For me, success is reaching a point in life where I am financially stable, able to focus on my family, and enjoy my career. Since 2019 I have been working on these goals. I graduated from my undergraduate program in 2017 and took time off before deciding what next steps in life I needed to take to ensure my success. Finally, in 2019, I went back to college to obtain my MSW in 2022, but also obtained a second master’s in criminal justice in 2023. Upon starting in my career as a mental health therapist, I focused on gaining as much knowledge and competency in the field as possible. Thus far I have 6 years of experience and have moved up into a role of clinical administration, while continuing to do therapy on the side. Although I am enjoying this part of career, I have always known that there is so much more that I want to accomplish. I decided to pursue my doctorate and social work and will be attending an online program via the University of Kentucky in June 2025. I will be focusing on the concentration of administrative leadership and hopefully graduating by late 2027. While in the program, I hope to have a well-established mental health practice that will allow me to focus on school while hiring clinicians and coaches to provide services. I am considering a second doctorate in criminal justice to fully complete my academic journey, but that is in the future. Once my mental health practice is in a good place, I will be in an even better financial space than I am now. However, at this time, I am working on alleviating all my debt, starting fresh, and continuously climbing the ladder at the companies that I currently work for. At this time, I am a single mother, and this can be difficult when it comes to having a work-life balance. While I am trying to become more financially stable, I also have to ensure I am spending adequate time with my son and being an involved parent. Starting my own business and only having to focus on school will open up more time for me to be able to spend with my son and create life-long memories for the both of us to hold on to. I want him to experience life very differently from the way I experienced life as a child. There are endless possibilities in this world, and I want to be the parent that provides as much as possible for their child. Eventually I would like to be married and have more children, but I need to ensure my academic and career ventures are in order before doing so. This scholarship will help me to accomplish my goals by helping me to pay for the upcoming doctorate program that I will be starting in June 2025. I will use the money for books, tuition, etc. I could also use some of the money to pay off any remaining debt that I have left, thought that will be very little since I have already been in the process of doing so.

My goal for 2025 is to start my own mental health practice. Shai’s Coaching and Counseling LLC will provide both life coaching and mental health therapy services. Thus far I have completed all the background work necessary such as registering my business, completing tax forms, creating documentation, etc. I plan to have my website published by January 2025. Over the past month or so, I have contacted various companies that are needed for the technology we will be utilizing. The annual cost includes but is not limited to the following: EHR system: $2,039 QuickBooks: $2,748 Business Gmail: $720 WordPress: $240 Insurance: $400 At this time, the total cost is roughly $6,147 per year. I am in the process of applying for various grants for Black women, single mothers, and small business owners. Starting at the beginning of 2025, I would like to post job openings on search engines such as Indeed and Zip Recruiter. After conducting research, I have learned that I need at least 5 clinicians on payroll before I can panel with health insurance companies to cover clients’ services. I network via several Facebook groups related to therapy, social work, and mental health. All of December 2024, I will be focusing on networking with members from these groups who would be interested in joining Shai’s Coaching and Counseling LLC, and who are willing to be paneled with health insurance companies while waiting for the process to be completed. By the end of 2025, I am hopeful that I will be able to secure the funding and revenue needed to open a physical location. I plan to stay within my local community of Irmo, SC, as I have noticed that there are limited mental health agencies on this side of town. Currently, most mental health agencies are located in the business area of Columbia, SC. Irmo is considered a rural area, so I will also be looking into government grants for rural businesses. Once I have a physical location, I plan to bring in a criminal justice aspect to the company, as this was the major of my undergraduate and second master’s degree. My hope is that I can contract with the law enforcement and court system to provide therapy and life coaching to individuals who are facing misdemeanor charges. Their dedication and effort to change will be provided in exchange for probation and eventually expungement, as opposed to criminal charges that will stay on their record for the rest of their lives. This is a goal that I have set for 2026. Once the agency is up and running in 2025, I will be able to network with criminal justice professionals in my area to make this goal happen.

