Speaker: Bri, Mental Health Children's Care Coordinator
Please take a moment to introduce yourself and tell us about your role at Northern Human Services.
Bri: Hi, my name is Bri. I've been with Northern since December 2018. I'm currently a kids care coordinator and previously I was an infant mental health care coordinator/ case manager. Now I work with kids of all ages and a few adults as well.
What is the best part about living, working and playing in the North Country of New Hampshire?
Bri: I love living in the North Country because it's nice and quiet and pretty. And my family is up here, I've lived up here my whole life. My parents still live up here. And it's just nice without being somewhere that's busier and crazier than it is down south more.
Please share with us an experience that you had while working at Northern Human Services that illustrates your "why?"
Bri: I love working with kids. And I thought growing up, I thought that I wanted to be a teacher and then I was a teacher for a while and I realized that wasn't really for me and I came to Northern and I love it. My 'why' is when kids get those little wins. I had a kid who, we were at the library and he had his Pokemon cards and he was telling another kid that they were not allowed to touch them. And through our time of our session together, he went from, "You can't touch them." to, "You can look at them.," to "You can touch the ones that I tell you, you can touch.," to "You can have this one because I have an extra one." And it was amazing. And it was great. And there's so many times like that where something just clicks or something happens and kids are so proud of themselves or they make a friend when they're with you and they just, they feel so proud of themselves. And that's why I do what I do. And that's my 'why.'
Why is it important to work somewhere with purpose and meaning?
Bri: It's important to work somewhere where I feel like I matter and I'm doing important work because I want to make a difference in the work that I do. And I knew I wanted to work with kids, but I didn't really know what I wanted to do, working with kids. And finding the mental health field really helped me realize that this is what I wanted to do. And this is my purpose and I'm here to help these kids learn the skills that they need and get to where they need to be in life. And that's what I love about Northern. They highlight our strengths and I'm really great at working with kids and I'm really great at helping get their school needs met and stuff like that. That's what I'm good at, in Northern, and that's most of the cases that I get. I just like working somewhere where I feel like I make a difference every day.