Making the decision to return to graduate school after serving 17 years as a teacher required deep personal reflection. Prior to receiving my diagnosis of ADHD, I often felt as though I was on a carousel watching the world around me spin faster than I could process. I spent an exorbitant amount of time trying to figure out why it was so challenging to navigate daily responsibilities and complete tasks. This contributed to an overall sense of inadequacy and negatively influenced my mental health. With the help of therapy, medication, and mindfulness practices, I’ve learned valuable lessons that fostered success in my life. Getting to this place of clarity wasn’t easy. My upbringing was filled with dysfunction. My parents didn’t have the capacity to care for their own mental health, let alone to model these skills for me as I grew up. It took me escaping an abusive marriage to finally build an authentic life for myself and my son. I started seeing a psychologist, and we began to unpack the trauma of my childhood and how this related to the trauma of my marriage. During therapy, ADHD was introduced as a potential diagnosis. I agreed to be tested, and I received a diagnosis of ADHD as an adult. While the decision to begin medication was not taken lightly, I’m grateful I gave it a try, because it made the therapeutic strategies to support my executive functioning more accessible. Through therapy and medication, it became clear that mindfulness and loving self-care were virtually absent from my life. I now have solid daily rituals that embody the exact strategies I know help keep my mind organized and at ease. I have a daily morning yoga practice that ignites my drive to stay focused each day. I’ve also found that completing a crossword while I eat breakfast ensures I start the day with a nutritious meal for my body and a challenge for my brain. I’ve developed a strong connection between my mental health and the time I spend in nature. Gardening has become a strong pillar in my mindfulness practice. I find it both soothing and invigorating to tend to my plants and support their growth and beauty. My son and I have even named the garden “Tranquility Palace.” Gardening has also paved the way for healthy cooking and eating. I’m committed to consuming fresh whole foods, and believe my need for creativity is met by virtue of how I use the harvest of my labors to make healthy meals from scratch. I connect to nature each day as I spend time with my 2 dogs on our walk around the lake. I’m filled with joy and optimism as I observe the wildlife and admire the clouds in the sky. Finally, I’ve discovered how much music supports my mental health. I now play the violin with my son almost every day. Live music helps envelop my core being with love and a sense of grounding. I deliberately plan to attend live music regularly for this reason. While balancing school, work, and home life as a single parent requires organization and good time management, I’m confident I have the skills necessary to be successful because I made such a commitment to prioritizing my mental health. I’m very motivated to obtain my Master of Social Work because I’m passionate about supporting others to better identify challenges in life and develop skills for working through those challenges. I am ready for this next journey, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for considering me for this scholarship.

Making the decision to return to graduate school after serving 17 years as a teacher required deep personal reflection. Prior to receiving my diagnosis of ADHD, I often felt as though I was on a carousel watching the world around me spin faster than I could process. I spent an exorbitant amount of time trying to figure out why it was so challenging to navigate daily responsibilities and complete tasks. This contributed to an overall sense of inadequacy and negatively influenced my mental health. With the help of therapy, medication, and mindfulness practices, I’ve learned valuable lessons that fostered success in my life. Getting to this place of clarity wasn’t easy. My upbringing was filled with dysfunction. My parents didn’t have the capacity to care for their own mental health, let alone to model these skills for me as I grew up. It took me escaping an abusive marriage to finally build an authentic life for myself and my son. I started seeing a psychologist, and we began to unpack the trauma of my childhood and how this related to the trauma of my marriage. During therapy, ADHD was introduced as a potential diagnosis. I agreed to be tested, and I received a diagnosis of ADHD as an adult. While the decision to begin medication was not taken lightly, I’m grateful I gave it a try, because it made the therapeutic strategies to support my executive functioning more accessible. Through therapy and medication, it became clear that mindfulness and loving self-care were virtually absent from my life. I now have solid daily rituals that