At Ascend, it takes many moving parts to ensure efficient operations and the highest level of patient care. While it can be hard to provide an inside look into how mental health organizations function, we try our best to ensure transparency across everyday responsibilities to provide parents and teens with peace of mind when they choose us.
As part of this initiative, we spotlight a new person each month and show you how their role at Ascend is integral to what we do. This month, we’ve chosen a mentor named Selene to show you the ropes. Follow along and learn more about a day in her life here!
What Is a Mentor?
Mentors at Ascend have some of the most important responsibilities in the entire organization! Selene is a mentor at the Encino Houses, but you can usually find her at Empress, where she prioritizes building relationships with our clients and helping them maintain their schedule throughout the day. Mentors like Selene offer support to our clients whenever it’s needed, encouraging them when they’re feeling down and reminding them of their triumphs and successes.
Selene is also responsible for maintaining the cleanliness of the house, assisting mentor-led groups, and imparting necessary life skills to the teens under our care. These skills may include basic household tasks, like doing dishes and making beds, as well as essential hygiene and everyday mental health skills.
Where Selene Got Her Start
When she was growing up, Selene didn’t have a lot of exposure to the topic of mental health. Nobody in her community talked about it or prioritized it. Only after she turned 18 and experienced her own mental health struggles did she realize how little she knew and how many people stigmatized these struggles.
She chose to follow a path in the mental health community to combat that stigma, lack of knowledge, and lack of support. She had to learn about mental health alone, and she didn’t want anyone else to carry that burden on their own. Mental healthcare is changing, and people like Selene are contributing factors to this evolution.
Before Ascend
Selene came to Ascend with quite a bit of experience. After her own mental health journey, she became a behavioral technician at an adult residential facility in Malibu. She eventually decided that working with teens was a better fit, as she could relate more to their experiences and provide them with better guidance and support.
Why Selene Loves Ascend
Working at Ascend has been a transformative, rewarding, and healing experience for Selene. In addition to getting to know the amazing teens under our care and being a positive part of their journey, she also feels a sense of accomplishment and relief that none of these kids will struggle alone. Watching them grow, learn, and succeed brightens her days.
She also appreciates how Ascend creates a supportive environment for their staff as well as their clients. When she first started with us, Selene’s managers took her under their wing and trained her to be the best possible mentor for these kids, encouraged her own personal growth, and taught her even more about the mental health community.
Why We Love Selene
Selene has been an amazing part of the Ascend community! She has great communication skills and ensures everyone is following our policies to guarantee the safety of our clients. She also manages to build strong relationships with our clients while maintaining boundaries, a difficult balancing act that takes a lot of practice.
Selene has had a lot of success working with our clients, overcoming resistance to care by providing a positive example, encouraging client trust in her through open communication, and creating safe spaces where our clients can work through their concerns without embarrassment or fear.
A Day in Her Life
A typical day in Selene’s life starts with an exuberant hello to our current milieu. She loves starting the day off with them in a positive way with a brief contemplation of their intentions. Throughout the day, Selene will make sure that clients are making it to every session and group on their schedule, clean and organize the house, and join the clients in some of their groups to show her support. Sometimes, our clients need a break when things get heavy, so Selene accompanies them for a breather.
Luckily, Selene doesn’t have to do all of this alone! She frequently collaborates with other mentors, supervisors, and leads at Ascend, which streamline her responsibilities. Emely and Aida are an especially important support system, as they are her supervisors and have helped Selene on her journey toward becoming the mentor she is today.
Selene Is Always Growing
One thing we encourage in all our staff is personal growth. For Selene, that means going back to school and continuing her education in Psychology. Working with us has reignited her passion and encouraged her to refocus on her career. Her ultimate goal is to finish her Master’s in Social Work in order to provide more effective support for teens struggling with their mental health.
Finding New Life at Ascend
As a community, Ascend strives to be motivating and engaging for clients and staff alike. We want to provide safer spaces for everyone to learn, grow, and thrive. For our team, that might mean focusing on their career path or enhancing their personal growth. For our clients, we’re there to provide guidance and support through a clinical approach and tons of mental health resources.
Hopefully, you learned a lot on this journey through Selene’s work with us! If you want to learn more about other roles at Ascend, take a look at Education with Hernst or Compliance with Cristina!
