On behalf of the Washington Association of Marriage and Family Therapy we would like to thank everyone who participated in Mentor Day ‘22. With Mentor Day being virtual again this year we were wondering what our attendee turnout would be like. Fortunately, we had a wonderful turnout thanks to our WAMFT community!
We started our day off by discussing different work settings that MFTs can work in. Our panelists were Tri Ngyuen (Private Practice), Charity Laughlan (Group Practice,) Danielle Allan (Schools,) Astrik Price (Military,) and CJ Ellsworth (Community Mental Health.)
Attendees then got to dive into learning more about specialty topics in the field. Attendees asked the speakers questions pertaining to how they became interested in the field, what credentials they need, and how they may be able to follow a similar path. Deb Thomas spoke on Sex Therapy, Katie Jo Glaves and Amanda Stine on Neurodiversity, Bonnie Young on Mindfulness, and Macy Doung on Play Therapy. Later in the day, Tina Schermer Sellers and Ronda Evans taught about supervision needs for students and associate therapists.
Mentorship is at the core of the spirit of the day. The #Whova breakout function allowed for participants to meet mentors in a round-robin format. Our mentors this year included Billie Tyler, Astrik Price, Danesha Deloatch, Tri Ngyuen, Derrick Hoard, and Margaret McLeod.
Our day concluded with our keynote speaker, Briana Mills. She spoke on Disability and Stigma: Effects on Mental Health. Our audience was extremely engaged with the information she presented. Attendees showed utmost gratitude for all of the information and vulnerability Briana shared in her keynote presentation.
We are still feeling the energy from the virtual conference last week. Thank you to all of our attendees, volunteers, speakers, and mentors for attending Mentor Day ‘22 to make this a successful event. We hope attendees will further connect with our mentors beyond this event!
Finally, shoutout to #Whova for assisting with Mentor Day, making it easy for our attendees to participate in leader board games, networking, and interaction. We would like to give a special shoutout to our leaderboard winners: Amanda Brown, Junli Zhong, and Heather Gamble! They came out on top with their highest participation throughout the day by interacting with the #Whova portal.