
From Broadway to Grad School – Special Series Becoming a Therapist: An interview with Derek Isetti
In this new series, Curt and Katie interview graduate students and will follow them on their journey to becoming a therapist. Our first interview is with Derek Isetti, a 50-year-old graduate student in a two-year Master of Social Work program at California State University, Stanislaus. Derek shares his journey from careers in musical theater and speech-language pathology to pursuing a career in therapy. He reflects on the challenges, surprises, and personal factors influencing his decision to return to school, offering insights into navigating graduate education and the mental health profession.
Click here to scroll to the podcast transcript.Transcript
An Interview with Derek Isetti
Derek Isetti, PhD, CCC-SLP earned his bachelor of arts in drama with an emphasis in musical theater from University of California, Irvine in 1996. After traveling the country in four national tours and performing in the musical Cabaret on Broadway, Derek returned to school and in 2008 he earned his master of science in Speech-Language Pathology from University of the Pacific. He later earned his doctor of philosophy in Speech and Hearing Sciences from University of Washington, studying voice disorders under the mentorship of Dr. Tanya Eadie. He joined the Pacific faculty in 2014 and is currently serving as Department Chair. In the Fall of 2023, he returned to school to pursue an MSW degree in hopes of becoming a psychotherapist. Derek is a member of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and the California Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
In this podcast episode, we meet Derek Isetti, an aspiring therapist
We are starting a new series to follow graduate students on their journey to become a therapist. We start with Derek Isetti, a third career therapist who is working full-time while attending a MSW program in Northern CA. (summary provided in collaboration with Otter.ai and ChatGPT)
The experience of transitioning careers to become a therapist
Derek explains his shift from a performer and speech-language pathologist to therapy, motivated by a desire to create supportive, transformative spaces for others.
“I feel like there’s something really sacred about being in a room with someone and giving them unconditional positive regard, allowing that person to maybe feel safe in a way that they haven’t before, and just giving them that space to work on, maybe the most deep-seated emotions and thoughts that they’ve ever had a chance to work on.” – Derek Isetti
What graduate school can be like for aspiring therapists
He details his MSW program structure, designed for working professionals, which includes online courses, in-person classes once a month, and 1,000 hours of fieldwork by graduation.
How therapy students can balance academic and personal life
Derek shares how his personal circumstances, being single, working in academia, and attending a state university for affordability—helped shape his path.
Some challenges and surprises on the path to becoming a therapist
He discusses the variability in program lengths (some social work programs are only 1 year, for example), California’s unique licensure process for social workers, and the tension between broad social work education and specialized psychotherapy training.
How current events and technology are addressed in therapy grad school
Derek highlights the integration of national events and teletherapy technology into his program and the importance of addressing these topics with clients and students.
Resources for Modern Therapists mentioned in this Podcast Episode:
We’ve pulled together resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links. Please note that some of the links below may be affiliate links, so if you purchase after clicking below, we may get a little bit of cash in our pockets. We thank you in advance!
Relevant Episodes of MTSG Podcast:
I Just Graduated, Now What? – Career Advice for New Mental Health Clinicians
Career Trekking with MTSG: Interview with Marissa Esquibel, LMFT
Welcome to Therapist Grad School!
Why Therapists Shouldn’t Be Taught Business in Grad School
The Clinical Supervision Crisis for Early Career Therapists: An Interview with Dr. Amy Parks
3 Things I Wish I Knew Starting Out (blog post)
Who we are:
Curt Widhalm, LMFT
Curt Widhalm is in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is the cofounder of the Therapy Reimagined conference, an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University and CSUN, a former Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, former CFO of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, and a loving husband and father. He is 1/2 great person, 1/2 provocateur, and 1/2 geek, in that order. He dabbles in the dark art of making “dad jokes” and usually has a half-empty cup of coffee somewhere nearby. Learn more at: http://www.curtwidhalm.com
Katie Vernoy, LMFT
Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant supporting leaders, visionaries, executives, and helping professionals to create sustainable careers. Katie, with Curt, has developed workshops and a conference, Therapy Reimagined, to support therapists navigating through the modern challenges of this profession. Katie is also a former President of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt’s youthful energy, so that she can take over the world. Learn more at: http://www.katievernoy.com
A Quick Note:
Our opinions are our own. We are only speaking for ourselves – except when we speak for each other, or over each other. We’re working on it.
