Kasamahan
Nonprofit community enriching Filipino/a/x mental healthcare
Mental Health Blog
This Kasamahan Mental Health Blog entry was shaped through learning about the experiences in school counseling of Kasamahan participants during our events. This entry also responds directly to the Need for School-based Mental Health Professionals of Filipino Descent by Christine Marie Q. Turner, M.Ed., NCC in our new Research Corner, and is an important conversation to have with persistent racial and socioeconomic tensions within the United States and a rising disillusionment of educational institutions by youth as the world continues to rapidly and unpredictably change.
You may also recognize Christine through her participation in our workshops and as a new member of Kasamahan's Team, supporting the development and implementation of our Mentorship Program which we hope to share more about soon.
We are also grateful to feature:
Anna Patricia Panaligan Grgurovic, LPCC, LPC – Newer to our community, Anna Patricia joined our Kasamahan Workshop on authentic social media marketing to further connect Filipino/a/x culture with her Instagram, @considerit.wellness. During the workshop, Anna Patricia spoke passionately about the challenges of working in a Minnesota school system as a person of color which offered a glimpse of the complex realities she shares here.
Judi Yapias, LPC – The only counselor participating in our Monthly Consultation Group with the intersectionality of identifying as Filipina Peruvian American. Although attending Monday events has been challenging this year, Judi made a significant contribution last October, when she volunteered on behalf of Kasamahan at the Filipino Day Market hosted by Filipino Young Professionals of Austin, TX. At the lively event, she raised awareness of the possibility of decolonizing Filipino/a/x mental health.
Together, these three authors share their efforts and impact as Filipina/x counselors working within American school systems.
10 | The Impact of Filipina/x Counselors within American School Systems
Published August 25, 2025
What would like us to know about your professional mental health background and the therapy you provide?
Judi Yapias, LPC she/her/ella
Owner of Adlawan Counseling
Austin, TX
After I graduated from the University of Texas in San Antonio, I got a full-time position as a middle school counselor in Austin, TX. I worked at the same middle school for two years, and then I gradually stepped into my role as a LPC and went into private practice.
After a few months of private practice, I missed the big community aspect of schools - knocking on a colleague's door and asking for help, working with and getting to know families in the community, and the feeling of connecting with people face-to-face.
But after being 9 years as an educator and reflecting on my burn out, I knew I couldn’t go back to school counseling full-time. Luckily, I was fortunate enough to find the opportunities to do part-time school counseling and part-time private practice. Though it’s still a little exhausting to be in schools and to continuously balance between the two positions, it’s certainly not burn out level exhaustion - more like a tired-ness after completing something fulfilling :)
Which leads to now! For the past three years and currently, I work with mostly adults in my private practice and provide mental health and counseling services to a local middle school. My focus (with both kids and adults) is us trying to gain an understanding of our bodies, its signals and ways it communicates to us, and how we can better align our decisions with our values and belief systems.
Being in the private practice space has certainly been an uprooting transition. I went from knocking on a colleague's door and consulting with another professional on the spot to being in my home - just me and my dog - wondering who do I talk to now when I wanted to process through something? I think that’s why I took an interest in networking with other Asian and brown therapists through Asian Behavioral Health Network and Kasamahan.
It was through these networks that sparked a different sense of camaraderie in the field and also supported the personal and professional research I find important, such as indigenous psychology and understanding how to decolonize the mental health space.
Anna Patricia Panaligan Grgurovic, LPCC, LPC she/her
Founder of Consider It Wellness
Minnesota (LPCC) and Wisconsin (LPC)
I am dually licensed in school and clinical counseling. My school counseling and LPCC license is with the state of MN and my LPC is with the state of WI. My practice is primarily rooted in systems theories due to my background in family studies and human development and my research of the Sikolohiyang Pilipino of Kapwa.
My undergraduate focus was in family studies and human development and I've found a lot more success with integrating person-centered approaches with systems theories. Theoretically overlapping Bronfenbrenner's* ecological systems theory with Ruby Paine's** work with socioeconomics is how I am able to integrate Kapwa*** seamlessly into my therapeutic modality. Most of my adult clients have chronic PTSD, persistent depression, and generalized anxiety. I have a small handful of SPMI (severe and persistent mental illness) clients, but prefer to work with PTSD and chronic PTSD. For children and adolescence, I mostly focus on identity development and values orientation as it relates to their behavior choices.