embody the exact strategies I know help keep my mind organized and at ease. I have a daily morning yoga practice that ignites my drive to stay focused each day. I’ve also found that completing a crossword while I eat breakfast ensures I start the day with a nutritious meal for my body and a challenge for my brain. I’ve developed a strong connection between my mental health and the time I spend in nature. Gardening has become a strong pillar in my mindfulness practice. I find it both soothing and invigorating to tend to my plants and support their growth and beauty. My son and I have even named the garden “Tranquility Palace.” Gardening has also paved the way for healthy cooking and eating. I’m committed to consuming fresh whole foods, and believe my need for creativity is met by virtue of how I use the harvest of my labors to make healthy meals from scratch. I connect to nature each day as I spend time with my 2 dogs on our walk around the lake. I’m filled with joy and optimism as I observe the wildlife and admire the clouds in the sky. Finally, I’ve discovered how much music supports my mental health. I now play the violin with my son almost every day. Live music helps envelop my core being with love and a sense of grounding. I deliberately plan to attend live music regularly for this reason. While balancing school, work, and home life as a single parent requires organization and good time management, I’m confident I have the skills necessary to be successful because I made such a commitment to prioritizing my mental health. I’m very motivated to obtain my Master of Social Work because I’m passionate about supporting others to better identify challenges in life and develop skills for working through those challenges. I am ready for this next journey, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for considering me for this scholarship.

For the past 17 years, I’ve been an early intervention teacher within a local public school district. I’ve been fortunate to work in a community rich in diversity across race, culture, language, gender identity, socio-economics, and more. The part of my career that has brought me the deepest feelings of joy has been forming relationships with the families that I have served. Using a caregiver coaching model has taught me how to effectively include caregivers in the intervention process and establish the expectation that caregivers know their child best. When caregivers can expand their confidence and competence, they are willing to take risks to better understand how they can support their children’s growth and development. However, upon years of personal reflection, it’s clear to me that if I really want to support children to have the best developmental outcomes, I need to look at prevention instead of intervention. Afterall, adults were once children themselves. This is why I made the decision to return to graduate school and obtain my Master of Social Work so I can become an independent mental health counselor. Within the realm of social work, I’m aware of how issues like discrimination and racism affect family systems, and access to mental health support for marginalized communities remains a struggle in our society. One pattern that has emerged in my own practice is a deep connection between adverse childhood experiences (ACES) and challenges caregivers face when parenting their children. I have a strong interest in continuing to support healthy and secure attachments between children and their caregivers. This paves the way for looking at trauma-informed approaches to therapy for adults, because so many of the families served have experienced a wide variety of trauma that has shaped how they process information and maintain relationships with others. I’d like to support adults who are parents, or who may plan to become parents, who often need to learn how to reparent themselves, and break through challenges that are a product of discrimination that is often embedded within the systems that are meant to support them. I want to build a better understanding of the relationship between trauma and addiction to more effectively help individuals get to the root of their challenges. Additionally, I intend to expand my knowledge of a variety of treatment modalities for supporting individuals including sensory processing preferences paired with mindfulness practices. Ultimately, I'm committed to eliminating the stigma that surrounds mental health support, and becoming a mental health counselor is the path for me to achieve this goal. As a single parent, finances are always tight. This means I will be continuing to work in my current career while I attend graduate school. This scholarship would mean the world to me because it will help mitigate some of the financial burden of tuition, and potential loss of income while I engage in my required field experience hours. I feel fortunate to have found this scholarship opportunity, and I thank you for your consideration.