Our guests are also only speaking for themselves and have their own opinions. We aren’t trying to take their voice, and no one speaks for us either. Mostly because they don’t want to, but hey.
Stay in Touch with Curt, Katie, and the whole Therapy Reimagined #TherapyMovement:
Consultation services with Curt Widhalm or Katie Vernoy:
Connect with the Modern Therapist Community:
Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapists Group
Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide Creative Credits:
Voice Over by DW McCann https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/
Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano https://groomsymusic.com/
Transcript for this episode of the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide podcast (Autogenerated):
Transcripts do not include advertisements just a reference to the advertising break (as such timing does not account for advertisements).
… 0:00
(Opening Advertisement)
Announcer 0:00
You’re listening to the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide, where therapists live, breathe and practice as human beings. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, here are your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy.
Curt Widhalm 0:12
Welcome back, modern therapists. This is the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide. I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy, and this is the podcast for therapists about the things that go on in our field, the things that go on in our profession. And after seven years, we are starting a brand new project that we’ve been kicking around for a while. We had reached out to our audience and said, Hey, are there any grad students out there that want to come on the podcast and talk about what their experience is. We had a lot of people reach out, and we are going to check in with a few of them about every year or so, and just find out what it’s like to be facing grad school challenges as things go along. There’s been a lot of interest in this project. A lot of the people that we did some pre screening interviews with said, I really wish that I would have had the opportunity to hear people who are in grad school more consistently, so that way I would have known what I’m walking into. And we are joined by our very first interview in this process. Welcome to the show Derek izetti.
Derek Isetti 1:21
Thank you so much for having me. This feels very surreal to be a long time listener and actually get to be on the podcast right now. So thanks for having me.
Katie Vernoy 1:30
So I’m playing around with a new question that we’re going to ask all of our new student, grad folks, that kind of thing, who are you and why did you want to become a therapist?
Derek Isetti 1:42
Well, oh, geez, who am I? That’s a good question. Probably still trying to figure it out myself. This is actually the third major career in my life. I may be having, like, an existential crisis, because I just turned 50 a few days ago. So …
Katie Vernoy 1:57
Congratulations.
Derek Isetti 1:58
Yeah, thanks. I just got my AARP card in the mail yesterday so they don’t waste, they do not waste any time.
Katie Vernoy 2:06
Oh, that’s good to know. I’m turning 50 in a few months, so…
Derek Isetti 2:09
Oh, yeah. Well, we’ll all welcome you to the club.
Katie Vernoy 2:13
Thank you.
Derek Isetti 2:13
So I have two major reasons why I decided to return to school at 50. One is sort of like a broader, kind of overarching existential reason, and then one is very practical and specific. So, I think the broader reason is that I feel like there’s something really sacred about being in a room with someone and giving them unconditional positive regard, allowing that person to maybe feel safe in a way that they haven’t before, and just giving them that space to work on, maybe the most deep seated emotions and thoughts that they’ve ever had a chance to work on. But the very practical reason is that, in my current role right now, I’m in academia, and my primary field is speech language pathology. And so I found myself in the role of almost a rather reluctant department chair. And so a department chair basically has a sign above their door that says, ‘If you have a problem, please enter here.’ So any students on my campus that are struggling academically, socially, any faculty members that can’t get along, everybody comes to see me. And although I have, like, a never ending supply of Kleenex on my desk, I realized very quickly, like I am totally ill equipped to do this role. And so I went to my dean, and I said, I think I need a new skill set. And she was super supportive and said, Absolutely, I’ll support you. There you go. But my first career was, my students get a kick out of this, I was actually a musical theater performer on Broadway. And my one claim to fame is that I got to understudy and go on for John Stamos in the musical Cabaret. Yeah. Well, it was cool for me, but I think all the women in the audience that were there to see John Stamos, I say I survived it because I think they wanted to throw tomatoes at me, you know. This is truly my third career now: performer, speech pathologist, now, hopefully, psychotherapist.
Curt Widhalm 4:16
Tell us a little bit about the program that you’re in, where you’re at in your education, and just kind of position yourself for our audience, as far as where you’re at in your journey.