In 2020, I was diagnosed with Bipolar II Disorder. I had known that something was “off” with how I functioned as a teenager, but because I had no knowledge of mental health in those years, I went un-diagnosed until age 25. Giving birth to my son in 2020 gave me a reason to get evaluated by a licensed psychiatrist. I wanted to ensure that I was taking care of my emotional and mental health as a single mother and getting a diagnose was the first step in working towards my goal. Upon receiving my diagnosis, I was made to feel ashamed of it by my own family. I had notified them because I was prescribed medication and needed to ensure my child was safe while I was trying these new medications. I was made to believe that my diagnosis was something to keep secret because I wouldn’t be able to lead a normal life if people found out. I was made to believe that I had to hide my diagnosis from potential partners when dating because they wouldn’t accept me. During this time, I was deep into my Master of Social Work program and learning more about mental health. I gained confidence in being an individual with a mental health diagnosis. I was successful, I was respected, and I was the voice for a lot of others who had been forced to believe what I was taught about mental health from my family. Since graduating and becoming a therapist, I have shared my story with many of my clients as a means of connecting with them and showing them that they could be just as successful with their diagnosis. I focus on helping them come to terms with being diagnosed with a mental health disorder and not being afraid of how they will be judged by some people in society. I always tell them that no one can make them feels ashamed about their life if they are confident in who they are, internally and externally. When it comes to my diagnosis, I lean more on my friends than I do anyone else in my life. I have several friends who have been diagnosed with mental health disorders and take medication. We all support one another and help each other to be confident in who we are. We focus on homing in on our strengths as women. As I continue to date, I don’t fear informing the person that I have been diagnosed with a mental health disorder because I know they deserve to know before continuing to date me. I am sure to educate them on Bipolar II Disorder and I am open to any and all questions that they may have. As I continue in my career, my hope is that I can not only continue to educate those with mental health disorder, but also those without so they can understand those who have a diagnosis. I hope that I can alleviate the stigma that is placed on individuals with mental health disorders so that we, as a community, can be more embracing than discriminatory.

I gave birth to my son April 2020 while on a week break between semesters during my first graduate program at Baylor University. During that week break I had to adjust to a completely new daily and nightly routine as a single mother. Once the new semester began, I focused on taking care of household things during the day while my newborn son slept, and writing papers at night while he was awake. While this was difficult, I thank God I had my family as a support. Once I graduated and entered the field of mental health, I was holding therapy sessions from 8am to 8pm (7 days per week), exhausting myself as a beginning therapist. I wanted to make as much money as I could to support myself and my son as a single mother. As time progressed, I realized that I needed to network with other professionals who were in higher positions than myself, but also advocate for better pay. I worked my way up through the rungs of therapy and now work as both a therapist and a clinical administrator. Since moving up in my field, I have stopped working in the evenings and stick to a 9am to 5pm (Monday-Friday) schedule. I have started focusing more on spending time with my son who is now 4 years old. He needs more attention these days and I want to be sure that I am present for all his milestones and important moments. I will admit that I continue to struggle with mealtimes through the week but am working towards improving this too. Currently I am in the process of opening my own practice, hiring other therapists to do the work. As much as I enjoy therapy, I would much rather only have approximately 5 clients per week just to keep my skills intact. I am at a point in my life where I would like to have as much time as possible with my son and do more home activities. I am also attending the University of Kentucky in June 2025 to obtain my Doctorate of Social Work degree, which will allow for even more freedom. I want my son to know that his mom is both successful and involved. This will also prepare me for the future of having more children and hopefully a husband who will require even more of my time. I would like to have my work-life balance in the perfect place before this comes.

