We  are delighted to welcome, Sarah McCracken to the practice.  Sarah is completing the second year of her Masters of Social Work program through Edinboro University.  She will be with the practice until May of 2017 as she completes of 500 hours of field experience.

Sarah is a native of Pennsylvania.  She received her BS in Psychology from Thiel College.  She married the boy next door (literally her next door neighbor) after graduation.  Shortly therafter, she and her husband began moving wherever the Army sent him.  She is Mom to two active boys, a lover of pasta, big socks and good books.  Sarah practices yoga regularly, and is interested in finding ways that yoga practice can benefit her client.

Sarah will be scheduling appointments beginning Sept 12th.   Sliding scale appointments are available with her as well.

Wow, I can’t believe it’s already May! Unfortunately, with the uncomfortable warm weather (I blame the hormones- I normally love warm weather!) comes the end of my time at Social Work Solutions. The past four months have been both a blessing and a whirlwind. I have worked in a foster care setting for the past two and a half years, so to be in a clinical setting was a huge transition, but one I welcomed since my goal is to work as a clinical social worker. In these few short months, I have learned more than I could ever hope to explain, and I am so thankful to have had this opportunity. I can NEVER EVER thank Jennifer enough for allowing me to come in and work with her and her clients this year. I hope that I was able to help some of them as much as they have helped me! Working with Jennifer (and Terri!) has solidified that clinical social work is where I hope to eventually land.

I am sad to be leaving, but so excited to see what the future holds, in both my personal life (Hello Baby Abby MaeJ) and my professional life. In the future, I hope to open my own private practice in my hometown and work as a registered play therapist, specializing in Animal-Assisted Therapy. The experience I gained working at Social Work Solutions will be in invaluable in this endeavor. Again, I cannot say thank you enough to Jennifer, Terri, and our wonderful clients for all of their help, support, and the numerous lessons over these past few months. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Welcome!

I am so excited to announce that Social Work Solutions is joined by yet another outstanding Social Work Master's level student.  Teri Dickey will be working with the practice until July.   

Teri obtained her Bachelor's Degree in Social Work from Auburn University in 2006 and has been a Licensed Bachelor Social Worker (LBSW) since 2007. Teri has over 9 years of experience in the social work field and has worked primarily in the healthcare setting as a care coordinator but also has experience with foster parent recruiting and licensing. Teri is currently enrolled in the Master's of Social Work program at Troy University in Phenix City with an expected completion date at the end of July 2016. 

Teri has been married for 10 years and she and her husband have an 8 year old son and a 5 year old daughter together. Teri enjoys traveling and spending time with her family doing activities such as camping, hiking and playing tennis. 

Both Teri and Jana are available for individual appointments immediately.  

School Supplies and Social Work Students

Its Intern season!  No that's not a thing, but I just made it one.  In Social Work programs one semester per year is set aside for "field placement" which  is  a fancy way of saying "on the job training, get in there and get your hands dirt, you only learn by doing."  Field is such a crucial part of social work training, I am honored to serve as a placement site for my alma mater, the University of Alabama.  Today I was as excited and nervous as if I were starting school because today is my student's first day!  I even bought school supplies, didn't need them just wanted to mark the occasion somehow.  So let me introduce you to Jana Bazell who was gracious enough to share her photo, and a short bio for the blog.

My name is Jana Bazzell. I am married to my best friend and we have a six year old daughter and new bundle of joy on the way! I am a 2014 graduate of Judson College with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology with an emphasis of Equine Facilitated Mental Health and a minor in Equine Science and I am a PATH Certified Therapeutic Riding Instructor. I am currently an MSW graduate student at the University of Alabama as well as a full-time employee of the Alabama Baptist Children’s Home & Family Ministries. I hope to earn my Master’s degree in Social Work by next summer and continue as a Social Worker with ABCH. Eventually I would like to open a private practice as a counselor specializing in a version of play therapy and trauma based interventions that would utilize horses in the therapy model.

Welcome Jana!  Its going to be a great Intern Season. 

Here we are almost half way through December and I don't have a hashtag for the month.  November was #yesvember  (thank you Kid Presdient) and October was #honestOctober (thank you Kelly Berry Parker).  December is a tricky month for me.  Its my birthday month which until recently has been a time of great jubilation at my house, but this year I'm just not feeling it.  Its Christmas, which is so insanely busy it sends me into slow motion.  The end of the year is also when I close out things for my business and set goals for next year.  But it is also Advent, which is my favorite season of the year.  I watched a great video about Advent being a time to "Be Still" and then I read this brilliant, eye opening and heart opening piece by Anne Lamott.   So I'm declaring this month's hashtag #bestill.  One of the projects I'm working on right now is a seminar about self care and preventing burnout.  If there were ever a motto for self care #bestill would be that motto.   In the spirit of being still and self care I will now post the tasks I accomplished this morning.  Not the to do list I should have done but the truth of what I really did.  Here goes:

1. Dropped kids of at school ON TIME.  Thats a biggie, and I was feeling pretty proud until I realized the youngest didn't have his backpack. #ohwell

2. Made myself an egg and sausage for breakfast.  Living in the land of Lucky Charms and PopTarts most of the time means this is a pretty big one too.  Felt like a full fledged culinary rock star.  Maybe breakfast really is the most important meal of the day, and self care should start with a good breakfast.