Derek Isetti 4:27
So, I am in the second year of a two year Masters of Social Work program. And just for context, I’m based in Northern California, so anything I share about the licensure process, any it’s very California centric, but yeah, it’s actually through one of the CSUs: California State University, Stanislaw. And my program, I chose it specifically because it’s designed for people that want to continue working while going to school. So it’s what they call a hybrid program, where most of the classes are online, except one Saturday a month, you have like an all day, eight to five, on campus experiential day, and then over the summer, that’s where you do all of your field placement hours. So when I graduated with my masters, I’ll actually have 1000 hours of field work experience under my belt. That’s sort of where I am, and kind of why I chose that particular program.
Katie Vernoy 5:26
That sounds like a lot doing school and full time work in that way. Does the program help you to manage that gigantic workload?
Derek Isetti 5:35
Yeah, you know, I have felt pretty supported. And this is interesting. I don’t know if it’s by design or not, but the classes are: they take a semester and they break it up into two eight week chunks, and so you have two classes in the first eight weeks and two classes in second eight weeks. And it seems to sort of have played out that one class might be more work intensive than the other, and that’s sort of been the nature of the whole program so far. I’ve just personally felt really supported. And my situation is unique, though, because those summer field placements where you’re like eight to five, five days a week in a field placement, that’s 40 hours a week. I’m able to do that because of the nature of my job in academia. You know, if I’m not teaching a summer school class, I have the ability to do that. So that may not be the case for for every student.
Curt Widhalm 6:30
Since you’re a couple of years in, I want to reflect back on when you were first entering into grad school. What were your expectations about what your education was going to be like? And then there’s going to be the follow up question of, what was it actually?
Derek Isetti 6:47
Yeah, you know, for those people that are considering going back to school, it can kind of seem like an alphabet soup at first, like, do I become an LCSW, an LMFT, an LPCC, a psychologist? I entered knowingly into a social work program knowing that it would be a very broad based education. The thing about social work that’s interesting is that, because of accreditation reasons, even if you get an MSW, knowing that you want to become a therapist, you need to take classes that have nothing to do with individual psychotherapy. I mean, I’m in my second class right now, just on social policy, just looking at laws and propositions. And I took a class just on social justice, not one, but two different classes on research methods. And so, you know, I entered into the program knowing that not all of my classes would really be geared towards psychotherapy, so that kind of was my expectation. So it wasn’t a surprise, but it’s, it’s just something to consider. I think, for people who are considering going back, you do have a lot of options. You know, I could have enrolled in an MFT program, an LPC program. And while I’m taking my second class on social policy, I can’t help but wonder like, well, what would I be learning about if I were in an MFT program right now? And so it’s just, there’s just an interesting tension, because all of my cohort, there are 25 of us, all of us want to become therapists. My track, my MSW program has a specific behavioral health emphasis. So all of us want to become life since clinicians, but the journey has been interesting because we’ve been in classes that haven’t necessarily had to do with psychotherapy. In fact, my favorite story is we read a book as part of my book club called “Unfaithful Angels.” It says how social work has abandoned its mission. And the whole premise of the authors is, if you’re a social worker that becomes a psychotherapist, you’re not actually serving the initial mission of what it means to be a social worker. The premise of the authors is, leave the therapy to the LMFTs, to the LPCs, to the psychologists. You as the social workers, should be using your training to tackle those broad based societal issues, work at the macro level, on policy, on advocacy. And here all of us are reading this book, all in a program hoping to become therapists. So it was really interesting. It’s been interesting. So my expectation was, I knew I’d be taking classes outside of the realm of psychotherapy, but it’s just been something that I’ve kind of personally been wrestling with, is: I think I chose the right program, but I can’t help but wonder what I would be learning about if I had chosen maybe an MFT program instead.
Katie Vernoy 9:45
With the policy and the social justice courses. Is there any effort for the folks who are in this more micro program or behavioral health program, is there any effort to try to tie how that impacts the individuals in the room, or is there, is it really just a macro class, and it’s only about being a macro class?
Derek Isetti 10:07
Yeah, they really do their best to tie in the macro with the micro. And I think most social workers, you know, if you ask the NASW, like, do these classes on social policy, do they impact your ability to be a good therapist? And I think they would say it they do, because the whole premise of social work is you’re always looking at the person within the environment and the impact that these policies have on an individual. So, you know, I do think there’s a tie in, and they also there’s a lot of flexibility in terms of what they let us choose to focus on. So for example, my first clinical placement was an LGBT+ community center, and so one of the policy papers that I was able to write was on the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, policy and sort of the effect that it had on the queer community. So yeah, there are ways to tie it in, but, you know, you just can’t help, I have pulled up what the curriculum is, let’s say, for an MFT program, and it’s just, you’re gonna get much more in depth training on the actual act of psychotherapy when you’re in a program that really caters to to that.
