The Mission
Therapy Rocks seeks assist in lowering the barriers to mental health and addiction services for women, children, and families, with a priority to underserved or historically marginalized communities, while Social Work Roles aims to re-evaluate the role of Social Work in addressing the underlying causes and conditions for the mental health and substance abuse crisis.
Objectives
~Raise money for low barrier mental health services for underserved population.
~Raise awareness about mental health risk factors and ways to decrease symptoms of depression and anxiety.
~Provide a forum for discussing the role of social work and social change and improving systems of care.
~Provide training and support to address burn-out and compassion fatigue among social service workers.
~Support/research into innovative/low barrier, sustainable, and generational approaches to addressing mental health and substance abuse needs in underserved communities.
~Focus on models that strengthen families and communities as natural supports for individuals struggling with mental illness or substance abuse.
~Collaborate with other non-profits to address their needs and barriers to meeting their clients needs.
Vision
The Vision for Therapy Rocks and Social Work Roles is ever growing and evolving to fit the needs and interests of the community.
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My hope is that it can be a springboard from which I can begin to one day raise money for a family based substance use treatment program.
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That is a family centered drug and alcohol treatment facility, which could serve as an alternative to children being removed from homes and placed in foster care when drug use is a component of abuse/neglect. This facility will be a step down facility that treats the whole family, and includes childcare, parent education/coaching, and job-preparedness, the whole way through. Clients will move from being in a secured facility (think hospitalization, in patient treatment, with their kids (who will be allowed to leave for school if needed, but can also receive in house treatment services/education services if warranted. To a semi secured, think dormitory, to a semi structured, assisted apartment living, to outpatient. This additional structure and support with their children will help the family as a whole be more successful after treatment, help stop the cycle of addiction, by treating the child while treating the adult, and provide parents with parenting education and supports in a structured and supportive way until they are able to manage on their own.
It Begins with Us
As I was walking by the water with a client, practicing nature based mindfulness therapy, and collecting beautiful rocks by the stream, I was struck by an inspiration. That inspiration has grown into the still developing concept of Therapy Rocks. I initially wanted to sell Therapy Rocks as a way to raise funds for an incredible non-profit I was involved with at the time that had an innovative approach to community mental health that entailed meeting clients where they were at, literally, in the community, and working with them hands on providing real time intervention and mental health services that incorporated traditional therapy, skills training, and case management, with community building, authentic relationships, and real life engagement. I genuinely wished that more programs were doing this kind of work, and it re-sparked my interest in my 20 year passion and interest in developing family/community centered alcohol and drug treatment.
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I have long held the belief that the mental health crisis/drug crisis in the US today is not a problem with individuals, as media and cultural dogma would have us believe. We have not suddenly all become ill, or developed brains that have chemical imbalances, or have become morally corrupt sociopaths. No. Human beings of today are genetically and psychologically very similar to the human beings of thousands of years ago. This may actually be the root of our problem. Are brains are the same, but we are not living like we were living thousands of years ago. The level of stimuli in the modern world is enough to turn any average brain into an anxious, attention deficient, depressed, mess, if you add onto it the trauma that comes from intergenerational oppression, poverty, and violence many of us are left without a sense of connection, safety, or community.
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I take inspiration from my own experience with trauma and depression. I grew up in an alcohol affected home, and then turned to drug addiction myself in my twenties before finding recovery at 28. I take inspiration from the fellowships of 12 step programs, from Ala-non and Ala-teen, and witnessing my fellows come in and struggle with parenting issues after getting sober, or seeing their children become addicts, repeating the trauma onto their grandchildren. I take inspiration from my work with children in foster care, and as a CPS worker counseling parents who lost their children due to neglect related substance use and lack of parenting skills and resources. I take inspiration for my experience as a member of the Muskogee Creek Nation, myself an example of the assimilation and trauma afflicted onto a whole nation of people, but also the potential for healing found within tribal culture and philosophy. ​​
Therapy Rocks and Social Work Roles is intended to be a new hope for addressing mental health and addiction in a way that gets to the root causes and heals communities from the inside out, rather that the outside in. I hope to gather community of like minded people, those who heal and those who want to be healed. To create something new.
What if instead of treating the individual as deficient, we instead treat the whole family, by building a community of support around them and worked to heal the children at the same time as we worked to heal the parents, all the while providing family counseling, parenting education, childcare, and peer mentorship in hopes of breaking the intergenerational cycle of trauma and addiction?
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My spiritual teacher, buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, wrote: "“When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce."
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Let it begin with us!
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- Ma'Kiah Waters
About the founder:
Ma'Kiah Waters
Bachelors of Arts - Cross Cultural Education
Bachelor of Science - Biochemistry
Master of Social Work -
Policy, Leadership, and Community Organizing
Qualified Mental Health Professional (QMHP)
Clinical Social Work Associate (CSWA),
Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor I - Registrant (CDIC I-R)
As a long time amateur and later professional social worker, I have had the great privilege to explore mental health and the systems that interact to play a role in supporting or destroying children and families. My multiple experiences working within education, juvenile justice, child protective services, foster care, mental health, and BRS residential programs, has given me a unique perspective. My blog with take that experience from both a micro and macro lens to explore the roles of social work in creating a more just society.
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To learn more about the institutions and organizations which have helped to influence and shape my social work framework, click the link below.