I’ve been navigating life with a chronic illness since I was a teenager, and there is no cure. I’ve spent over thirty years experimenting with treatments and learning how to manage the complexities of life amidst significant pain and sensory disturbances. This has required me to learn invaluable lessons on self-advocacy in both my personal and professional life. When I first was introduced to the Family Medical Leave Act, I felt a bit ashamed. I didn’t want my colleagues to judge me by the fact that I have a disease that can incapacitate me, sometimes with little to no warning. In addition, as a single parent, I often have felt like I can’t be the mother my son deserves to have. My own mother suffers from the same illness that I have. Unfortunately, she has turned to self-self-medication, which has resulted in chemical dependency. This is a constant fear of mine, which has influenced me to reject some of the medications and treatments that could potentially put me at risk for this kind of secondary affliction of addiction. Through mental health counseling, medications, and self-care practices, I have worked extraordinarily hard to experience success. In order to manage the more serious aspects of my illness, I have to participate in a variety of ongoing treatments, including regular visits to the doctor for injections, bloodwork, and brain scans. This alone has been a stressful part of my life, which is compounded by the nuances of working with insurance to make sure what I need is covered by my plan, which is why FMLA has been instrumental in my ability to continue to work and support my family. Working with a therapist has helped me build compassion for myself. I can appreciate my contribution to the world instead of always feeling like I am just not good enough. I have learned that stress and anxiety can contribute to how my illness presents itself both in frequency and intensity. Learning mindfulness practices, such as breathwork and yoga, have been monumental in supporting my mental health. In addition, being in nature, especially gardening, provides me with a sense of grounding that, even when I am suffering, I can now access these feelings in some manner while I await recovering from an attack. I also learned how to ask for and accept help from others. Prior to working on some of these things in therapy, I often felt isolated and alone, which contributed to the cycle of stress and resulting suffering. My return to graduate school is a direct reflection of exactly what has helped me on my life journey so far. I intend to obtain my Master of Social Work so that I can become an independent mental health counselor. I want to give back to others who may be experiencing similar feelings. One of the patterns that has emerged in my own practice so far is a deep connection between adverse childhood experiences (ACES) and challenges caregivers face when parenting their children. I have a strong interest in continuing to support healthy and secure attachments between children and their caregivers. I am particularly interested in the areas of generational, relationship, and sexual traumas, and what role chronic pain may play in how adults navigate their own mental health. I want to build a better understanding of the relationship between trauma and addiction so that I can more effectively help individuals get to the root of their challenges. Additionally, I hope to expand my knowledge of a variety of treatment modalities for supporting individuals that may include sensory processing preferences paired with mindfulness practices.

I’ve spent the last 17 years as an early intervention teacher. Using a caregiver coaching approach to support families has taught me how to effectively include caregivers in the intervention process and establish the expectation that caregivers are the experts of their own family. However, throughout my years of service, I have observed that those caregivers who’ve experienced trauma have a more difficult time accessing the strategies we work on together. This sparked my interest in learning more about my own history, and I realized just how much the trauma of my own past affected me, and how instrumental therapy was for supporting me to be the parent I needed to be. My upbringing was filled with dysfunction. My parents didn’t have the capacity to care for their own mental health and couldn’t model these skills for me as I grew up. With an older sister with significant bipolar disorder, and 3 younger siblings, I assumed a caregiver role the majority of my childhood. This forced me to grow up faster than my peers, and this caregiver role found its way into how I formed romantic relationships with others. It took me escaping an abusive marriage to finally build an authentic life for myself and my son. I started seeing a psychologist, and began to unpack the trauma of my childhood and how this related to the trauma of my marriage. Because of the work I put into my own mental health, I am a much more confident and competent parent, with a thriving teenage son. Thinking about social justice movements and practices, I’m aware of how issues of discrimination and racism affect family systems, and that access to mental health support for marginalized communities remains a struggle in our society. One of the patterns that has emerged in my own practice is a deep connection between adverse childhood experiences (ACES) and challenges caregivers face when parenting their children. I have a strong interest in continuing to support healthy and secure attachments between children and their caregivers. This paves the way for looking at trauma-informed approaches to therapy for adults, because so many of the families served have experienced a wide variety of trauma that has shaped how they process information and maintain relationships with others. Ultimately, this is why I decided to return to graduate school to obtain my Master of Social Work. I’m particularly interested in generational, relationship, and sexual traumas. I want to support adults who are parents, or who may plan to become parents, who often need to learn how to reparent themselves, and break through challenges that are a product of discrimination that is often embedded within the systems that are meant to support them. I want to build a better understanding of the relationship between trauma and addiction so that I can more effectively help individuals get to the root of their challenges. Additionally, I hope to expand my knowledge of a variety of treatment modalities for supporting individuals that may include sensory processing preferences paired with mindfulness practices. As a single parent, finances are always tight. This means I will be continuing to work in my current career while I attend graduate school. This scholarship would mean the world to me because it will help mitigate some of the financial burden of tuition, and potential loss of income while I engage in my required field experience hours. I feel fortunate to have found this scholarship opportunity, and I thank you for your consideration.