… 11:24
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Curt Widhalm 11:26
What kind of surprises have you run into in your program?
Derek Isetti 11:30
Ooh, good question. I think the biggest surprise for me, especially coming into this field as an outsider, was just the variability in terms of program lengths. So, I was blown away to realize that there are some master’s programs out there that are only one year long. Yeah.
Katie Vernoy 11:51
Wow. I haven’t heard that.
Derek Isetti 11:52
I know it’s kind of mind blowing. They’re called advanced standing MSW programs, and the only criteria is you have to have a bachelor’s first in social work, but then you can get out in one year. And if you compare that to a lot of MFT programs that are out there, there are some that are three years long, like 90 units, there are some that are two and a half years. And so I just found that really, really surprising, because I think as a consumer, as a client, you just assume that if somebody has a master’s degree and they’re licensed, that their education has been somewhat commensurate, you know, one one person to another. And it just kind of it made me start questioning, like, wow, is one year of graduate school really sufficient to feel like you’re a competent therapist, knowing that the scope of practice is ever expanding. It’s like, how do you how do you fit in addiction and couples counseling and children? And it’s pretty mind blowing to think that in one year you could really feel like you’ve learned everything you need to know, especially if those one year programs are in social work where they’re going to be those macro level classes as well, just for accreditation purposes. So that’s been the biggest surprise to me, is just the variability and length. And the other surprise to me, this is coming around the pike for me. So the licensure process is a little bit unique for social workers here in California. And I’ll just put this into a practical context. Let’s say that you Curt and Katie are both LMFTs, and you run a group practice, if I as an associate social worker, which is what I’ll be when I graduate, if I want to come and work for you, you might have really niched down and be experts in your particular practice. You might have 25 years collectively between the two of you, I could not imagine being supervised by better people, right? Well, because my degree was in social work, the licensing board basically is saying actually, Derek, 1700 of your 3000 hours must be supervised by an LCSW. And that, to me, is just kind of mind blowing, because the reverse is not true. In other words, associate marriage and family therapists can be supervised by any licensed mental health care professional, psychiatrist, psychologist, LCSW, LMFT. So that, to me, has been a surprise that I’m still sort of just grappling with. Like, I don’t fully understand it. I really don’t. I don’t know if it’s a turf war issue, what that, I mean, and it really makes me smile, especially because I’m like, Are you basically saying that maybe an LCSW that went to these one year of grad school, to one of these advanced standing that’s a better person to supervise me than Curt and Katie. Like, really? Like, I don’t understand it. Like, like, seriously, what if you two ran a group practice and you’re like, we specialize in OCD. This is what we know in and out. We’ve been doing this forever. Of course, we would be great supervisors for you. The fact that I would have to somehow maybe pay for outside supervision for 1700 of my hours. It just doesn’t compute. It just doesn’t compute. So that that’s been a surprise for me. But here’s the thing, for those of you are like, Oh, well, that means I don’t want to get into an MSW program there. It’s like six of one, half a dozen of the other because, as I just spoke about, maybe if you do an MSW program, the grad school experience will be shorter if the licensure process might take you a little longer, whereas if you do an MFT program, maybe grad school will be a little longer, but the licensure process may be a little shorter, because I’ve also learned MFTs get to count some of the hours they earn in grad school towards licensure, but MSW don’t. So I’ll have 1000 hours when I graduate, and I will start at zero when I start to accumulate my hours. So just those, those, like kind of questions around licensure, those very those specifics, those are things that have been surprising to me since I began my grad student journey.
Katie Vernoy 16:06
I think it would be hard to sort through all of those practical considerations, because so much of it is you learn kind of as you’re in the process. And so it seems like you make the best decision you can, you kind of roll with it, and then you move forward. I’m actually really curious on the how your personal life has affected the decisions that you’re making, and what has led to how you’re navigating this process based on kind of personal factors.
