Burlington, VT – Across Vermont, a significant shortage of mental health care providers leads to long waitlists for services and impacts the accessibility of care for both youth and adults. Howard Center, Chittenden County’s designated provider of mental health and developmental disability services and the preferred provider for substance use services in Chittenden County, is addressing their own workforce needs by enabling staff to work, earn, and learn.
Internal internships for current employees at Howard Center enable staff to complete the experiential learning required to attain the credentials and degrees needed to work in essential client-facing roles. At the same time, the employees are able to retain their existing jobs and wages, while also gaining valuable work experience for their future profession.
“A strong mental health care workforce is key to our ability to successfully serve our clients and our community,” notes Howard Center CEO Sandy McGuire. “Providing our current team members with the opportunity to gain the work experience they need here at Howard Center is a win-win. Ultimately, it means the organization, the people we serve, and the community are better served.”
For Howard Center employees like Rickey Tate, the ability to retain their regular job while completing academic classes and the internships required of the degree make it possible.
“I didn’t want to leave Howard Center to complete my internship, and they made it possible for me to stay and grow,” said Tate. While his day job is overseeing four residential programs, his internship has him under the supervision of a team of experienced clinicians, working one-on-one with clients in the Adult Crisis Stabilization program–a critical step-down service for individuals transitioning from psychiatric hospitalization–to help them develop skills, build community connections, and stabilize their mental health before they–the clients–return home.
“The biggest reward is seeing people put it all together,” he notes. “Sometimes you work with clients who struggle so much and years later you hear that they turned their lives around and were successful. All of your hard work, months later, pays off for that person. It’s why I come back after a hard day.”
Tate began at Howard Center as a Direct Support Professional, supporting clients in building coping skills, securing employment, and integrating into the community. He’s steadily advanced, taking on roles as a coordinator, residential program staff member, and eventually his current senior manager role in the residential programs. He’s able to continue his work, earn credits toward his Master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Southern New Hampshire University, and complete the internship required of the degree.
“I feel like the supervisors I’ve had at Howard Center played a big role in my success at the agency and in my professional development,” he adds. “All have coached me in various ways and I couldn’t have done a Bachelor’s and a Master’s without supervisors who are understanding and supportive.”
The call to mentor and serve has always been there for Tate. He fondly recalls mentoring basketball teammates and working with middle and elementary-aged kids when he was in high school in Brooklyn. “It all clicked together for me when I worked for just one week at a youth residential program to see what it was like,” he says. “I quit my full time job. This–helping people and mentoring people–is what I wanted to do.”
Tate stayed and worked at the youth residential program in upstate New York for several years before moving to Vermont. He started at Howard Center shortly after and progressed through several roles while earning his Bachelor’s degree and raising his three kids. Now 46, Tate is wrapping up his Master’s program. It’s taken two-and-a-half years, but the online program coupled with two-week intensives once per year make it possible for him to do it while meeting the obligations of his supervisor role.
“Building a toolkit of strategies, those techniques that help clients relieve symptoms when they’re on their own, that’s really meaningful,” he says of his work for his internship. “Helping people manage their mental health symptoms and pointing them to the resources they need to live successfully at home–things like food, housing, community, and health care–that way of helping people is what I enjoy most.”
Howard Center hosts between 35-50 interns each year and has relationships with area colleges including the University of Vermont Department of Social Work.
About Howard Center
Howard Center has a long and rich history as a trusted provider in the community. With a legacy spanning 160 years, we have been providing progressive, compassionate, high-quality care and support to those in need. Today, we offer an array of exemplary mental health, substance use, and developmental services across the lifespan. As Vermont’s largest social service organization, our 1,300 staff help more than 19,000 people each year in over 60 locations throughout Vermont in collaboration with dozens of community partners. Howard Center’s 24/7/365 crisis service, First Call for Chittenden County, is available to meet the needs of Chittenden County children, adults, and families in crisis by calling 802-488-7777 or 988. www.howardcenter.org. Help is here. A United Way of Northwest Vermont Funded Agency.