*Urie Bronfenbrenner created Ecological Systems Theory, originally published in 1979, with ongoing edits to adjust to a "Bioecological" model in 1998 and the Process-person-context-time model 2006. **A Framework for Understanding Poverty: A Cognitive Approach by Ruby Paine, ***The Filipino Mind: Philippine Philosophical Studies II. Leonardo Mercado. Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change Series III, Asia, Volume 8. 1994, and Soul and Spirit in Filipino Thought. Leonardo Mercado. Philippine Studies 39 (1991): 287-302.
Christine Marie Q. Turner, M.Ed., NCC she/her/isuna/siya
PhD student in Counselor Education and Supervision at Old Dominion University
Virginia
I'm a current 2nd year PhD student in Counselor Education and Supervision at Old Dominion University, licensed Pre-K-12 School Counselor through the Virginia Department of Education, and National Certified Counselor through the National Board for Certified Counselors.
Prior to pursuing my PhD, I was a school counselor for 8 years at middle and high schools in different districts. During my time as a school counselor, I was a practicum and internship site supervisor for 5 years. Having limited time during a highly structured school day, a very high student caseload (my lowest being around 250 and my highest being over 400), and being assigned many clerical tasks that took time away from direct counseling services with youth, I often had to utilize modified solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT), cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), motivational interviewing (MI), play therapy, and music therapy techniques.
In addition to my PhD studies, I am in simultaneous pursuit of becoming a licensed professional counselor (LPC) in Virginia to further my scope of practice and provide more mental health services. I am passionate about creating more spaces for Filipinx Americans in counselor education, teaching, research, and counseling practice, especially school counseling practice. I am working toward both my PhD and LPC to help me work with a diverse group of students and clients in various settings, including higher education, private practice, integrated behavioral health, and community mental health agencies.
What would you like to share about your Filipino/a/x background and identity?
Judi: I am actually bi-racial - half Filipina and half Peruvian. Though my parents were both born in their native countries, I was born in the States (Massachusetts).
I grew up eating Filipino and Peruvian cuisines, both which have Spanish influences, and also speaking Spanish (my Aubuelita's second language to Quechua).
Though both of my parents were proud of their cultures, there was often a quietness (and perhaps even a humility) to their pride. A sense of yes, this is who we are and there is nothing to be ashamed of, and also a sense of open-ness and curiosity to other cultures.
Anna Patricia: I was born in the Philippines and lived in Laguna until I was 7. My dad was offered an H1B visa to come to Minnesota, USA. I am a naturalized citizen of the US and a dual citizen of the Philippines.
My experience was one rooted in moving to an ethnically isolating place where I was given the identity of “Asian American” as a 7 year-old and had to assume what was expected of me in social spaces with that assigned identity. In this ethnically homogenous space, I was socially forced to let go of my Filipino identity to help simplify my concept of self for elementary, middle, and high school. It wasn’t until a few years into my professional career as a counselor did I find my way back to being a FIlipino.
To provide more context on my dual citizenship, I had chosen to re-instate my Filipino Citizenship because my husband had undergone instating his Croatian Citizenship. Although my husband is a US-born white male, his ethnicity is Croatian and Bulgarian and over the course of our marriage I have bore witness to the differences of European Immigrants and Filipino Immigrants. Our parents made such different decisions in keeping ethnic and national identities alive in the homes. I observed his parents dedication as single-income families in a divorced family culture maintain strong ties to their home countries and home languages. It made me reflect on my Filipino nuclear family which was a dual-income household and the decision to not even visit the Philippines after leaving. It dawned on me that as a school counselor helping students to feel comfortable in their ethnic identities in white dominant schools and I was in the midst of considering obtaining EU citizenship through my husband and I had never taken the time to reinstate my Filipino Citizenship. How could I engage authentically with my students if I was still operating under the culture of colonization and not taking advantage of my own dual citizenship opportunities?
I have both my in-laws to thank for this decision, especially my mother-in-law. Through her actions as a single mother immigrant intentionally bringing her children back home to Bulgaria to spend time with grandparents and cousins, I learned that if my parents had wanted to they also could have found a way to keep us connected. In my family of five, I am the only one that has had a strong desire to visit the Philippines. I went back after graduating from undergrad and again 10 years later. Each visit one or more family members have requested to meet me there, but I remain to be the only one in my family of origin that intentionally budgets and plans to take trips back home. But the power of colonization and USA's work of benevolent assimilation for Filipinos had been strongly rooted into my parents' psyche. A pattern I refuse to continue. So with that, I went though the process of obtaining dual citizenship for me and my children.