Derek Isetti 16:36
Yeah, you know, I think that because of the position that I’m in personally right now, like, I’m a single, gay guy, I don’t have any kids. I have a dog and cat that probably object to the fact that I don’t consider them children. But, but, you know, I was kind of in a position where I thought, yeah, I’m turning 50. You know, do you really want to go back to school for something? And and I knew that, because of my personal circumstances that I would kind of have the bandwidth to do that, you know. And I also knew that I was working for an employer that, you know, when you work in academia, they’re very supportive of you getting advanced training. And so I think the fact that I was working where I was working, the fact that I didn’t have things like a partner and children to consider, like all of those things, definitely factored into my decision to go back and and, yeah. And, you Know, even financially, you know, I chose a state university because they tend to be, you know, a lot more affordable than private schools. So there were, there were a lot of factors. I was also at a point in my life where I didn’t have student loans still to repay. And so I can imagine that if you’re still recouping from trying to pay off loans from undergrad or another master’s degree, that that would also impact your decision to go back. So I don’t know, it seemed to me like I really examined a lot of different factors personally and and it felt like, in my mind this time was gonna go by, regardless. Whether or not I put in that effort or not, the two years of grad school were gonna you know that that time in my life was still gonna lapse. And I just thought, I might as well do it. I might as well do it.
Katie Vernoy 18:36
So I have an interesting question, because I also was, I was a theater major in college.
Derek Isetti 18:41
What?
Katie Vernoy 18:41
Yeah, yeah. And so I have seen a lot of you know, on Facebook, the my colleagues going through and becoming either therapists or SLPs, and it just seems like there is a a path from being some sort of theater person into this realm. I just was curious if you have any thoughts on that, because I’ve just seen it so many times.
Derek Isetti 19:03
Ooh, I didn’t know that. First of all, I think that’s awesome. And the joke is, I’m like, Oh, I’m going to be the singing therapist, you know? I’m just going to sing Oh, What a Beautiful Morning from Oklahoma, until my clients aren’t depressed. I don’t understand why they don’t keep coming back, you know? You know. So for me, this is interesting. My background in singing, I the reason I actually got to go on many times in shows was because performers had vocal problems. They had difficulties in their voice. So my initial impetus for becoming a speech pathologist was to work with people who have voice disorders. So that’s actually the class that I teach at the grad level here at my university. So that was I thought, Ah, I think there’s some carryover between the voice, between performing and being a speech pathologist, but it’s interesting because the field of Speech Pathology is often referred to as communication disorders. So you’re working with people who have like impaired communication. And so if I think about well, now I’m an instructor, so I’m communicating, and now I want to communicate one on one, and allow others to have a voice in the therapeutic process. I think there is some carryover. And I also think performers, by our nature, we’re emotional, we’re receptive, we’re open, we’re able to be vulnerable. I mean getting up in front of a room and auditioning for people that are essentially judging you.
Katie Vernoy 20:39
Sure.
Derek Isetti 20:40
It’s tough. It’s, it’s a hard life in many respects. And I, too, I’ve witnessed the same thing. A couple of friends of mine, who were performers have now decided to go back to become therapists. And initially I didn’t see the through line, but, but I do think that having that background in the arts, it’s, it can be really helpful. I hope. I hope it can be. I hope I can. I, you know, I’m a big believer in all of your past experiences sort of inform who you are in the present. And so I’m hoping, even if I’m not singing to my clients…that somehow…
Katie Vernoy 21:16
Yeah, and I think the artistic piece of what humanity is, and this felt sense of who we are as humans, individuals, societies, like I think that so much of that comes second nature for artists of all kinds. But I think especially folks who are performing and portraying someone else, you have to understand their psyche. You have to understand them. And so it just, it makes a lot of sense to me, but I was curious about your your through line, because it definitely was like you hit all the spots.
Derek Isetti 21:48
You know? Yeah, I some, and I often thought, too, I thought, oh gosh, is my family, are my family my colleagues? Are they going to look at me like I’ve got two heads because I’m going to go back to school yet again. But I’ve really been pleasantly surprised by the support. It’s almost like people are recognizing something in me, like, actually, you probably would be pretty good at this, you know?
Katie Vernoy 22:10
Nice.