3.  Watched two episodes of The New Girl because it makes me laugh. I was also checking email and putting away laundry.  #winning  Nothing wrong with a little mindless multi tasking.  Laughter is proven to improve all aspects of life, even laundry. Also, I took some super cute pics and posted on IG (check it out they are really cute)

4. Took the dog on an extended walk.  No brainer, exercise especially in the sunshine improves mood.
While on the walk I found a perfectly shaped and sized pinecone, briefly considered staging a photo and selling it on IG (see above skills) because this is apparently a thing selling pinecones from your yard.  Decided not to enter the fray and tossed the pinecone aside.

5. Wrote and discarded a rambling blog about a sweatshirt I had in college.

6. Spent 10 minutes looking for an appropriate hair tie.  Failing to find one I called to schedule a hair cut instead. Also, I pulled some good friends in the medical field away from their job saving lives to answer questions via text about botox (advisability) and popcorn makers (availability).   From this we learn two things, reaching out to friends always makes us feel better.  And sometimes you gotta cut your losses and change things up.  I'll be wearing a hat for a while, but c'est la vie.

So that's it, most of it anyway.  I read, laughed, reached out to friends, exercised and ate like a grown up.   That's how I spent my morning being still and practicing self care. I won't list all the things on my list I didn't do, because being still is about being present.  And I feel 100% better than I did when I was staring at my to do list this morning.  

How can you #bestill and practice radical self care this season?  Share your thoughts in the comments.  We can all be still together and learn from one another.

Unspoken Grief

   When Hunter and I were married 18 years ago we had very specific ideas about how we would grow our family.  Wait 5 years so we could enjoy some time together, have one child, adopt another and there you go- family done.   What is the saying about God laughing while we make plans?  I think she/he just utters a "Bless their hearts"    Now nearly 20 years later I have a whole new thought about what it means to have a family, to start a family.   Twins gone before I had a chance to wrap my mind around there being two,  then Robert a fighter from the start.  Two more babies and a fallopian tube gone.  Then pills and shots and blood draws and ultrasounds brought me Ethan.  And then "Surprise" a brand new baby boy at 40.   Yeah, God def has a sense of humor.  

But  each and every experience taught me something different.  I learned how to grieve, I learned how to mourn, I learned how to honor the possible.  I learned FAITH and to lean on my people. 

 ( And I have so many people- thankful for all of them...too many to name.  How would I have done it without my tribe?)

    And I have so many sisters who have known that pain.  It takes my breath away really.  There are so many of us- I have had the privilege to meet some amazing women and men, Moms and Dads who keep the memory of their lost child close and soldier on to help others.  This isn't a journey I would choose or wish for anyone, but I feel so privileged to have been included on it.  

     There are so few ways to talk about the loss of an unborn child-  and we don't have community rituals to make it easier.  Most of us are just making it up as we go.  When we baptized Andrew we lit a candle for all the babies we didn't meet and all the parents who have known that pain.  My dear friend Olivia helped lead a memorial service to remember all those babies,  I have helped facilitate groups for others, I have lit candles and released balloons.  Last month I got a new tattoo,  I like the idea that these children who left my body  too soon are represented on my body in some way.  

 There are so many other ways people choose to honor and remember those lives- the point is that we need to acknowledge and grieve and step into the journey.   Grief is the only mechanism I know that brings healing in the face of loss.  I have seen this in my own life and in my work.  No matter what model you talk about, stages, or steps or tasks of grief it all comes down to one basic pri

niciple.  Change brings loss and we need to heal from that loss if we are to move on to the next place in our life.  

     Tomorrow is the day set aside to remember/honor Infant and Pregnancy Loss.  I'll light one candle for each of my babies.  There is a memorial service being held at the Montgomery Museum of Art.  If you said goodbye too soon to a child I encourage you to take a moment and reflect tomorrow.  For those of you have never known that loss- I bet you know someone who has.  Hold them a little closer in your thoughts and know that even an unspoken loss bring grief and needs healing.  

Enough Already

     I have been thinking about enough lately.  I say "enough already" roughly 20 times a week.  Usually I say to my children to indicate I have had enough of their bickering or general mayhem.  Sometimes I whisper it to myself when I am on the last inch of patience I have. Sometimes I say it to my husband to let him know I have received whatever message he is sending loud and clear.   In the trenches of junior high homework with my son we have settled for "good enough" when it comes to worksheets etc.   And I have certainly been guilty of feeling that I don't have enough of whatever is I'm stressing about- enough money, time etc. But I've been really thinking about what is enough?   What if just for today I behaved as if I were enough and if I had enough?  Enough of whatever I need, enough grace, determination, resources.  What if I behaved as if I were enough? Smart enough, capable enough.  (Insert Steward Smalley joke here).  But what if I extended that to those around me?  
       Whenever I begin  working with someone new I start with what's strong not what's wrong.  And I truly believe that the resources we need for healing and growth are ever present, even if we aren't aware of it.  So with my clients we are constantly uncovering the "enough" in their lives.   I need to do some digging in my own life to find the "enough"  and to extend that "enough" to those closest to me.   I'm reading Brene Brown's  "The Gifts of Imperfection"  and her take on self compassion is really really good.   That's what treating myself and others as "enough" feels like showing compassion to myself.   So- today I challenge you to say "Enough Already" and mean it- you are enough and you have enough.  

PS  There is never enough Chipotle guacomole.  That may be the exception that proves the rule...