Christine: I am a second-generation Filipino American born and raised in the United States to Filipino immigrant parents from the province of Ilocos Sur. English and Ilocano, with bits of Tagalog, were the languages spoken at home. (Fun fact: I am more fluent in Ilocano than Tagalog and pay homage to it when using the Ilocano gender-neutral pronoun “isuna.”) My dad was in the U.S. Navy, and my family and I moved to different duty stations including Seattle (where I was born), Guam (where my brother was born), San Diego, San Jose, and finally, Hampton Roads, Virginia. I constantly had to navigate not only different geographic and cultural spaces, but also different intergenerational and intercultural experiences at home, school, and in my community. Such experiences enabled me to embrace change, keep an open mind, and adapt to different circumstances and environments starting from an early age.
In Virginia, it was not as diverse as the West Coast so being in many spaces where I didn’t see myself adequately represented, I felt ashamed to be Filipino American. I didn’t like standing out and people from the dominant culture constantly asking me where I was from, especially when I was born in the United States and had never lived elsewhere. I hated being “different” and feeling othered. However, it wasn’t until I was an undergrad at the University of Virginia and joined the Organization of Young Filipino Americans (OYFA), Peer Advising Family Network (PAFN), Asian Pacific American Leadership Training Institute (APALTI), Women’s Asian American Leadership Initiative (WAALI), and Asian Student Union (ASU) that I felt more pride and appreciation for my cultural heritage.
I was never the problem - the lack of representation and being made to feel like I didn’t belong were. Majoring in Sociology and minoring in Asian Pacific American Studies helped open my eyes to historical and social inequities that affirmed my personal experiences and struggles. I am so grateful for these spaces for being so supportive and empowering, fostering my passion for advocacy, social justice, and mental health.
For this blog, may you share more about your background in school counseling such as the grades and demographics you have clinical experience with?
Judi: Most of my work in school counseling has been with middle school aged students. I have done a great deal of work with 6th graders, which includes understanding and managing transitionary periods in their life and processing through emotions and decisions while in relationships (friendships, familial, and romantic).
The middle school I am at is near the Capitol and in the heart of downtown Austin, which houses a few Section 8 homes, as well as million dollar houses. With its diverse population of economic backgrounds, big population of Honduran families who have immigrated to the U.S, and higher demographics of Special Education students, there are hardly ever any dull moments where I'm at.
Anna Patricia: I have an active license in both school and clinical counseling professions. I have worked in a clinical capacity with children ages 6-18 and have worked in schools k-12. I had formal school counseling roles for middle school and high school students aged settings.
Going between these two professions, there is a misunderstanding about school counselors being synonymous with school-based therapy. Those two services are not the same and each profession is governed by different organizations. School Counseling is governed by the state’s department of education and they follow state and national standards for academic, career, and socioemotional student needs. School-based therapy is governed by different boards and state departments related to counseling, therapy, social work, and psychology.
Understanding of the state’s titles, licensures, and terminologies matter greatly because education and training are drastically different and the distinction between these titles are often misunderstood.
Christine: As previously mentioned, I have worked as a school counselor at the middle and high school levels. I originally thought that I wanted to work at the elementary level, but after completing my practicum at an elementary school, seeing the struggles of many elementary school counselors oftentimes being the only school counselor (some of whom are even split among multiple schools) and constantly having to teach counseling lessons, not to mention many young children’s germs and bodily fluids, I felt that middle and high school were more of my forte. My wonderful experiences at my internship at a middle school, plus my pre-Master’s work experience as a high school college adviser also helped solidify my love for working with tweens and teens.
Schools are microcosms reflecting community and society as a whole so I have worked with a very wide range of client concerns and diverse populations including (but not limited to): anxiety, depression, panic disorder, suicidal ideation, threat ideation, bipolar disorder, reactive attachment disorder, ADD/ADHD, autism, borderline personality disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, homelessness, school refusal, substance abuse, poverty and other social determinants of mental health, rural and suburban communities, military-affiliated families, multilingual families, immigrant families, and more.
