features
spring 2024
By Andrea Grant
Illustration by Vivian Mineker
“Meet your clients where they are.”
Psychology grad student Colleen Manning had heard those words time and again in classes with her Suffolk professors, including David Shumaker, who leads the University’s master’s program in mental health counseling. Now, just a few months into her yearlong clinical internship, Manning was applying the lesson much more literally than she’d ever imagined: Wrapping her coat tighter against the December chill, she stood in a middle school parking lot peering through a car window at a preteen student whose anxiety made the mere idea of entering school unbearable.
“It definitely opened my eyes to what therapy can be,” says Manning. “Sometimes we need to be creative. We can go for a walk as a session or do crafts while we’re talking—anything to decrease anxiety so they’re able to start talking about emotionally heated topics.
“It might sound corny, but doing that for a kid can change the whole trajectory of their life.”
Shumaker knows that an infusion of well-trained, dedicated counselors like Manning is desperately needed. Across the country, some 158 million people live in areas with a mental health workforce shortage, often resulting in long wait times to see a provider. Those numbers are compounded, Shumaker explains, by an exponential rise in requests for telehealth services post-pandemic—and by a welcome reduction in the stigma for those seeking care.
Yet simply churning out graduates isn’t enough. To create lasting careers, Shumaker says, newcomers need skills and support to avoid the burnout that’s increasingly prevalent in a demanding field. A 2022 report from the Association for Behavioral Healthcare, an advocacy organization that represents many community-based providers in Massachusetts, found that among its members more master’s-level clinicians were leaving the field than entering it.
To help reverse this trend, Shumaker and his colleagues prepare students to thrive in practice and build sustainable careers by developing their self-advocacy skills and support networks.
Teaching caregivers to prioritize their own needs can be challenging, when their natural inclination is often to set them aside. But while self-sacrifice can be a noble—and, at times, necessary—part of the job, Shumaker stresses that students need to maintain their own well-being if they want to show up effectively for their clients. During clinical practicums and internships, faculty members lead weekly group supervision sessions with students to discuss that balancing act.
Shumaker recalls one soft-spoken student who received pushback when she requested time off to visit family during Thanksgiving. “So we brought the issue to her group supervision class, and the other students helped her find a voice in that discussion with her employer about the really healthy need for her to be able to take time off,” he says.
Second-year mental health counseling student Amanda Barry chose Suffolk’s program in part because it felt like a family. Now she relies on her professors and cohort for advice as she juggles input from teachers and parents while working with students in her internship at a Roxbury elementary school. “Sometimes the most helpful perspectives are from people who aren’t working in schools, and who are working with adults,” she explains.
Learning to navigate difficult conversations early on, and leaning on a network of peers and mentors with diverse experiences, helps students build rewarding, long-term careers. Manning—who received her master’s degree in 2022 and now works full-time at her former internship site, assessing middle and high school students’ mental health needs—says she checks in with fellow alumni and professors regularly on everything from salary negotiations to self-care.
Sometimes the weight of the issues they see kids grapple with each day can be “hard to leave in the building,” says Manning. On weekends, she taps into the unbridled joy of the preschool soccer team she coaches. Barry embraces solitude when she needs to recharge. They’ve both learned that making space for their own needs isn’t selfish. It’s what helps them bring their best back to work.
Ultimately, Shumaker says, the best way to make the profession sustainable is to make sure counselors’ needs are met so they can remember why they entered the field in the first place. He wants his students to feel the same way he does when he works with clients: privileged. “It can be exhausting and humbling, but I really try to convey the sense of curiosity and wonderment I still have at every opportunity I get to work with people,” he says.
Return to Table of Contents
To create lasting careers, new mental health practitioners need skills and support to avoid the burnout that’s increasingly prevalent in a demanding field.
Suffolk University Psychology Professor David Shumaker
“Meet your clients where they are.”
Psychology grad student Colleen Manning had heard those words time and again in classes with her Suffolk professors, including David Shumaker, who leads the University’s master’s program in mental health counseling. Now, just a few months into her yearlong clinical internship, Manning was applying the lesson much more literally than she’d ever imagined: Wrapping her coat tighter against the December chill, she stood in a middle school parking lot peering through a car window at a preteen student whose anxiety made the mere idea of entering school unbearable.
“It definitely opened my eyes to what therapy can be,” says Manning. “Sometimes we need to be creative. We can go for a walk as a session or do crafts while we’re talking—anything to decrease anxiety so they’re able to start talking about emotionally heated topics.
“It might sound corny, but doing that for a kid can change the whole trajectory of their life.”
Shumaker knows that an infusion of well-trained, dedicated counselors like Manning is desperately needed. Across the country, some 158 million people live in areas with a mental health workforce shortage, often resulting in long wait times to see a provider. Those numbers are compounded, Shumaker explains, by an exponential rise in requests for telehealth services post-pandemic—and by a welcome reduction in the stigma for those seeking care.
Yet simply churning out graduates isn’t enough. To create lasting careers, Shumaker says, newcomers need skills and support to avoid the burnout that’s increasingly prevalent in a demanding field. A 2022 report from the Association for Behavioral Healthcare, an advocacy organization that represents many community-based providers in Massachusetts, found that among its members more master’s-level clinicians were leaving the field than entering it.
To help reverse this trend, Shumaker and his colleagues prepare students to thrive in practice and build sustainable careers by developing their self-advocacy skills and support networks.
Teaching caregivers to prioritize their own needs can be challenging, when their natural inclination is often to set them aside. But while self-sacrifice can be a noble—and, at times, necessary—part of the job, Shumaker stresses that students need to maintain their own well-being if they want to show up effectively for their clients. During clinical practicums and internships, faculty members lead weekly group supervision sessions with students to discuss that balancing act.
Shumaker recalls one soft-spoken student who received pushback when she requested time off to visit family during Thanksgiving. “So we brought the issue to her group supervision class, and the other students helped her find a voice in that discussion with her employer about the really healthy need for her to be able to take time off,” he says.
Second-year mental health counseling student Amanda Barry chose Suffolk’s program in part because it felt like a family. Now she relies on her professors and cohort for advice as she juggles input from teachers and parents while working with students in her internship at a Roxbury elementary school. “Sometimes the most helpful perspectives are from people who aren’t working in schools, and who are working with adults,” she explains.
Learning to navigate difficult conversations early on, and leaning on a network of peers and mentors with diverse experiences, helps students build rewarding, long-term careers. Manning—who received her master’s degree in 2022 and now works full-time at her former internship site, assessing middle and high school students’ mental health needs—says she checks in with fellow alumni and professors regularly on everything from salary negotiations to self-care.
Sometimes the weight of the issues they see kids grapple with each day can be “hard to leave in the building,” says Manning. On weekends, she taps into the unbridled joy of the preschool soccer team she coaches. Barry embraces solitude when she needs to recharge. They’ve both learned that making space for their own needs isn’t selfish. It’s what helps them bring their best back to work.
Ultimately, Shumaker says, the best way to make the profession sustainable is to make sure counselors’ needs are met so they can remember why they entered the field in the first place. He wants his students to feel the same way he does when he works with clients: privileged. “It can be exhausting and humbling, but I really try to convey the sense of curiosity and wonderment I still have at every opportunity I get to work with people,” he says.