Tag Archives: Workforce Development

Updates from the BHRS ODE Workforce, Education & Training Team

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Welcome lunch for our 23-24 interns, Ayanna Wade and Isaiah Cajbon, with project leads, Nica Kelleher and Sylvia Tang. Not picture: Project lead, Charo Martinez

Happy May! In the Office of Diversity and Equity (ODE), we’re currently immersed in preparations for our annual internship program. Throughout the spring, our team dedicates time to recruitment, application reviews, scoring meetings, and student interviews. This year, we’re excited to host three interns who will contribute significantly to our diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts within the Behavioral Health and Recovery Services division and our community. While the Multicultural Organizational Development (MCOD) program received the most interest from applicants, we also saw enthusiasm for the Workforce, Education and Training (WET) team and Health Equity Initiative (HEI) program. Despite MCOD not hosting an intern this year, it remained a top choice among candidates.

Our outreach efforts yielded a remarkable response, with 147 applications received from various platforms, including Handshake, Indeed, Survey Monkey, and a List Serv I maintained from last year. We were pleasantly surprised to receive interest from students as far away as Morocco, Georgia, and Minnesota, as well as inquiries from schools we haven’t partnered with prior. After careful consideration, we’ve narrowed

down the pool to 18 semi-finalists for final review by the scoring committee. Our next steps include conducting interviews with the final six candidates and finally, selecting the top three candidates by June. To ensure fairness, priority will be given to programs that didn’t have an intern last year.

Here is an example of some of our ODE interns’ projects: Medicaid’s Role in Addressing the Opioid Epidemic | Behavioral Health & Recovery Services Blog (smcbhrsblog.org) Westmoor High School Peer Assistants trained in Youth Mental Health First Aid | Behavioral Health & Recovery Services Blog (smcbhrsblog.org) Healing Connections Open Mic – San Mateo County Health (smchealth.org) Self-Care Everyday | Search Results | Behavioral Health & Recovery Services Blog (smcbhrsblog.org)

We’re excited about the progress we’ve made and look forward to onboarding our interns and guiding them through their next steps. If you have any questions or would like to learn more, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at HS_BHRS_Internships@smcgov.org Thank you for your interest in our internship programs and community!

Written by Stacy Williams, BHRS Office of Diversity & Equity’s Workforce, Education, and Training Team

Reflecting on Culture in the Workplace

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We are so blessed to be surrounded by a multitude of cultures, thoughts, and perspectives within our workplace. Every day we have opportunities to connect and effectively communicate when others are willing to share, and we are willing to listen. Overall, our workplace can be a great place to celebrate our cultures coming together. Here are some examples of how we can celebrate culture in the workplace!

Connection: As we continue sharing stories, experiences, and learn similarities among each other, we can connect on different levels which fosters growth within our workforce and trust within the communities we serve. For example, many cultures place heavy importance on family, particularly elders which may guide decision making. Furthermore, at times, especially when the events of the world feel darker and our hearts feel heavy, connections help draw us back to each other and to the challenges that we can only overcome together. These struggles remind us of the fragility of humanity and that work, though seemingly an isolated space, is still yet another environment where we can potentially grow and heal with others.

Communication: Communication has always been key to increased understanding, but the key to communication can differ depending on the individual and their culture. Learning about the values of our teammates and the way they work can be vital in our efforts to collaborate, achieve work goals and overcome challenges. For example, within BHRS’ Office of Diversity & Equity, our team’s simple but important discussion of love languages helps us support each other more effectively. This deeper understanding gives insight about how to lift one another up. In turn, the creation of these environments allows for a better space to be productive and progressive.

Celebration: Culture is such a great thing to celebrate! From the preservation of language, art, holidays, to traditions, our workforce represents such a range of exciting backgrounds. Each lens reflects the hearts of the individuals within our workforce and the unique perspectives that we can access as we evolve our approaches to care.

My hope is that we continue to embrace culture within the workplace, ask questions and celebrate the beauty of our melding cultures!

Written by Irene Pham (she/her), BHRS Office of Diversity & Equity Workforce Education & Training (WET) Training Coordinator

Meet ODE’s Workforce, Education and Training (WET) Team!

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Angela Quiroz, Elise Cabilatazan, Andrew Tardiff, Stacy Williams, Irene Pham

The love of learning, hope for growth and passion to be part of the fight for equity are some of the values that drives BHRS Office of Diversity & Equity‘s WET team. The WET team, consisting of new and seasoned members, is excited to come together to continue fostering growth within our system while also seeking to accomplish established goals and support the learning needs of our staff through a variety of trainings, workshops, and programs.

In the upcoming fiscal year, the WET team is striving to bring back a number of trainings both in-person and virtual including Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), Prevention and Management of Assaultive Behavior, and Motivational Interviewing, to name a few, as well as increasing staff’s access to Continuing Education (CE) eligible trainings.

Moreover, the internship program is spurring to action and preparing to welcome our next round of clinical and ODE interns. The WET team is kicking things off with an in-person orientation; an event that has not happened in 2 years due to the pandemic. A number of interns will benefit from being identified as cultural stipend participants and have the opportunity to work alongside one of the Health Equity Initiatives (HEIs) on a community related project. The internship program is also being revamped to include new outreach strategies to help bolster the training opportunities offered in our county.

We aim to do our part to support our teams with their professional and personal growth and will continue to look for ways to improve and excel.

Written by Irene Pham (she/her), BHRS Office of Diversity and Equity