Are there any typical challenges or even patterns you notice with students and/or communities you have served? What may be some underlying or co-occurring factors with issues that you notice?
Judi: There are certainly the developmental challenges of working with middle school students. They’re very big on understanding social dynamics - where they fit, how they fit, and finding themselves in very explorative and curious-driven ways. Because they’re going through many physical and hormonal changes, their bodies’ baseline is honestly usually - dysregulation. Of course, we find those moments of calm - but by the end of the day, they’re children who want to play and investigate. Their sense of regulation is much different than an adult’s.
Combining the developmental challenges along with other challenges of access, resources, and trust, the work others and I do requires strong teamwork, communication, empathy, grit, and determination. By the end of the day, many of us (faculty, families, and other community support) want what is best for the kids - but how we get there is definitely a journey that takes time and dedication - and to be honest, it’s time and dedication that often falls short when you have 900+ students in one school.
But when you work in a genuine and true community, the reminder and hope is - you are not alone and you don’t have to do it alone. If one cannot finish, there are other staff and faculty there to also support.
Anna Patricia: It is difficult to answer this question because the patterns are growing and are largely systemic. In truth, I could probably do a series of topics and how they connect.
When I think of narrowing the focus of the answer to my geographic location of Minnesota public schools. I can sum it up to a combination of classism and monolingualism as it relates to that school district’s level of acceptance of the prevalence of racism within their community. Significant problems arise when adults who hold power, teachers, support staff, administrators, operate from a place of well-meaning actions that result in benevolent harm.
I’ve witnessed a pattern in Minnesota schools that I didn’t encounter as often working in Arizona schools. Educators I worked with in MN would operate from a place of privilege or implicit bias assuming they knew what was best for the student or the student’s family culture. Triangulation would occur between white or culturally white passing faculty and their relationships between the following individuals: student, other teachers, parent/guardian.
I encountered too often a problem solving situation where the team of educators would identify the student’s target behavior concern is lack of engagement/motivation, but due to implicit bias from the faculty about preconceived notions about BIPOC families’ hardships, teachers hesitate to involve parents or family. Especially those with language barriers or accents. Assumptions are made about the parent’s capacity for attending meetings, the parenting strategies at home, or family resources all solely based on appearances and expression of cultural identities. Over time teachers learned to triangulate parent and student relationships assuming that would help the student engage in the coursework, but because it took away the ability of family members to hold students accountable, the triangulation actually had the opposite effect. Teachers were enabling the low engagement and motivation by lowering student expectations based on the teachers’ personal biases. The students would then lose opportunities to experience calculated stress environments that would allow for developing resiliency due to natural consequences.
Eventually the inability to develop resiliency leads to increased anxiety and depression as it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy that they aren’t able to do the work because of their cultural circumstance.
Schools in MN have implemented equity specialists and cultural liaisons to try to bridge the gap of understanding family culture, but licensed teachers rarely view these positions as qualified to make decisions for student engagement because of implicit bias. I’ve seen these positions get misused as a go-between for disciplinary practices for administrators; or the opposite, be individually ridiculed due to their lack of education and knowledge about curricula.
It creates a large problem when schools do not employ licensed staff of color that is representative of the student body ratios for ethnic demographics*. Engaging cultural liaisons or equity specialists just employs a sort of cultural translator. The thing with translation is that many things get lost in translation. This method doesn’t allow for someone trained in school counseling with the ethnic and cultural knowledge of the student population to work in partnership with the parent/guardian community.
The implicit bias of the faculty creates a double standard where ethnically diverse children are consequenced for low engagement but the school faculty and administration aren't willing to partner with the family for the sake of the student. It is crucial to hire support staff that represents the student body’s ratio for ethnic demographics. Culture isn’t something that can be easily translated.
*Hiring for racial demographics of the student population is not recommended. For example, too often have Black Americans been assumed to be able to respond to the cultural needs of East African refugees or East Asians being hired to support South Asians, etc. Matching the racial identity does not automatically guarantee that they have the knowledge to support ethnic differences.
From a clinical perspective, school-based therapists are often in school buildings due to a contract with a private agency. In rare occasions in MN a school might have the funding to hire a licensed clinician, but more often than not, due to financial strain, School-based therapists are often contracted through a private agency to provide services to students in a school building.
