Internship, Employment, & Clinic Vision and Values

Vision 

To provide dignified mental health services from a strengths-based & client centered posture, utilizing evidence based and best practice approaches in being a support to our community in meeting its mental health related needs.  We also desire to be a safe, supportive and collaborative place for new clinicians to learn and grow in their practice in such a way that they are competent and confident in their eventual move into independent licensed practice and possible supervision related work. 

Employment Values

• Collaboration - We believe we provide a better product when more of us are involved and value the collaboration process with clients, staff and community partners
• Transparency- Transparency can mean that “I trust you with this information and I believe we can, if we all have the bigger picture, creatively collaborate on solutions that meet the needs of all those involved.  Transparency is a demonstrating our trust of your professionalism & expertise (meaning, with clients, they are the “expert” on themselves) and invitation of your input
• Humility - both cultural and in general - this means a recognition that no one person has greater or lesser value and worth than any other person in the room, regardless of background, experience, education, title or role.  This also means we take a supportive posture with our clients, staff and community partners. We do not take a “I’m the professional” approach and we “check our ego at the door“ so we can humbly collaborate with those we interact with and offer our strengths where there is room for it.
• Servant Leadership - we take an “upside down” approach to leadership in that we seek to serve those we lead.  Through ongoing support and a strengths based, accessible and collaborative approach, we seek to strengthen, encourage and promote the confidence and competence of our staff through a support approach.
• Courageous, but respectful, conversations - We speak to the “elephant” in the room, but do so graciously, maintaining & upholding the dignity of individual we are talking with
• We invest in people, not programs - which means we create time and systems to support & invest into  the individuals that make up RLCBH.  We believe that investing into the people of our clinic will result in the kind of outcomes we strive for.
• Strengths Based - we speak to the strengths of others, we uphold the dignity of those even when they aren’t around, we “loan” out our strengths and not just “point” out another’s weakness. 
• Competent - providing safe and competent, professional care to our clients and we invest into our team so they can provide that care.
• Excellence - We strive to “go that extra mile” in providing care and services that reverberate “excellence”.
• Create space for individual strengths & passions - we believe everyone has experiences, passions, strengths & talents that can be identified and utilized to meet either individual needs or even professional ones and strive to make room for those to not just exist, but be capitalized upon in providing avenues of personal passions within the workplace.
• Support the journey - RLCBH is just one step of everyone’s journey, whether as a client or as a staff person, and supporting that journey means knowing where that person is wanting to go and seeing where we can be a support in helping that person get there.
• Make the investment - this means, we make space & time to spend that extra minute or two with someone when they are struggling or they are needing something we ourselves may not know how best to support - so we make the investment to learn, even if just a little, on how best we can help. 
• Be teachable & be a learner - Life is a lesson we all should be learning and this becomes even more important in providing community mental health services.  We all recognize no one person has it “all figured out”, so we walk humbly and receptive to opportunities to grow, learn, be coached and receive crucial feedback that helps us to be the best counselors and staff we can be. 
• Respect - We believe everyone deserves respect, in even the most difficult of situations and seek to provide that to everyone we interact with.  We also believe that respect is the way in which people can feel safe with open and honest communication, feel comfortable with stepping out with their own creative ideas towards collaboration and promotes the most healthy of environments to grow in.  Respect means, people can feel “safe” to interact with us, even with what can be difficult or vulnerable topics of conversation

