Local Mental Health Practitioners Extol Professional Development Program

Nardia Greenwood entered her role as a licensed mental health counselor at D.C. Jail during the pandemic. Young residents who are obtaining their education at the facility through Maya Angelou Academy at D.C. Department of Corrections often met with her to address the trauma that led to their incarceration.
As she wraps up her third year at Maya Angelou Academy, Greenwood said she remains resolute to reach the population of young adults under her purview, many of whom are men between 18 and 24 years old.
She expressed plans to do so with lessons she learned at Trinity Washington University this past year.

Greenwood counted among a handful of school and clinical-based mental health practitioners who went through the Kaiser Permanente Practitioner Scholars Professional Development Program, a partnership between Kaiser Permanente and Trinity Washington University intended to equip mental health professionals with the tools needed to effectively serve marginalized youth, particularly those living in communities east of the Anacostia River.
“This program opened my eyes [and helped me] to understand what I needed to do to provide that communal space, grace, compassion, love and care,” Greenwood said.
During the 2023-2024 academic year, Greenwood enrolled in courses that focused on expressive arts therapy and other techniques inspired by indigenous practices. She and other members of her cohort also fostered comradery as they talked about the mental toll of their work and learned self-care strategies.
Greenwood said the coursework, and wisdom she gleaned from her classmates, particularly about facilitating group sessions, helped her to better establish a rapport with the residents at D.C. Jail.
“This wasn’t cookie cutter or something you can take out the DSM 5 [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition] for,” said Greenwood, a licensed mental health counselor of five years. “We talked about real situations. We were talking about disparities and speaking about these truths. It was something that really…made me want to do more work to address it.”
A Program Inspired by Unfortunate Circumstances
Since its inception in 2021, 23 school and clinical-based mental health practitioners have gone through the Kaiser Permanente Practitioner Scholars Development Program.
An award to Trinity Washington University by Kaiser Permanente will allow for another cohort of school and clinical-based mental health professionals. This fall, new program participants will take one course per semester and receive post-program professional development that helps them maintain their professional certification or licensure.
“We provide the…model where you’re not only learning together, but you’re talking about your experiences together,” said Dr. Cynthia R. Greer, an associate professor of counseling at Trinity Washington University and facilitator of the Kaiser Permanente Practitioner Scholars Development Program.
Greer told The Informer that the program came out of a relationship that Trinity Washington University and Kaiser Permanente established in the aftermath of Relisha Rudd’s disappearance.

From 2016 up until the pandemic, Trinity Washington University hosted speakers and collaborated with The Playtime Project.
They did so in recognition of the school-based mental health professional who inquired about Relisha’s absences, which sparked the years-long investigation into her disappearance.
The Playtime Project, formerly known as The Homeless Children’s Playtime Project, once provided extracurricular activities for children at D.C. General Hospital, where Relisha and her family were living.
Relisha regularly participated in that program.
The launch of the pilot for the Kaiser Permanente Practitioner Scholars Development Program, Greer said, represented a concerted effort to help school counselors and other mental health professionals recognize and address signs of racialized and generational trauma while learning to take care of themselves.
Counselors who go through the program often serve as mentors to those coming behind them, Greer said.
“Because you’re with people who are experiencing the same thing, you’re supporting each other as you learn how to deal with vicarious and secondary trauma and develop a self-care plan,” Greer said as she explained the significance of the Kaiser Permanente-Trinity Washington University collaboration.
Greer emphasized that the faculty facilitator serves as a mentor and guide for participants.
“The general public does not always recognize that the people providing mental health services are themselves experiencing secondary trauma or stress [because of] the number of the clients and their caseload,” Greer continued. “The professional development model that we created with Kaiser’s support provides support for school counselors and other mental health practitioners.”
Mutual Benefits for Mental Health Practitioners and Their Students
As more school and clinical-based mental health practitioners leave the field, there are not enough personnel available to meet the growing demand for trauma-informed care and substance use treatment.
D.C. Councilmember Robert White attempted to address this problem last year with the introduction of legislation that removes barriers for social workers to receive licensure. This took place as many school and clinical-based mental health professionals increasingly came under pressure, as reported in the American Psychological Association’s COVID-19 Practitioner Survey.
That document showed that 45% of mental health practitioners have experienced burnout in the years since the pandemic started. Sixty percent also sought peer support because of burnout.

By the time Rosette Ladson learned about the Kaiser Permanente Practitioner Scholars Development Program, she had vicarious knowledge of the long-term socioemotional effects of the pandemic.
Ladson told The Informer that many of her students lost parents and other family members to a bevy of health issues. As she recounted, getting those young people to even mention their parents became an uphill battle.
After securing a recommendation from her assistant principal, Ladson applied, and eventually got accepted, to the program. She said that experience challenged her as she attempted to balance time between home visits and evening classes. The best part, Ladson told The Informer, was her exposure to expressive art therapy, a modality through which young people pour their feelings on paper and eventually open up to others.
“You see the softer side of yourself as students evolve,” said Ladson, a practitioner for a decade who just wrapped up her sixth year at a District public school. “It’s a beautiful thing to observe. It increased my empathy. If practitioners are on the fence about the program, they should do it. This was a rich experience.”
A Black Male Mental Health Professional Weighs In
As the only Black man in his cohort, Azim Ross provided what his colleagues called a unique perspective.
However, as Ross tells it, he learned just as much from his female counterparts.
“I can have tunnel vision as a Black man and things get mundane,” said Ross, a licensed professional counselor who works in a Fairfax County, Virginia group home with adults. “It adds more flavor to see things differently, zoom out and see the wider lens. I see a diversified perspective. I get jewels and techniques I wouldn’t have heard otherwise.”
Ross has spent 17 years in the clinical mental health field, a trajectory he said was inspired by his college psychology class. These days, he works with teenagers and young adults in Maryland and Virginia through his private practice, For The Good Therapeutic Services.

Much of Ross’ work involves helping youth with depression and substance disorders that exacerbate their inclination to harm themselves and others. He said that the Kaiser Permanente Practitioner Scholars Development Program allowed him to tap into his background as a musician to help youth explore their creative side and become cognizant about how different types of music affect their mood.
At the end of this academic year, Ross celebrated numerous successes, one of them being the high school graduation of a young man who he said suffered from a lack of self-confidence.
In speaking about the musical therapy that he practiced, Ross told The Informer that the young men, and other young people he worked with, learned to take life into their own hands to achieve what they thought to be impossible.
“With a good amount of encouragement, people who are disenfranchised can have successful outcomes with expressive art therapy that allows them to tap into their dormant competencies,” Ross said. “They have hope for themselves. I love to see people win, especially when they’re underdogs.”
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