Derek Isetti 22:10
So, so that’s been affirming, you know. The other thing too, and again, I’m not disparaging my years as a performer, because I wouldn’t trade them for anything, but it felt like a very self involved existence. You know, when I was pounding the pavement in New York, it was all about my dance classes and my singing lessons and the next show I was gonna get, and what agent do I need to find? And I think there’s something beautiful about, at least from my own process. I was like, I think I need to be a little more other oriented. I need to think about how I can be of service to others. Now, granted, theater performers absolutely are of service to others when they perform. You know, they’re taking people on this emotional journey. But for me, there was just a little bit something. It seemed a little self serving, and so first getting into speech pathology, which was a helping profession, and now hoping to become a therapist. And you know, ideally, I think where I hope to wind up is to be still in academia and still teach, but have a side practice. And now that’s another interesting conversation, because that’s a great place to wind up. I know a lot of people, a lot of people who maybe teach in psychology programs that have a side practice, but the licensure process, how I go about doing that on a part time basis, collecting these supervised hours while I’m in academia, that’s going to be an interesting process. I feel like I’m gonna be 98 years old, like I finally got my license. I’m ready to see my first client without supervision, you know, but I actually only have, I think, six years to get it done before I think the clock would or I’d have to maybe renew an associate registration. So.
… 23:58
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Curt Widhalm 24:00
Have you started looking ahead at what that process might actually start looking like for you?
Derek Isetti 24:06
Well, I kind of have, because I am a bit of a planner, and I maybe this is like a little overzealous on my part, but even though I’m still a grad student, I’ve actually been doing outside trainings while I’ve been in school. So right now, I’m enrolled in a level three certification program for something called Team CBT, which is based out of Northern California, David Burns from Stanford, and I’m kind of hoping, I don’t know if they’re listening to this, but I love their protocol so much that I’m kind of hoping they might take me on as an associate clinician, just doing hours on a part time basis while I’m still working in academia. So we’ll see. That would be another thing that, gosh, this would work out so well I’m on a university campus right now, there is a Counseling and Psychological Services center CAPS right across the way from me. I can practically throw a stone and hit it, but so that would be wonderful if maybe I could stay on my university campus, walk over there, do some clinical hours, and just get my supervision there. But my understanding is, is that they don’t take associate clinicians at this point. So I’m trying to think ahead. I’m in a unique situation, right? Because a lot of my cohort, they’re like, No, I’m diving into this full time. And then some of them are trying to get, they want to get all their licensure hours in in two years, you know? But for me, I know it’s going to be much more drawn out.
Curt Widhalm 25:42
You’ve talked about your position a little bit, and I want to maybe talk about what you’re seeing with your cohort a little bit more, as far as some of the steps that they’ve done to balance the summer placements, how things like pay going into their associate hours are impacting some of the decisions that all of you are making, as far as how how much life influences are you seeing, not just for yourself, it sounds like you’re pretty stable with with your academia position, but what are you seeing your cohort go through?
Derek Isetti 26:16
Oh, that’s such a good question. You know, I’m unique in my cohort in a lot of different ways, right? It’s a social work program, so I think that they’re like maybe four men in my class of 25, so they’re mostly young women of color. What I’ve been hearing from some of them is, you know that summer placement has been tough, because if this is a program designed for people that have jobs, how do you tell your employer, Hi, I’m going to need to leave for three months over the summer to do a five day a week internship somewhere. So that’s been really interesting for them to navigate. Now, luckily, the university works with them, and if they already happen to have a job in some kind of social service agency. So let’s say they already work for a county agency. The university will let them stay there, but maybe do their practicum hours just in a different unit within that same agency. So somebody already works for a hospice, Hospice of San Joaquin, or San Joaquin Behavioral Health, they can stay there and just do their practicum hours in another unit. The fun thing about social work is that we get to count placement hours in multiple settings. It’s not just direct psychotherapy hours that we count. So when I did my placement at the LGBT community center at the Pride Center, I if we did tabling events, if I did outreach, we I went to flag raisings for Pride Month, like all of those hours counted as part of my placement. But I do think that for my cohort, navigating sort of that summer placement has been tough. Some people get paid summer placements, while others don’t. That’s another interesting factor, because there’s a program in place called Health Force Partners. And for students that are within San Joaquin County that kind of meets certain criteria, you get paid. I think it’s $20 an hour to do your summer placement. So that kind of was helpful too. Even if somebody maybe did have to quit their job, they would have some income coming in through that program. But to answer your question about the associateship hours, just a friend of mine the other day was looking into like, what associate clinicians typically get paid. He goes to another university, but he was kind of told around like $3 to $2 an hour, something like that. So I do think it’s it’s tough sort of thinking ahead: How am I not only going to accumulate those hours towards licensure once I graduate, but how am I going to find a position that’s paid, that maybe has benefits, that’s going to be that’s not going to burn me out? I think the lot of people out there recognize the fact that county agencies often need associates. They need those new grads, but sometimes, as we all know, the workload is pretty intense, and so they kind of go there, they collect their hours, and they’re like, I’m out of here. I can’t stay, you know? So, yeah, it’s been interesting.