As a teenager, I had always felt that something was "off" about how quickly my moods changed from week to week; even within a few days. Within a week's time I could go from feeling unusually happy to extremely sad and with no triggers. I was labeled as the difficult child who caused problems because my brothers didn't exhibit these mood changes nor behaviors. Mental health wasn't discussed in my family, or in the Black community in general. It wasn't until I was 25 years old, in the midst of the MSW program, and given birth to my first child that I realized I should seek professional support. I already had a sense of what I was dealing with based on what I was learning in my courses. The psychiatrist confirmed that I had Bipolar II Disorder and prescribed me the medication necessary to balance my moods. Once my moods were stabilized, I was able to see things clearly for the first time in my life. I learned what my baseline was and what my early symptoms were when there was either a depressive or manic episode on the way. This also helped me to recognize when it was time to utilize coping mechanisms to manage my moods and behaviors. It's been 4 years since my diagnosis and thankfully, I'm able to regulate without medications. My own experience with mental health has helped me to be more empathic with clients as I continue my career as a therapist. Even when others are invalidating, it's important for us to always make individuals struggling with mental health feel heard and seen. I take pride in being able to relate to my clients and share my own experience so they feel more hopeful and understood because they're talking to someone who has been through what they are currently experiencing. It lets them know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Furthermore, I'm not the therapist that pushes clients to seek medication management as a first resort. I understand the negative impacts that medication can have on some individuals, as well as the stigma of taking medication. I strive to educate my clients on the medications that may be available to them and how it may impact them. I make sure that they understand that for some individuals, medication management doesn't have to be a "forever thing". I give them the option to seek medication management and I respect whatever decision they choose to make as long as I know they are in a good emotional and mental space. In my personal life, I've learned to have better relationships with others by owning my mental health disorder and not letting it own me. I have no issues being honest and letting my support system know when I am having an episode and need to be given space, as opposed to letting my irritability ruin my relationships. I've grown to understand that my own struggles should not control my perception of the world. I am less easily angered and have mastered the art of stopping and thinking before interacting with others out of irritability. As I get older and learn more about myself, I am becoming more comfortable with identifying as an individual with a mental health disorder. At first, I was meant to feel ashamed and as though I had to keep it a secret. My family made me feel that I had to hide this part of myself to avoid rejection and "scaring people off". This is no longer a concern of mine. The people who are meant to be in my life will accept me at all my mental states; even the negative ones when I'm not feeling like myself. I'd rather have people in my life who are supportive of me; not people that I have to hide my true self from. I will always be this way and there is nothing that can change who I am. I believe the world needs to become educated on and accepting of mental health because we are who we are. This would make it so that people wouldn't feel the need to hide and there will be more open support to avoid crises that can't be taken back.

April 24, 2020, in the midst of a pandemic, Aayan Alonte' Quinn made his way into arms. I wrapped him in my arms, providing warmth, stability, security, and unconditional love. My son is the most important in my life. The past 7 months have been quite the learning experience as a first-time mom. However, I'm enjoying every second of it. It seems like time is flying back, but also at a standstill as I cherish and capture every little moment. I found out I was pregnant with my son while I was in graduate school and I had to drop out, due to being sick all day, every day. I was nervous because I had never dropped out of school before and I feared that I wouldn't be able to go back. Thankfully, I've been back in graduate school since January 2020 and I have an expected graduation date of April 2022. My son has been my motivation ever since I was pregnant. Being a single mother has made me work even harder to make sure that my son has the best childhood and the best upbringing. I provide for him on my own with no help from his father. He's become such an important piece of my life, I couldn't imagine not having him. His smile, laugh, and baby kisses keep me going, even when I'm feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. I'm excited about his first holidays, his first-time crawling, his first steps, his first tooth, and everything afterwards. We're just a momma and his boy and he means more to me than he'll ever grow up to know.

I'm a new, first-time business owner. I own an online boutique, selling women's clothing ranging from size small to a 3x. Currently, I have a wholesaler that I order my inventory from and I resale the items on my online website. My company goes by the name of Shai's Closet. Due to a lack of capital, I've had to slow down on my business and shut down for the holidays. I will have new inventory in January and will be back up and running. This scholarship would help tremendously. My goal is to have my business running itself by the end of 2021. In terms of success, I will reach my goal of success when I feel that my business is popular, self-sufficient, and my customers feel that they are getting a unique experience. This business is something I started on my own. I used my school refund checks to fund everything that I've done thus far, from registering my business as an LLC to purchasing inventory. I created my own website and have been doing the shipping on my own. It's been a journey, but fashion is something that I've always been passionate about, even as a kid. Running this business is just the first-step to one of my many "dream come true" goals in life.