For the past two semesters, I have had the pleasure of being part of the Mobile Mental Health team at Communities in Schools Houston. Before starting my last internship I had no clue what I was exactly getting into. Not because I was informed on what the position would be: a mobile mental health therapist where I would visit two schools a day to work with caseload students in individual counseling for several weeks. I felt prepared in knowing what was expected of me when I started and that the skills I had learned in graduate courses would develop and become richer. The things that I didn’t expect comparably might seem small but they impacted a lot of my experience in this internship and made it unique to other internships and professional development opportunities.
I didn’t know being a mobile mental health therapist would mean that I would be carrying a bag of activities and resources that were suited for elementary to high school students. This wasn’t just books with worksheets to do alongside a client but items like glue, food coloring, sand, and laundry detergent to make slime for anxiety management. Beads, thread, and bubbles to make bracelets and blow bubbles to teach students how to take deep breaths and find a calming word. Or a deck of UNO cards for when a student didn’t know where to start that session but could play a game to help them step back for a moment before sharing what happened that week. And of course, snacks because students are always hungry, and who doesn’t love chocolate chip chewy bars and fruit snacks?
In addition to these items and the random bits of sand, I can never seem to get out of my car from transporting my therapy resource bag to various campuses, I also didn’t expect to walk at least a mile every day during my internship. This I learned quickly required practical shoes that wouldn’t give you blisters as I picked up students from classrooms to walk them to sessions. Or when a student’s schedule changes and they are in a different class and now you have to go on a journey to find them. Or when you work with elementary students sitting in a room to talk for a half-hour is not as effective as walking outside at the playground or in the garden area.
Another thing that I gained from my experience was that sometimes being a social work student and a student counselor meant looking up resources in addition to the ones that my internship and the schools had. Providing psychoeducation on a variety of topics from diagnosis, pregnancy, meditation, and what mental health is. This also looked like researching interventions and techniques that could benefit a client and empower them more than other ones. I learned how to effectively manage my time case staffing with school faculty and team members to work out the best way to assist a client moving forward.
I went in knowing what my internship experience would be like on paper and expected that there would be sessions that would be hard to be a part of as a client shares their pains. And those things that I expected and was informed about did happen but so much more than that. I am grateful to my field supervisor and the school staff that encouraged and guided me through this experience. For helping learn how to compartmentalize and practice self-care during those hard moments so that I can show up the next day or week to do it again with genuine joy. All of this to say that there was no one I could have been prepared for this internship as a mobile mental health therapist or the amount of flexibility and creativity it takes to be in this position. But at the end of the day and as I come to the end of this internship I know what matters is that the goal of mobile mental health was achieved and that is this: that students would have the freedom and opportunity to have a safe space for 45 minutes every week to feel safe, empowered, and heard.
Written By: Grace Longstaff, GCSW Ambassador
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