Fishy Business




Benji Miskuski (pictured above), who runs AdoreAquariums, has generously donated a fish tank, and pledged to give 25% of his profits, to SIC. We interviewed him to find out more.


 Why did you pick South Island Centre?

Because of my own struggles with mental health and a need to serve the community. The counselling here is second to none. And there’s a fee sliding scale, so everybody gets to have it.

An aquarium is an enlightened donation - the attention it draws and the peaceful sound it makes. You knew this?

When I was 22, I got a Groupon for adults with developmental disabilities, and we got into environmental therapy. The effects  were unbelievable, how it calmed people down - myself included. And when I got sick with PTSD, it was one of the best therapies.



Is that why you became a fishy guy?

One of the reasons, definitely. I wanted to be able to spread fish everywhere. It’s kinda like the universal divider. The skinhead punk and the guy in the $500 suit are both attracted to the fish tank. They take a break from their day, and think, “Oh wow, fish!”

What would you say to a young person today who’s  thinking about getting counselling?

My best suggestion is not to wait until it’s a catastrophe. Come in now. You can be very comfortable with the counsellors here. You can say, “Sometimes I feel like this, sometimes I think like that,” and they’ve probably heard it all before, believe it or not. So, they’ll come up with a plan with you. And yeah, it definitely gets easier.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Circle of Courage A Model of Education

Image
(Posted by Christopher Chase, February 18, 2015) “ Anthropologists have long known that Native Americans reared courageous, respectful children without using harsh coercive controls. Nevertheless, Europeans colonizing North America tried to “civilize” indigenous children in punitive boarding schools, unaware that Natives possessed a sophisticated philosophy that treated children with deep respect. ” ~ The Circle of Courage The Circle of Courage is a model of positive youth development first described in the book Reclaiming Youth at Risk, co-authored by Larry Brendtro, Martin Brokenleg, and Steve Van Bockern. The model integrates Native American philosophies of child-rearing, the heritage of early pioneers in education and youth work, and contem-porary resilience research. The Circle of Courage is based in four universal growth needs of all children: belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity. These traditional values are validated by contemporary child research and are c...
Read more

Interview with Jenny Schoenberger

Image
Jenny Schoenberger, MA, CCC, joined SIC in September 2018 as a specialized Children and Youth Counsellor. Since then she has counselled 29 children and youth, 38 parents and guardians, and three independent adults. Jenny also collaborates with countless school teachers, social workers, and other important people in children’s lives. In an interview with Time to Talk she offers useful insight into her tireless work with young people at the centre.  Please describe the work you do. I’m a child, youth and family counsellor and also enjoy working with adults.. I work through a family system perspective which basically means everyone in a family affects one another — children affect parents and visa versa. So while most of my work happens one-on-one, I often meet parents one-on-one, too, and sometimes bring parents into a child or youths’ session. These parent and family sessions  enable me to gain parents’ perspectives of what’s going well and  not so well, and they als...
Read more

Young Anxiety

Image
“We would like to think of history as progress, but if progress is measured in the mental health and happiness of young people, then we have been going backward at least since the early 1950s.”  - Psychology Today We are in the grip of an epidemic of young people at odds with the world around them. Parents and teachers find this difficult to confront, a poor reflection of the society we've created for them. Much of the blame has been heaped on social media. Last month Instagram, a social network popular with young people, was in the spotlight for claiming the 51 million likes that “Eugene”, an image of an egg, had generated was intended to raise awareness of mental health issues. At the same time the company was being censured by the press for the suicide of the 14-year-old British girl Molly Russell. Instagram boss Adam Moseri acknowledged the company’s responsibilities to its users. “We need to do more to protect the most vulnerable,” he said.   There ...
Read more