Name: Giselle Molaei
Social Justice Group: Children, Mental Health, and the Pandemic
Date of Fieldwork: January 28, 2022
Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Ty Beauchamp, School Psychologist
Type of Fieldwork: Interview
What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?[:: :
On Friday, the 28th of January, our group had our very first interview with Ty Beauchamp. Ty is our School Psychologist who recently moved from Los Angeles, California who helps and meets with kids through grade 7 to grade 12. Ty had to go to under grad school for 4 years for psychology and public service which he enjoyed. He also studied for school psychology for 3 years. Finally, he went for his doctor education for another 4 years.
Ty told us that he believes that Covid-19 has impacted adolescents in every way possible and that people have a standard for teens to act a certain way even if they have been deprived of many things in their lives. He told us about how people who have never experienced anxiety or depression experience it now. He says many people are seeking mental health care and there aren’t really that many people to talk to. There are some other issues with that as well.
He says that it is hard to open up to a random person so people should go “therapist shopping” as he says to find someone that you like and are comfortable with opening up to. He suggests meeting with many people and seeing if you like the way they talk, if you find their voice annoying or if you think they are the right fit for you. We were brought to the attention that people never bring up mental health so no one ever talks about it. Ty says that parents don’t try to ignore the signs of their child going through metal health problems but they don’t know what the signs are. Eating/sleeping patterns and behavioral issues are signs that people don’t recognize.
We asked him for resources so we could speak to and ask questions or get more information. He introduced us to the TREVOR project, and he also brought up our peers. He says that everyone in our school building is comfortable with opening up because we are in a safe environment that speaks about mental health on a daily basis. He suggests talking to our classmates for which he thinks would be very useful to our project. He finds that if you dig deep and ask specific questions unlike “How are you?” people tend to speak about how they are feeling more easily because they know you are really listening and care. He thinks that we should take more leadership in our project and start things like clubs or put up posters and meet with people which would make a huge difference in his eyes.
It was such an honor to have our first interview with Ty. It was very important that we spoke to him first so we would have some of the best information straight from a psychologist. We learned and heard about so much and because of his words we are going to have a great start to this project.
