Today we’d like to introduce you to Estefana Johnson.
Hi Estefana, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Born as a first generation Mexican-American daughter of immigrants, I never would have imagined a career in mental health. It was through happenstance when I discovered the store I was working was working for would be closing down that I was offered a job in a behavioral health hospital in exchange for a discount off a couch. I fell in love with working with people and became fascinated by all aspects of mental health and the systems created to address issues.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has definitely not been a smooth ride. I had a lot of doubts about my ability to bring value to the industry. I was really young with the first job and had challenges with some of the more seasoned staff judging my approaches without providing guidance. When I moved to Arizona in 2001, I began working at a nonprofit with at risk youth and became entrenched in the world of Residential Treatment. Chaos became the norm and I cried every time a kid violated probation and ended up back in jail. I earned a certification for treating juvenile sex offenders in 2009 because back then, you could get an education waiver to provide court ordered treatment for these youth so long as you had the certification. I realize now that is probably one of the most challenging populations to work with and at one point, an attorney tried to get me taken off a kids case due to my lack of credentials. Having someone take you to court to try to prove your incompetence is quite a unique experience. Some of my colleagues also didn’t like that I held the same position as them despite only having a Bachelors at that time. But I did good work and the kids on my caseload had some of the best outcomes from the program. I learned the most about perseverance, authenticity, and the importance of remaining grounded in your purpose through those trials.
As you know, we’re big fans of ARISE Alliance Institute. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
We are a non-profit that is dedicated to advancing trauma-informed care through education, innovation, and community partnerships. We developed Critical Memory Integration (CMI), a therapeutic approach that helps individuals get to the root of what drivers their behavior and make long lasting changes. We recognize symptoms as signals inviting us to a deeper exploration of experience, changing how our mind is interpreting situations and interactions. This leads to a broader perspective on life, leading to different feelings and different ways of responding. We’ve taken this transformational approach beyond the Clinic and into the Community by partnering up with organizations to provide training workshops based on CMI concepts. Thus far we have established three programs and working on additional partnerships. We partnered with a local city government to bring the Compass Within in both English and Spanish for the community, a workshop focused on reclaiming agency over one’s life. We also established Beyond Behaviors, a capacity building program for kids at a charter school dedicated to serving foster and adoptive kids and their families. And partnered to bring trauma-competent approaches to the behavioral health unit at a local police department. Our goal is to make this information and tools accessible to the community to transform the culture.
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
We are a non-profit organization based out of Tampa, Florida but serve cities all over the country. We can modify our programs to fit the unique needs of your organization and can provide both Clinical training for mental health professionals as well as consultation and training for paraprofessionals. You can visit our website at: ARISEAlliance.org, find out more about CMI at CriticalMemoryIntegration.com, or email us at [email protected]
Contact Info:
- Website: https://arisealliance.org/
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- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/arise-alliance/
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- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5MyzV9KBg0eJ0uY88N-zCw
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