Curt Widhalm 29:20
How are current events being discussed in your program? And know that you’re talking about some of your classes being focused around social policy and legislation and that kind of stuff. Some of the things that I had experienced in working in academia is being utterly unprepared to talk about social events as they were happening, things like elections and feelings after elections, we say as this is recorded a week after the 2024 election. How much is what is happening in real time and kind of the progress in the field, I’ll include like, how much is technology and some of the online platforms being incorporated into your curriculum?
Derek Isetti 30:08
Oh, such a good question. I have a feeling this coming Saturday, which is our next face to face all day Saturday, that will really be telling because it will be the first time we will have all seen each other after the election. So I’m really curious to see how the faculty handle it, if they do address it, because I’m in mostly an online program there’s been not a lot of discussion around the election and current events. But being that, we’re in a policy class right now, that’s one of the classes that we will be meeting to talk about on Saturday. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if, if these issues come up, kind of in the chats we’ve as students, we develop our own little chat community through a platform called Slack, so we’re always keeping tabs on how each other are doing. And one of my cohort members was like, can we just all get on a zoom quickly? It was like a couple days after the election, like, I just need to process some of this, you know. So we’ve been sort of there for each other, I think. But it’s funny because I am also in academia, right? I’m a faculty member teaching, granted in another program, a speech pathology program, but I wrestled with that as well, like, how do I broach this subject the day after the election, you know, with my students? And so I decided to go there, you know, I said, you know, I did sort of a, what’s called, like a setting aside activity where you just kind of close your eyes and you bring up anything that might be weighing on your mind, and kind of walk them through a visualization exercise to say, You know what? This problem existed before class started. It’ll be there waiting for you when class is over. But let’s just sort of imagine that we’re folding that, that problem up and on that piece of paper in our mind, and just for the purposes of learning, just for today, we’re going to try and set that aside and then revisit it. So I wanted to acknowledge what students had been experiencing. And one of them, even two students, actually emailed said, I can’t come to class today. You know, there’s a trans student in my class. It’s like, No, I just I can’t do it. And so I do think we, I think it’s better to acknowledge when big national events occur, rather than try and just sweep them under the rug. Another of my colleagues was like, Nope, I’m not going to touch it. I don’t know how anybody voted in the class. I’m just not going to address it at all. And so for me, even as a faculty member, I was like, I just don’t want to be tone deaf, like I want to acknowledge what what emotions are running through the minds of my students right now? You know, so but in terms of technology, that’s a great question, because you can’t avoid it in today’s world. And I was really grateful, because my first internship experience over the summer, we used the TherapyNotes platform, and so I was actually able to do some teletherapy as part of my first practicum experience, which is really neat. And I got comfortable, I, you know, using that, that online platform, knowing that documentation is going to be really important in my future career as a therapist. So I was appreciative of that. You know, issues around privacy, confidentiality, what platforms are HIPAA compliant? I’ve also been really pleasantly surprised by how receptive my faculty are to really just wanting to know more about what’s weighing on our minds. The last face to face class, one of the faculty members said, Tell me, what are you most afraid of? What do you want to learn more about? So everybody’s hands went up, like, teenagers, we’re afraid of teenagers. But she’s like, let’s write that on the board. Somebody was like, licensure, I want to know more about it. I’m scared, you know? So it’s been really great to have faculty that are like, Okay, here’s on what was on my agenda for today, what’s weighing on all of your minds? So I wouldn’t doubt if, if my social work faculty do, sort of do a little temperature check in the room and see how everybody’s doing, you know, post election.
Curt Widhalm 34:16
I want to thank you for joining us in the first part of this project, and we intend to check back in with you in about a year and see how things are progressing, and hopefully having our community be able to follow along in your progress. And thanks to all of our listeners for joining in on our fun projects like this. Follow us on our social media. Join our Facebook group, the Modern Therapist Group, to continue on with conversations, and until next time I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy and Derek Isetti.
… 34:50
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Announcer 34:50
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(Transcribed in collaboration with Otter.ai)
SPEAK YOUR MIND