The intention for these services was to reduce the complications of needing to transport students to their therapy services and to also have an easier time to liaise with school staff about student supports and interventions. What happens in practice is full of limitations.
School-based therapists are governed not by the policies and procedure of the school, but by the policies of their private agency and the ethics boards of their corresponding licensures. At minimum, they are required to have release of information to partner with school staff. Schools aren’t actually privy to the information of what happens in therapy without the traditional records requests and procedures that exist at any agency or clinic. In addition, these school-based therapists are often churned through as part of their training post-graduate school but pre-licensure. They often leave the schools after obtaining licensure. Consistency of care isn’t accessible because the mental health billing systems and procedures don’t integrate well into school systems and school schedules. Therapists and counselors are limited to billing only when in session, some states and insurances might offer billing codes for care consultations but if dealing with private insurance it is highly unlikely.
Systemically, clinicians don't actually have the time or capacity to connect and team with MTSS frameworks (Multi-tirered systems of support) because they do not usually get paid for that extra step. Billing is only available for psychotherapy sessions. When the positions were created the theory was that school-based clinicians can partner with teachers and school staff to help provide student interventions is great in theory, but isn't possible in practice unless there is a good contract or the clinician is hired by the district themselves and allows for funding for the therapist to get paid for consultation.
Even if these needs are met systematically, a larger issue is that the rate of change in the public school education system is rapid. Every year new teaching practices are implemented, new technology is used, schools are creating and recreating disciplinary practices. Therapists and clinical counselors working with k-12 aged individuals should be learning about how schools operate in their area. When we take a look at providing therapy for ages 6-18, many therapists and counselors don’t know how schools teach math and reading. They don’t access academic ability or aptitude for this age group and many still operate as if the students are learning in the same way that we learned in our k-12 education. When the reality is that students now are expected to accomplish so much more with significantly less instruction.
For example, teachers now often use YouTube videos as lessons requiring young students to have the capacity to listen to the YouTube video and take notes on what they're supposed to learn with zero instruction on what they are looking for to take notes on. Children in elementary and middle school are expected to operate at the same level as college-aged students when it comes to note taking and comprehension. If there's even 30 seconds of distraction, students miss so much academic content. The increase in anxiety and depression in students grades K-12 Isn't just about family life and social interaction. Developmentally they aren't being given opportunities to grow in their math and reading self concept which is a crucial part of identity development for middle childhood through early adolescence. The largest mistake I see my colleagues make when working with ages 6 through 18 is that they don't perceive academic aptitude as part of their cultural considerations.
Just imagine language fluency alone for eighth graders who aren't able to read past a third grade reading level. not being able to communicate to your peers at anything past a third grade speaking level. Imagine the level of anxiety that would get triggered in an eighth grader when they cannot complete any of the homework assignments. They know they are failing but somehow keep moving to the next grade level. Their desperation to cope with their reality leading to increased risky behaviors like cheating, lying, self-harm, substance use, and many others. Inadvertently leading them to getting early diagnoses of things like borderline personality disorder narcissistic personality disorder Oppositional Defiant Disorder, bipolar disorder, when these disorders aren't supposed to be diagnosed in anyone under 18. Yet we are seeing them get diagnosed more and more in the populations of 15-18 year olds.
What therapists are missing when working with this population is the impact of educational policies like No Child Left Behind. It's a very crucial cultural consideration to pause and take a look at this age group’s academic abilities specific to math and reading because it is about understanding of their own competence. Therapists often miss this factor when making a diagnostic assessment of this age group because they assume they know how the school system works just because we went through an education system. But the truth is the education systems have changed so drastically and continue to change rapidly with the advent of AI that we absolutely need to start including getting academic records for our school age clients.
Christine: Across the various school communities I have served, I have observed that many youth have increasingly struggled with anxiety and depression. They can unintentionally compare themselves to one another and feel like they are “not good / pretty / smart / talented / funny / etc. enough”. Being a tween or teen right now is especially challenging since social media and technology are more prevalent today, and many youth are overstimulated by constant streams of information - which can be both good and not so good. On one hand, it is uplifting that many youth today are becoming more informed and more actively involved in issues and causes that matter to them and have platforms to share their talents, skills, and encouragement with others, yet it can also be disappointing when some youth utilize social media and technology to spread or become the recipient of harmful messages at any time of the day.
