I have appreciated the steady financial assistance T&H has provided all the
way through my schooling. It has been unmatched and extremely helpful. It is
great that our Native organizations put monies aside for scholarships. I believe
that I have heard T&H has an alumni...if this is so, I would like to become
a part of it in the late summer, after I have started work. I think it would
be wonderful to have the opportunity to give back!
When I returned to school, I had reached a plateau within the health field I was in. I knew I wanted to continue, so I returned to school. Now that I have my Master's degree, I have successfully removed myself from that plateau. My degree is in Community Psychology with an emphasis in Clinical Psychology.
I have recently been hired at Juneau Youth Services as a clinician, which was my goal when I left JYS full time in 1999. I will begin working there on June 1, 2005. They are excited to have me and I cannot wait to return to working with the company and the youth they serve. This has been a joy of mine since I began working for JYS in 1994. Thus, the Clinical emphasis has aided me greatly in my professional career.
In addition, the Community Psychology portion of my degree has taught me a great deal about primary prevention and promotion within a community. Volunteering with the All Nation's Children Dance Group is what motivated me to further my education in this field. I believe that Juneau, and Alaska has done well working at creating intervention programs to assist our residents through some of the more difficult times in life. I highly enjoy Community Psychology as it seeks to prevent unwarranted difficult times and promote health within the community. I would like to be a part of increasing preventative and proactive efforts within Juneau, Southeast, and Alaska as I see it as an important part of a healthy community. The All Nation's Children Dance Group is a small start in working toward this goal. I will continue my volunteer efforts with this dance group and hope to increase other preventative and proactive efforts within our area.
Further, the Community Psychology Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks put forth great effort to train students with an Alaska Native emphasis. As a result, I had the opportunity to think in cross-cultural terms in both prevention (community) and intervention (clinical) strategies. I have many thoughts on ways of incorporating Traditional methods of healing with the modern methods of healing, in hopes to gain the most out of the healing process for our Native peoples. The health field, at this time, is quite open to cross-cultural methods of healing. I believe this is a great time to work towards more culturally appropriate ways of working with our people. I would like to work toward this vision.
Thus, at the end of my Master's degree, although I find myself physically, emotionally, and cognitively drained, I am quite excited about returning to the Southeast area and getting to work!
Renee Culp (Klagunk)