The Where I Work series explores San Antonio's evolving workplaces. It takes readers backside the scenes to learn from the people who work at companies large and small, nonprofits, family-owned enterprises, and in other nontraditional workplaces. Get in touch to share your story.

No one at Clarity Kid Guidance Center actually does simply ane chore.

For instance, while I oversee the clinical staff in the inpatient area, I also have a supervisor part with the therapeutic recreation staff and coordinate with the local Northside Independent School Commune when kids qualify for on-campus pedagogy. Working with other department managers on larger day-to-solar day concerns keeps things interesting.

In the last five years, and in particular during this pandemic, what I and others working in this field have noticed is simply how fragile lives tin be in the wake of multiple stresses, not just for kids just whole families.

Clarity Kid Guidance Center provides mental health care for children ages 3-17 and their families. A nonprofit, information technology works with kids and their families to manage mental health conditions ranging from ADHD and feet to suicidal ideation, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. We have the region'south largest concentration of child and adolescent psychiatrists and serve as a education hospital for UT Health San Antonio and Baylor Higher of Medicine.

I began work at what was then the San Antonio Children'due south Center in the mid-1970s, fresh from the Catholic Seminary, having opted to find a more than secular way to serve people. I applied for an evening shift position as a childcare worker at the Children's Center. Shortly after I joined the heart, a psychologist who would become a mentor predicted that I would "last about three months hither and so get out." I still grin when I call back that comment.

I worked the evening shift, mostly with 6- to 9-year-former boys who were hospitalized for nine months to a year. Evenings were more laid back than days since well-nigh of the professionals were there in the daytime.

I worked my way up to existence in accuse of a single cottage, then to campus supervisor, working more than and more than closely with teams of defended social workers, psychologists, and medical doctors.

Behavioral health care was irresolute in the 1980s, with shorter stays and more emphasis on understanding the role of brain development and the exposure of early on trauma in patients, and then I shifted my attention to graduate schoolhouse and was one of the first mental wellness track graduate students in the educational psychology programme at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Behavioral health care began to change even faster with a more than acute focus. Stays went from months to weeks to days, but the focus for me ever remained: How can I reach this person and their family in means that could brand things better?

A clock in Rick Edwards' office was a gift from a colleague and their shared practice of meditation.
A clock gifted to Rick Edwards by a colleague hangs in his office at Clarity Kid Guidance Eye. Edwards and his colleague practice meditation as a class of therapy. Credit: Scott Brawl / San Antonio Report

In the early '90s, I moved to the center's second location at 8535 Tom Slick Drive in the Due south Texas Medical Center area, at present known as Clarity Kid Guidance Center. The focus was on residential stays, a smaller part of a larger acute and day hospital setting. With a professional person license, I could affect the direction of care for unabridged units while working closely with other professionals and frontline staff.

Information technology was always rewarding to have frontline staff grow in their piece of work with kids and families, and more than a few went on to pursue professional careers because of their experiences at the center. In 2010, I took on additional responsibilities every bit program director at Clarity, overseeing more than clinical staff and units, while still working with direct intendance in i of my favorite areas, experiential therapy. Experiential therapy involves an activity that tin can engage patients and staff alike in a problem-solving challenge that provides a large life-skill lesson using the feel of play. The highlight is always that aha moment when a kid would get from struggling to understanding and could more than closely piece of work with staff to take the lessons and apply them to existent life.

The word "hope" is inscribed on the exterior of the Clarity Child Guidance Center.
The word "promise" is inscribed on the outside of the Clarity Child Guidance Eye. Credit: Scott Brawl / San Antonio Report

What I have e'er been struck by is how Clarity staff at all levels and backgrounds share a common desire to practice whatever information technology takes when caring for the patients and families. When running into former patients who are at present grown adults, they approach me with a look of recognition and so will get on to recall the names of directly care staff, housekeepers, and deli staff they knew during their time at the center. It says a lot about the impressions and connections that can occur when a whole organization has one mission.

I ever tell new clinicians and young staff pursuing their degrees in mental health that inpatient work is the best classroom. You gain more cognition nearly kid mental health in a few months than any school experience could e'er provide.

Having the opportunities to train and develop new clinicians to provide therapy is one of the richest, well-nigh rewarding aspects of the job, especially when rejoining some young man childcare workers from my by who became social workers and counselors.  Where I could impact single lives, now I have the opportunity to impact many lives tenfold.

Rick Edwards is a program director at Clarity Child Guidance Center.
Rick Edwards is a program director at Clarity Child Guidance Middle. Credit: Scott Brawl / San Antonio Report

What I take most acutely come up to know about my piece of work at Clarity is that at that place are two sides to my piece of work. The "warrior" side that wakes each morning time with a sense of mission, purpose that can go along you going fifty-fifty when the workweek can stretch into the weekend, and the "caregiver" side that has to periodically stride back and take intendance of yourself. Nosotros don't get to make the choices about when one side or the other can go called on to be present, but having both sides bachelor can brand the work a challenge worth meeting and renewing.