As a school counselor, what are the ways you have responded and provided support with these challenges that may be different from other staff or even outside therapists in private practice?
Judi: I often like to meet with the student first - that way I can best understand what they might need support with. Some just want to process through it; and others want support in broaching subjects with their parents and/or school staff. From there we come up with next steps and things to reflect on.
There will be times when broaching subject matters with parents and/or school staff requires some consultation and conversation.
I ask a lot of questions, and I do a lot of follow-ups with the adults. There have been so many things that fall to the wayside when I don't do both of the aforementioned actions.
I also like to CC and connect the individuals pertaining to the matter/student. It goes back to 'not doing it alone'. If I see I have two - three people talking about the same topic, I put us all in a group email. Whether we anticipated being together on a team or not, here we are... so let's talk about it.
Anna Patricia: I've worked at 4 different school districts in MN and one in AZ as a school counselor. I've worked at three different mental health agencies as a clinical counselor. In the school setting, I have been an equity team lead and an equity committee chair for the teacher’s union, I’ve been a member of each building leadership team at every school I’ve worked at, I’ve also been an MTSS facilitator, and crisis interventionist. On top of these titles and rules I also would provide professional development annually related to mental health supports and Equity, diversity, and inclusion.
I've done a lot of work and training for supporting student populations to support in many different challenges. Every single title I just listed was a role I held on top of my actual job as a school counselor. Which meant supporting 300-450 students annually while following and maintaining the American School Counseling Association’s national standards for student development. For perspective this means reviewing every student's academic coursework and schedule to ensure that they are in line for graduating, creating curriculum for classroom and group interventions related to academic, career, and socio-emotional learning.
Therapists often have no idea how heavy the work load is of a professional school counselor. As a BIPOC counselor in the education setting, not taking on any of the equity roles and responsibilities can lead to feeling complicit in discriminatory practices. there is often a shared understanding across BIPOC individuals in education about “if we don't speak up then who will?”
If a BIPOC school counselor or educator wants to make moves to support marginalized communities, it becomes their job to be the voice in these spaces often meaning taking on extra roles to provide professional development and support to staff.
Christine: Being with my schools and students for the entire day, I felt that I had a big picture understanding of the academic, career, and personal/social struggles of school-aged youth. Unlike other school staff and outside therapists who oftentimes only saw what happened in one classroom period, on the bus, in the cafeteria, in the library, in the gym, on the field, on the court, onstage, in the therapy session, or any other particular setting, I usually could see a panoramic view of what was going on with a child in different combinations of school-home-community contexts.
I not only worked with just a student, nor in isolation, but I also constantly collaborated and consulted with teachers, paraprofessionals, custodians, secretaries, librarians, school nurses, cafeteria staff, bus drivers, guardians, administrators, social workers, psychologists, school resource officers, outpatient therapists, hospital staff, and more. Being a school counselor is like being a multi-tool - resourceful, flexible, adaptable to circumstances, handy, and comprehensive! Ultimately, I believe that with more collaborative support, intentionality, and proactive services, we can better serve our youth, school staff, schools, communities, and societies as a whole. And I hope that if we can help our youth with their mental health early and often, we can also help prevent more serious mental health concerns later and when these youth become adults.
How has your cultural background and lived experiences as a BIPOC, with some specificity of being Filipino/a/x, informed the way you provide counseling for students and/or the communities you have served?
Judi: I come from a cultural understanding that though we all might have unique life experiences, many of us also share common thread. I often look for what we share in common, whether it be a shared goal or shared perspective, and we work together from there. Growing up and being raised in a multicultural home, neighborhoods, and schools has allowed me to work together alongside many different people.
Anna Patricia: My experience first started out as being tokenized by White staff and administrators. although I am fluent in Tagalog I have no evidence of any accent because as a seven-year-old I was praised for not having one and I learned very quickly the value of not having an accent in Minnesota. In the early stages of my career I was often cherry-picked by leadership, both school administrators and clinical supervisors, to provide supports for Black American and Indigenous child and adolescent populations. Because I wanted to be good at my job, I did a lot of research in the history of these populations to better support the students and families.
It wasn't until I had children that I realized I knew more about the history of West Africans and indigenous Americans than I did about my own people in the Philippines. This drastically shifted my research and turned into me looking for resources that were similar to the ones that I found for Black and Indigenous populations. Ever since the start of this journey, I had made a conscious decision to show up as my authentic self to all of my students. I began to identify as Filipino when I was working with students and their families.
