Interview with Jenny Schoenberger

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 also give me the opportunity to offer parent/guardians tips and tools for how they can best support their children; no parent is perfect, parenting is hard work, and it’s an honour to be able to provide some support. 

 I also work through a trauma informed cognitive behavioural therapy lens. Through this lens, I incorporate other forms of therapy such as play therapy, art therapy, narrative and solutions focused therapy; taking what’s naturally going well for children and building on that.

 What was involved in your training?

 I completed my Masters of Counselling Psychology at UVic, which included two internships. My first was with Citizen’s Counselling where I worked primarily with older youth and adults.. My second was with Child and Youth Mental Health, a division of the government, where I worked with children, youth, and parents doing individual and group counselling. I’ve also worked as a social worker with youth and adults and done a list of professional development courses in areas such as suicide preventions, art, and play therapy, and more. 

 What attracted you to working at SIC?

 I love working with children and youth as well as adults and families. What first attracted me to SIC was the organization would support me in applying my personal counselling beliefs, theories, and practices, and they really supported that. I also appreciated that the centre acknowledges various forms of spirituality as an important part of some people’s lives and counselling. There’s also a culture here that’s very warm, caring, supportive, and integrative. All the staff specialize in their own areas and will consult with one another as needed. And I really appreciate this. I have my own personal freedom to work my way but I also have the collaboration and the support that I need. 

 How do the services we provide compare to others? Do we fill a gap? 

 Absolutely. Counselling can be  expensive and it’s in high demand. The public and government are  becoming increasingly aware of mental health challenges and people’s needs to support mental health. So the government   does  provide some services for people who are struggling significantly. However, given that demand for counselling services is high, the wait for those services is often quite long, and people often feel the need for quicker services, but often  can’t afford private counselling.  So, we’re serving  a niche between the free government services with longer waitlists and expensive private counselling. 

 What sorts of challenges are your young clients grappling with?

 All kinds of challenges: various forms of anxiety, depression, self-harming, suicidal ideation, bullying, family discord, separation, divorce, trauma, autism, attention deficit disorder, psychosis, and a general  lack of voice and choice in their lives. The rate of young children who think about wanting to die is alarming.

 Do we get the message wrong when trying to reach out to young people re mental health?

 I think that there are ways that we can present counselling to children that are more inviting than others. I think that a big part of it is normalizing the message that we all have mental health, that it’s a health concern. Just like we have bodies that need to be taken care of, we have brains, feelings, and spirits that also need to be taken care of. So mental health is something that we all have and we all need to nurture. Some of us need a little bit more support than others, whether we’re taking care of our mental health on our own or getting support with it. I do hear this message being conveyed in some places. So, while I think there’s work to be done, I also think we’re heading in the right direction.

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