Guiding Principles in Working with our Clients

• Person/Client Centered - We believe clients are the experts on themselves and they know where they want to go with their treatment.  Clinicians are expert guides (meaning, they know the terrain a person is journeying on) but are joining a client on their own journey of where they want to go.  Every client & counselor relationship is 50/50 - 50% clinician (their training and expertise as a provider) and 50% client (they are the expert on themselves, they know when something “fits”, they set the goal of therapy and we not only respect it but encourage it).  If one isn’t listening to the other, this is where progress stalls.  But, in order for a client to “listen” to a provider, that client has to know the counselor “gets” them through compassionate listening and accurate gathering.
• Strengths Based - Clients have strengths they may not have awareness of.  We want to identify those strengths, both in building self worth and confidence but also in identity formation.  We also “speak” from a strengths perspective, always holding the dignity of a client both when working with them and when we are not. 
• Solutions Focused - We don’t just “curse the darkness”, we help clients “find the/their light”.  This isn’t meaning we are always striving for “answers” or solutions, as therapy is often just providing a space for a client to safely process.  This also allows them to find their own solutions, which then empowers a client with finding their “own” strengths they may not have known or recognized.
• Collaborative Approach - We don’t take a “I’m the professional so you should listen to me” approach.  Every counseling session is a “collaborative conversation”, them informing you on what they are processing or needing, you sharing your reflections and insights and any education aspects that could be helpful and empowering for the client.
• Resource Teaming - We see all clients through the lens of them having a community of resources and strengths we can assist them in identifying and accessing that is sustainable and enjoyable.  This specifically refers to supports they may have that can last beyond the counseling relationship - family, friends, other providers, community resources.
• Unconditional Positive Regard - We provide non-judgmental approaches with an inherent expectancy that all people strive for the same positive goals of sustained satisfaction and genuine happiness. Often, even maladaptive behaviors originate from a healthy and very human desire.  Helping clients identify that and find alternative ways to meet those needs is part of the work we do.
• Trauma Informed - Many clients who work with us may not present with clear PTSD related symptoms, but instead, have developed alternative symptoms that are very much rooted from either traumatic experiences or behaviors that are now “coming out sideways”.  We assess for the impacts of both Big T and small t traumas to inform our process with clients. 
• Humility - Regardless of who is the provider and who is the client, we are all equal in value and worth.  Regardless of position, title, experience, education or heritage, no one person is more inherently valuable than another.  We seek to embody and model this in the work we do with clients.  People have different roles, different strengths but not different value.
• Culturally Humble & Integrative - No one knows everyone’s ethnic, national or even family culture.  Being culturally humble means we recognize that and seek a posture of being a “learner”, getting educated by our clients on their culture and experiences.  Then, as the counselor, we revisit those cultural dynamics as well as integrate them into the treatment process.
• Values Integrative - We all have values that guide us.  Some struggles a person is having is not finding congruency with one or more of their values with the problem they are facing.  Values are guiding, filtering and informing.  This includes an individual's own values, family/upbringing values, culture values and even spiritual adherences.  We seek to identify these through the counseling relationship and assist the client in seeing how they “fit” with the problem they are hoping to alleviate.
• Competent - Meaning, we practice within our scope of strengths and experiences.  It’s ok if something feels unfamiliar or inexperienced - we just do our due diligence to get informed and supported, while being transparent with clients with things that may fall outside of our input opportunities.
• Journey Cognizant - Remember, we are only one step on every person's journey.  Whatever progress is made for however long this step is with us, we want to make it positive, so that, when a client takes their next step, they have confidence in the counseling process - whether that next step is with us or someone else.  Our care is for the individual and “their” process, not ours. 
• We have & model the "courageous conversations" - We speak to the metaphorical “elephant in the room'', but do so graciously, maintaining & upholding the dignity of the individual we are talking with.  This is what, at times, clients are counting on and trusting us for.
• Empowering Agency - Many people who come our way do so because they feel unempowered with either life in general or over the problem that is bringing them to us.  Helping clients find solutions, discover strengths, learn and understand themselves and their mental health,  are all ways we help “empower” their agency over their own life and well being.

Working with RLCBH means you can align with these values and feel a sense of connection to them in your own life.  It doesn’t mean you adhere to them all but while in the workplace, you do your best to embody, understand and respect them.  Our vision and values are not rules - they “inform” us on the kind of culture and service we try our best to provide.