When I got hired at my last high school that I worked at, I made a conscious decision to show up as my authentic self with the staff and administration, too. That it was time to also be authentic to the people who made the decisions and show up as unapologetically Filipino as I felt and saw myself. This is something I have continued to integrate even though I'm not in education anymore. For all of my clients I make sure it's clear to them who I am as an individual by showing up in my office and making sure there's elements of my identity present in my office. Not just verbal representation, but also in decor and non-verbal representations.
Christine: In the communities I have served, I have always been the only person of Filipino descent, and at times, I was one of the very few BIPOC individuals. Admittedly, it had sometimes been very isolating, even scary, especially amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and anti-Asian hate. I had experienced microaggressions and discriminatory acts, including youth pulling their eyes back to look smaller around me, bowing to me in a mocking manner to get laughs from peers, and even saying hurtful things such as “Go back to your rice fields!” and “Ching chong!” Some people have even gotten my racial and ethnic backgrounds incorrectly. I’ve often had to educate and inform people in the spaces I’m in about myself and my intersectional identities with the hope that they gain awareness and empathy.
Despite these challenges, I continue to be proud of and passionate about who I am, and I can better advocate for youth with similar BIPOC and Asian / Asian American / Filipinx / Filipinx American identities. At times, it can also be exhausting as well. When faced with some obstacles such as these, I have tapped into my Filipino cultural values of seeking community and not going at things alone. I have found amazing and compassionate allies who can assist me, including teachers, administrators, outpatient therapists, social workers, psychologists, nurses, and others who have also continued valuable conversations with youth and families. I am so grateful for them, and in my own counseling practice, I strive to foster positive interprofessional collaborations. I also want to normalize and model to my students that it is OK not to know everything (nor should anyone be burdened with doing so) and that it is OK to ask for help.
What are ways you are able to identify for other staff, schools, families, and/or communities to better support the process of improving mental healthcare for students and school counselors from your perspective?
Judi: I have been fortunate enough to work at a school that allows and trusts me to provide mental healthcare for students. Unfortunately, I know many school counselors that don't have these opportunities.
For me, action will always speak the loudest. I often do observations in the most social common areas of the school - the cafeteria and hallways :). I observe for a couple of weeks and honestly, not really saying more than a hello or sharing a smile, trying to get a sense of the community and the needs.
After I assess the needs, I then ask teachers and staff some of their observations - either through passing, meetings, or email.
From there the other school counselors and I meet, and we talk what we might want to address through the school counseling program.
It is usually through this process that administration (principal and assistant principals) see the magic and beauty the school counseling office can create for the school.
Anna Patricia: I think the only answer to this is visibility. I assumed leadership roles because I received the feedback that staff and students felt seen and this allowed for community connections. When I made myself visible to students and families by way of newsletters and phone calls home, I was able to engage at a higher rate with my ethnically diverse students than my colleagues. Visibility and representation allows for the integration of Kapwa in these spaces. Students feel most comfortable when they are represented in the spaces that they occupy.
To add, Kapwa is defined in Sikolohiyang Pilipino as the concept of a "shared identity" considered to be at the core of Filipino Social Psychology. For me, it aligns perfectly with Urie Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological Model because it takes the individual and views them in the context of their surroundings. Each ecological system is non-discriminatory. It includes the geography, the ecological composition, the context of time, society, and all the multicultural factors that create an individual's identity. Assumptions that the Kapwa or "shared identity" is only related from person to person is an anthropocentric view on the world and the individual. When very deeply, similar to what I've learned from Indigenous American beliefs of Mino-Bimaadiziwin and the African belief of Ubuntu, Kapwa is interconnectedness with all, not just human identities, but all.
In the school setting, this is where ASCA for MTSS becomes a crucial framework. MTSS takes each individual school and takes into account all the systems of support available to students, families, and staff. When done with fidelity the work is incredibly collaborative and operates as a web of interconnectedness. It is crucial for an MTSS system to review all types of data that spans the various ecological systems that are listed in Bronfenbrenner's work. This allows administration and support staff to move the tiered systems to meet the needs of all students.
