Abby’s Career Journey
Abby has been working with children ever since she was 13 years old from babysitting to being a childcare worker at West Shore E-Free. In college she was Dr. Hamon’s work study which helped her network and learn about career opportunities. Abby also worked with Medstaffers for a year as a Direct Support Professional (HAB Aide) and gained a lot of experience and knowledge about people who have autism. She was also able to learn a lot from other IBHS services that served her client. She feels as if they helped her better prepare for her job as she learned about different services and languages used in the field.
Working as a Family Based Therapist
Abby works for Pennsylvania Counseling’s Family based Therapy which is an intensive 8-month service for high risk families. In order to qualify for the service, the child has to have a mental health diagnosis and must be at risk for going inpatient. The majority of Abby’s clients have ADHD, depression, anxiety, ODD, DMDD, and/or autism. Moreover, most of Abby’s kids have been inpatient for violence towards others and/or self-harm and/or suicidal ideation. Family based is designed for a bachelor’s level and a master’s level degree to come together as a team and provide therapy to 6-8 families. Abby and her partner have 8 families and try to see everyone in their home, school, and/or community 3x a week for about an hour at a time. Ideally, it is set up to include sessions with the client, caregiver sessions, and family sessions. Abby does a lot of case management as well because her goal is to support her clients and their families by keeping them out of crisis/inpatient and then discharging them to a lower intensity service such as outpatient, IBHS, case management, etc. after 8 months. Abby and her partner spend a lot of time driving from session to session—which she says she enjoys because it provides time for them to debrief together and conceptualize the cases. In the beginning of the therapeutic process she does a lot of family assessment and creates treatment plans each month. She also does progress notes for each session every night. Once a week Abby and her partner meet for team supervision and group supervision from their clinical supervisor to keep them on track and figure out what are the best next steps for treatment. In addition, they do on-call crisis rotation. There are a few trainings every month and after 3 years of these trainings, she has the potential to do a presentation and will become an MHP—which she says is the equivalent to having your master’s at her company. Abby emphasizes that it can be very difficult at times, especially with the potential for crisis, but it can be very rewarding at times as well. She says she really enjoys getting to know the families she works with and helping them in the best way that she can. Being able to work for Pennsylvania Counseling Services allows her to do therapy at a bachelor’s level—which Abby loves!
How has HDFS prepared you?
Abby feels as if she could not have been better prepared at a bachelor’s level for the job that she has. In her work as a family therapist she uses genograms, family structural maps, family timelines, and ecomaps for all of her clients which she learned about in Dynamics of Family Interaction. Likewise, Abby says that her minor also exceptionally has helped her to learn about different diagnoses, different counseling theories and skills, how to write progress notes, etc. Further, with the HDFS major she became better aware of child, adolescent, and adult development, which she feels is very helpful. Abby often tells people that she could not be using her degree more than she currently is. Some of the most helpful courses in her opinion were Dynamics of Family Interaction, Marriage and Family, Counseling theories, Counseling Skills, Child and Adolescent Development, Abnormal Psychology, and Marital Relationships.
How does your faith interface with your work?
While PCS is not a faith-based service, Abby says she actually prefers it that way since she can reach more people outside of the faith. She never brings up her faith while working with clients and their families unless specifically prompted by the family. However, Abby believes that actions are louder than words—meaning, she strives to show the love of Jesus through her actions towards her clients. Her faith also plays a part as she can rely on God during crises and trust that He will work through her when she does not know what to do or say.