A Day in the Life of a Behavioral Specialists | Cincinnati Children’s
https://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/patients/child/special-needs/medical-health/mental-behavior
Experts in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Cincinnati Children’s have extensive experience in helping young people manage their conditions so they can live their lives as fully as possible.
In this video, several of those experts provide a Day in the Life insight into their roles as behavioral health specialists.
Aubrey Smith, Behavioral Health Specialist: Hi, I’m Aubrey. I’m a behavioral specialist on the neuro behavioral unit at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital at College Hill and this is a day in the life of a mental health specialist. Mental health specialists, we run individualized behavior plans, focusing on getting the kids from their crisis back to baseline so they’re stabilized to go home and go back to school.
Lisa Morgan, Behavior Health Specialist: My name is Lisa Morgan, and I am a behavioral health specialist in the partial hospitalization program, here at Green Township. We’re seeing a lot of depression and anxiety, many of our patients that’s who are coming through the door.
Courtney Kozakiewicz, RN, Behavioral Health Specialist: Hi, I’m Courtney, and I’m a registered nurse at Cincinnati Children’s College Hill campus. Our team just collaborates first thing in the morning, and we just discuss what’s happened in the last 24 hours.
Aubrey Smith, Behavioral Health Specialist: For some of our kids that come in, like I said, they are in crisis, and they may be severely aggressive at home or at school, then they can be also self-injurious toward themselves.
Lisa Morgan, Behavior Health Specialist: Because we’re in the middle of a pandemic and those stressors, what do you do when you’ve been out of school, almost a year and a half?
Courtney Kozakiewicz, RN, Behavioral Health Specialist: These kids have lost their normalcy of every single day of going to school. And for some of these kids, school was their safe place.
Aubrey Smith, Behavioral Health Specialist: One thing I love is seeing the progress. When you see a kid come in full crisis and you work with them, one to one every day and keep coming back and you’re seeing them able to go to groups and do their work.
Courtney Kozakiewicz, RN, Behavioral Health Specialist: Keeping the parents just in constant contact and we are talking to them because they know their child best. I’ve seen a lot of situations where this is the last place they want to put their child. But it’s always so great to hear at the end, when they say, ‘you’ve made all the difference.’
Aubrey Smith, Behavioral Health Specialist: The one really cool thing about our job is we’ll teach someone who may come in, they’re hitting themselves or are hurting others, because they can’t tell us that they are in pain or that they’re hungry. And teaching them through a (PECS) picture exchange communication system, you know, they’re able to have that communication so their behaviors’ decrease.
Lisa Morgan, Behavior Health Specialist: I have a can’t wait to get to job. And I don’t know how else to say that. But I enjoy what I do, I can’t wait to get here. And I think the best part is working with a group of providers that we’re all on the same quest to help them get better.
Courtney Kozakiewicz, RN, Behavioral Health Specialist: It’s great for us to be able to support each other through a lot of the stuff that like we have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. But it’s also just great to have the colleagues that I have to be able to enjoy work. I enjoy showing up to work because I love the people I get to work with.
Aubrey Smith, Behavioral Health Specialist: We are these kids advocates. We really advocate for them, making sure that we’re putting their best interests first, setting them up for success.
Lisa Morgan, Behavior Health Specialist: This is the place. This is absolutely the place. We’ll follow you from the beginning all the way to the end of treatment.
Aubrey Smith, Behavioral Health Specialist: It is truly the most rewarding place. The kids will make you smile, laugh. They have truly taken over my heart.
Lisa Morgan, Behavior Health Specialist: We help them learn how to reintegrate back into the community and back in school successfully.
Courtney Kozakiewicz, RN, Behavioral Health Specialist: To be able to see a kid be stable enough to go home and to be excited to be reunited with their families again, there’s no better feeling.