School Counselors should familiarize themselves with MTSS for ASCA and use it as the framework to provide services to their students. The tiered system of supports approach allows for students to feel empowered to take care of themselves and to take care of their communities and it frees up the school counselor to target their interventions to the student and families that need the extra time and nurturing. MTSS for ASCA framework supports students by empowering them and providing targeted interventions as needed. but it also supports the school counselor by ensuring that they don't get burnt out stretching themselves then trying to help everyone at the same capacity. The MTSS framework helps allocate attention and focus by triage.
As far as school based therapy considerations, I encourage these therapists to engage in more family sessions. even going as far as getting releases of information for specific school staff that might be helpful to engage in services with the student themselves. It would be crucial to find ways to get funding to be involved in IEP meetings as needed and other intervention and support meetings.
Christine: First, strive to understand the role of a school counselor as a mental health professional. School counselors are often the most misunderstood staff in schools, still being vilified and viewed as “schedulers,” “dream crushers,” or “only caring about college and career concerns.” Historically, school counseling began as “vocational guidance” in the United States in the early 1900s amidst the Industrial Revolution. This period was preoccupied with training youth to become the next generation of workers and productive members of society. The term “guidance counselor” also originated during this time, and the professionals working as guidance counselors were typically teachers or school administrators who focused on a youth’s academic and career pursuits. The profession was unregulated and uncredentialed, and guidance counselors did not have any mental health training. The term “school counselor” was introduced in 1990 to shift the public’s view of the more comprehensive academic, career, and personal/social domains of the profession. School counselors today receive similar educational training as clinical mental health counselors, and many even go on to become licensed to work in private practice, hospitals, community mental health agencies, and other settings.
Second, advocate for more support for school counselors so that they can focus primarily on direct counseling services for students. School districts can hire more staff to assist with clerical tasks. I have had some school counselor friends in other districts tell me about their office having more secretaries or assistants who only work on data entry and student schedules, which frees them up to work directly with students in a proactive manner. In the high school settings especially, I experienced firsthand and witnessed my colleagues work very late nights (sometimes up until 3 AM) and coming into work on Saturdays and Sundays due to attempts to complete tedious clerical and data entry tasks. When school administrators, district leaders, teachers, outpatient therapists, and others do not understand the role of school counselors, they can underutilize them. Too often, many school counselors are tasked with non-counseling duties that take time away from direct counseling services with youth including (but not limited to): data entry, master scheduling, new/transfer student enrollment, lunch duty, substitute teaching, bus duty, 504 and IEP case management, and more.
When more individuals are informed about these historical contexts, the evolution of the school counseling profession, and the mental health training of school counselors, school counselors can be better understood, valued, and respected - thus enabling them to help youth with mental health.
Do you have anything else that you would like to share?
Judi: Being a school counselor has certainly taught me and helped me grow exponentially in the realm of community and kapwa. I think when you hear that all the same time - the assistant principal ripped her jeans while jumping a fence and chasing a student down the busy street near the capitol of Austin, TX, a teacher is breaking up a fight in the courtyard, and you’re holding space for the student who just needs some peace and quiet from all the busy-ness - it might be chaotic, but it’s a place where people have found and are finding their purpose and belonging.
Through the frustrations, tears, and moments of joy, it truly becomes a home and a family.
Anna Patricia: If I were to choose a profession I would have loved to remain a school counselor because I felt that it aligned a lot more with Kapwa. There's a lot more opportunity to work within communities and encourage collectivism in the education system than there is in the mental health fields and the clinical boards.
The biggest feedback that I got from students is how much it meant to them when their ethnic identity was represented in the staff. It's even more beneficial if you can speak their language but if not just visual representation of the shared identities carried a lot of importance for the students and families.
For additional resources, I recommend visiting the website for School Counselors for MTSS and reviewing information on their training program.
Christine: I’m grateful to be uniquely positioned as a Filipina American and as a school counselor because we are rare and valuable unicorns! If you are also like me or are considering becoming a school-based mental health professional, know that you are worthy and belong! The youth and communities you serve or hope to serve need you!
Please feel free to reach out to me if you need additional support, community, and mentorship! You are not alone!
To connect, you may reach out directly to Judi at judi.yapias@protonmail.com, Anna Patricia at grgurovicap@consider-it-wellness.com, and Christine at cmqturner@gmail.com
You may also follow Anna Patricia on Instagram at @considerit.wellness and Kasamahan at @kasamahan
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