{"id":38489,"date":"2018-05-24T08:58:27","date_gmt":"2018-05-24T12:58:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=38489"},"modified":"2018-05-23T17:54:56","modified_gmt":"2018-05-23T21:54:56","slug":"intentional-sitting-down-and-talking-is-central-to-research-work-and-family-for-sabrina-burress-mac-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2018\/intentional-sitting-down-and-talking-is-central-to-research-work-and-family-for-sabrina-burress-mac-18\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Intentional sitting down and talking\u2019 is central to research, work and family for counseling graduate Sabrina Burress"},"content":{"rendered":"

If there\u2019s a common thread that runs through Sabrina Burress\u2019s counseling research, her career passions and her commitment to family, it\u2019s listening and talking openly and intimately.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople must sit with each others\u2019 experiences, with new awareness,\u201d said Burress, who graduated from Eastern Mennonite University in May with a master\u2019s degree in counseling. \u201cIt takes intentional sitting down and talking.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s exactly what Burress did in her capstone research project, and what she hopes will continue to play a big role in her career and family.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Sabrina Burress in fall 2017 in the MA in Counseling suite.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Inclusion at EMU<\/b><\/h3>\n

Burress and her collaborating classmate Amanda Styer titled their research \u201cUnderstanding the Experience of College-Age Minority Youth and Exploring Symbols for Change.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Those experiences don\u2019t always live up to expectations, according to a 2017 national study conducted by \u00a0Interfaith Youth Core. Their research found that students \u201center college with high expectations for a welcoming campus environment, but perceptions of welcoming others with diverse worldviews, sexualities, and races do not fully meet expectations.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Burress and Styer invited minority students at EMU to small group sessions to share about their experiences, and then with the students created a key-shaped symbol to represent those experiences \u2013 and an acronym \u201cA.C.U.R.E.: <\/span>A<\/b>wareness of <\/span>C<\/b>ultural differences, <\/span>U<\/b>nderstanding individuality, <\/span>R<\/b>eligion and <\/span>E<\/b>thnicity, and respect for the <\/span>E<\/b>quity of all.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That research fits well with <\/span>Burress\u2019s selection<\/span><\/a> as a 2017-18 fellow in the NBCC Minority Fellowship Program-Youth. Administered by the National Board for Certified Counselors Foundation and funded by a grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the program seeks to reduce health disparities and improve behavioral health care outcomes for racially and ethnically diverse populations by increasing the number of available culturally competent behavioral health professionals.<\/span><\/p>\n

Burress and Styer said that their small group sessions created safe spaces for authentic openness that challenged participants\u2019 assumptions about each other and prompted the consideration of a variety of metaphors. The pair plan to share their research findings with EMU\u2019s Committee on Diversity and Inclusion and others in order to facilitate campus initiatives to bring students together across racial boundaries. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cInclusion takes all of us,\u201d they said in their capstone presentation.<\/span><\/p>\n

A dream<\/b><\/h3>\n

As someone who connects more with people than numbers, Burress said that the research process generated in her \u201can excitement for understanding that when you can present something that is valid and verifiable, then people will hear you differently.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a lesson she hopes to apply to her dream of starting a nonprofit in her community in Staunton, Virginia. <\/span><\/p>\n

Nonprofit work, she hopes, will allow her to sidestep some of the barriers she saw in her seven years of work in the mental health field, where she observed that some people couldn\u2019t access helpful services because they did not meet enrollment criteria. At the same time, strict institutional guidelines about service provider qualifications can get in the way of people who are interested in exploring or joining the mental health field and whose active interest could bolster services through supervised, pre-professional involvement, she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Improving access to groups or mentorship takes the kind of creativity that a nonprofit has the latitude to exercise, she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI really have a respect for what systems were meant to be, but I also honor a challenge of systems that says, \u2018This kid who doesn\u2019t qualify for this service still gets to sit with someone in a really special way,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t like barriers that prevent this from happening.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

In a systems box<\/b><\/h3>\n

Burress now holds two master\u2019s degrees \u2013 her first is in human services from Liberty University \u2013 in spite of having been caught for years in systemic \u201cboxes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As a single mom living in Section Eight housing, she felt \u201clike there was no way out,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou just kind of make enough money to pay your rent, and you get food stamps and that buys your food, but then you don\u2019t have access to things like credit counseling, things that could have helped me to make a difference,\u201d she said. \u201cI found myself sort of in this trap of never having enough money, and always needing something.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"To end that payday-loan cycle, she took online college courses, worked in a factory, and even filed bankruptcy once \u2013 \u201ccompletely on my own.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy entire adult life has basically been trying to figure out things on my own,\u201d she said. <\/span><\/p>\n

Her determination paid off: \u201cOne of the most powerful moments for me as a human being was being able to graduate out of the welfare system,\u201d she said. <\/span><\/p>\n

That was over 10 years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been hard. It\u2019s been really hard, but I think I learned to live in a different way, so that I didn\u2019t feel stuck.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Next<\/b><\/h3>\n

Burress recently started working for Wall Residences as a supervisor of residential service providers for adults with intellectual disabilities. She likes the work because it \u201cconnects me to what is important to me, and that\u2019s human work.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Starting a nonprofit isn\u2019t her only dream. She also plans to start a podcast with her two sons that will be called \u201cAWholeHouse Project\u201d and will consist of \u201cthe small conversations that make big changes in the way we exist as a family, as well as individuals in the larger scope of society, interpersonal development, and being human as a whole.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re three people who love to talk,\u201d she said. \u201cWe always talk to each other. It\u2019s super important to me as a parent that my kids know that we can talk about anything.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If there\u2019s a common thread that runs through Sabrina Burress\u2019s counseling research, her career passions and her commitment to family, it\u2019s listening and talking openly and intimately. \u201cPeople must sit ... read more about \u2018Intentional sitting down and talking\u2019 is central to research, work and family for counseling graduate Sabrina Burress<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":38492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17562,6393],"tags":[],"feature":[17424,17426,17241],"class_list":["post-38489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digest","category-ma-in-counseling","feature-featured-graduate","feature-myemu-feature","feature-news-feature"],"yoast_head":"\n\u2018Intentional sitting down and talking\u2019 is central to research, work and family for counseling graduate Sabrina Burress - 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