Making the decision to return to graduate school after serving 17 years as a teacher required deep personal reflection. Prior to receiving my ADHD diagnosis, I often felt as though I was on a carousel watching the world around me spin faster than I could ever process. I spent an exorbitant amount of time trying to figure out why it was so challenging to complete daily tasks, and this was especially difficult with respect to studying for coursework in school. I couldn't understand why my fellow students got better grades when I knew I spent significantly more time studying for exams. This contributed to an overall sense of inadequacy and negatively influenced my mental health. With the help of therapy, medication, and spiritual/mindfulness practices, I’ve learned valuable lessons that fostered success in my life. Getting to this place of clarity wasn’t easy. My upbringing was filled with dysfunction and chaos. My parents didn’t have the capacity to care for their own mental health and couldn’t model these skills for me or my siblings as I grew up. I learned how to survive, but I didn't learn how to thrive. I became such a shell of who I really am once I became an adult, including having formed relationships with others who emulated the maladaptive behaviors my parents modeled for me. I didn't even know what a healthy relationship looked or felt like, and I ended up in a marriage filled with abuse. During that time, I lost touch with friends and family, and I felt utterly alone. I had lost my way, and I needed to return to invoking guidance on a spiritual level in order to escape from my abusive marriage to finally build an authentic life for myself and my son. I started seeing a psychologist, and began to unpack the trauma of my childhood and how this related to the trauma of my marriage. During therapy, ADHD was introduced as a potential diagnosis. I agreed to be tested and received a diagnosis of ADHD as an adult. While the decision to begin medication was not taken lightly, I am grateful I started, because it made the therapeutic strategies to support my executive functioning more accessible. Through therapy and medication, it became abundantly clear that mindfulness and loving self-care were virtually absent from my life. I now have solid daily rituals that embody the exact strategies I know help keep my mind organized and at ease. I have a daily morning yoga practice that ignites my drive to stay focused each day. Engaging in movement and breathwork serves as a reminder that I am connected to Earth physically and spiritually. I have also found that completing a crossword puzzle while I eat breakfast ensures I start the day with a nutritious meal for my body and a challenge for my brain. I have developed a strong connection between my mental health and the time I spend in nature. Gardening has become a monumental pillar in my mindfulness practice. I find it both soothing and invigorating to tend to my plants and support their growth and beauty. My son and I have even named the garden “Tranquility Palace", and it is a place that we pray together in gratitude for overcoming obstacles and setting intentions to continue to be blessed with an abundance of love. Gardening has also paved the way for healthy cooking and eating. I am committed to consuming fresh whole foods, and I believe my need for creativity is met by virtue of how I use the harvest of my labors to make healthy meals for my family from scratch. I also connect to nature each day as I spend time with my 2 dogs on our walk around the lake. I’m filled with joy and optimism as I observe the wildlife and admire the clouds in the sky, because it reminds me of just how lucky I am to be here on this planet, finally thriving. Finally, I’ve discovered how much music supports my mental health. I now play the violin with my son almost every day. I feel both challenged by my practice and proud of the work I have put into learning to play a new instrument. While I have thoroughly enjoyed the career I initially chose, I’m very motivated to obtain my Master of Social Work because I’m passionate about supporting others to better identify challenges in life and develop skills for working through those challenges. I firmly believe that having grounded roots in spirituality helps access endless possibilities, and I intend to embody this as become a social worker. Within the field of early intervention, my scope of practice centered around caregiver coaching. I would assist caregivers in developing priorities for their children and establish functional goals