part of community.

How does your role as a social worker relate to your role as a supervisor?
It’s an obligation, and important to pass knowledge.

What is the most important thing you hope your practicum students take with them into their careers?
Humility, and being able to be uncomfortable and to sit with ambiguity. Recognize being uncomfortable can be a great time for learning. Its okay not to know what to do or say.

What is your favorite quote that exemplifies social work?
“We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worth of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” – E. E. Cummings

Any final words of wisdom?
 Think about process and what it really is. We tend to think very linear, and I feel it’s very circular, we need to allow that process to happen. You may have to go back to the beginning many times and know that that’s okay, be open to it. “Trauma is like a death, it’s a loss, and somedays you will wake up and feel okay and somedays you will wake up and it will feel like it just happened.”