together. Through home visits, I would teach caregivers different strategies to support them in reaching the goals they set for their family. I have observed incredible growth in parents' confidence and competence over the years, but there was always one issue that kept me up at night. Caregivers who had experienced trauma, especially as a child, had a much harder time accessing these strategies. I realized that I need to start looking at prevention instead of intervention. This is one of the biggest reasons why I ultimately decided to return to school and make a significant career change at my age. My strongest interest in social work centers around destigmatization of mental health issues, with a focus on trauma informed clinical therapy. I especially want to become skilled at looking at the relationship between trauma and chemical dependency and addiction. Not all trauma survivors become addicts, but trauma itself can pave the way to self-medication. Since I've made such a commitment to prioritizing my own mental health, I want to pay it forward and support those who are in need of mental health counseling. I am ready for this next journey, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for considering me for this scholarship.

Making the decision to return to graduate school after serving 17 years as a teacher required deep personal reflection. Prior to receiving my ADHD diagnosis, I often felt as though I was on a carousel watching the world around me spin faster than I could process. I spent an exorbitant amount of time trying to figure out why it was so challenging to complete daily tasks, and this was especially difficult with respect to studying for coursework in school. This contributed to an overall sense of inadequacy and negatively influenced my mental health. With the help of therapy, medication, and mindfulness practices, I’ve learned valuable lessons that fostered success in my life. Getting to this place of clarity wasn’t easy. My upbringing was filled with dysfunction. My parents didn’t have the capacity to care for their own mental health and couldn’t model these skills for me as I grew up. It took me escaping an abusive marriage to finally build an authentic life for myself and my son. I started seeing a psychologist, and began to unpack the trauma of my childhood and how this related to the trauma of my marriage. During therapy, ADHD was introduced as a potential diagnosis. I agreed to be tested and received a diagnosis of ADHD as an adult. While the decision to begin medication was not taken lightly, I’m grateful I started, because it made the therapeutic strategies to support my executive functioning more accessible. Through therapy and medication, it became clear that mindfulness and loving self-care were virtually absent from my life. I now have solid daily rituals that embody the exact strategies I know help keep my mind organized and at ease. I have a daily morning yoga practice that ignites my drive to stay focused each day. I’ve also found that completing a crossword while I eat breakfast ensures I start the day with a nutritious meal for my body and a challenge for my brain. I’ve developed a strong connection between my mental health and the time I spend in nature. Gardening has become a pillar in my mindfulness practice. I find it both soothing and invigorating to tend to my plants and support their growth and beauty. My son and I have even named the garden “Tranquility Palace.” Gardening has also paved the way for healthy cooking and eating. I’m committed to consuming fresh whole foods, and believe my need for creativity is met by virtue of how I use the harvest of my labors to make healthy meals from scratch. I connect to nature each day as I spend time with my 2 dogs on our walk around the lake. I’m filled with joy and optimism as I observe the wildlife and admire the clouds in the sky. Finally, I’ve discovered how much music supports my mental health. I play the violin with my son almost every day, and attend live music when I can. While balancing school, work, and home life as a single parent requires organization and good time management, I’m confident I have the skills necessary to be successful because I made such a commitment to prioritizing my mental health. I’m very motivated to obtain my Master of Social Work because I’m passionate about supporting others to better identify challenges in life and develop skills for working through those challenges. I am ready for this next journey, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for considering me for this scholarship.