By Joe Borders,
Marriage and Family Therapist
September 1, 2022
SacWellness Newsletter #14
– September 2022-
Hello!
Welcome to the SacWellness newsletter for September 2022!
The last newsletter seemed to do well with being written as a post on the site, so I’m going to continue with this model ^_^.
In this edition:
- SacWellness News
- Something dumb is broken and its taking time to fix it :-p
- Please take my anonymous survey to offer your feedback and comments on the site ^_^
- Important News
- BBS is making changes to continuing education and coursework regulations effective July 1, 2023
- Things Going On In Session
- School starting
- Going off to college
- Monthly Mental Health Awareness Dates
- Mental Health Blog Articles of the Month
- Classifieds for therapists
SacWellness News
Something Dumb Is Broken
As with all things coding and running a website, something is always out of place or not quite right it seems. After consulting with the community a bit over the beginning of 2022, I decided to remove the free period on all new listings. This makes sense in the long run because people who are paying for their listings are seeing fewer referrals than they would without these free listings because a good portion of referrals go to these free accounts.
The Problem
I went to set all this up and discovered that the plugin I’m using for the Classifieds system underwent an update at some point that is getting in the way of people being able to purchase a paid listing without first going through the free period. lololol.
So! I’ve been working on fixing this for a month and a half and getting rid of the free period is on hold for now. Such is the life of a therapist trying to code and run a large website :-p.
SacWellness Therapist Site Users’ Survey
Earlier in the year I was looking for feedback on the site through the Sacramento/Davis Mental Health Professionals Facebook group and someone suggested creating an anonymous survey for people to provide feedback on the site.
I made it! ^_^
If you’re a mental health professional in the greater Sacramento area, please take a look at the survey and let me know what you think. It should take 5 minutes….or maybe 10 if you decide to write any additional feedback.
https://hipaa.jotform.com/Borders_Joe/sacwellness-survey
So far responses to the survey have been mostly positive, with some neutral, and a couple with constructive criticism.
Several have asked if there is any way to help in spreading and building SacWellness.
If you would like to help, please post a link to SacWellness somewhere on your website so it can reach more people. You can find all the resources the site contains here:
Mental Health Resources In The Greater Sacramento Area
Thank you for all your support!
Important News
The BBS made an announcement this week:
The Board of Behavioral Sciences has updated its Continuing Education and Additional Coursework Regulations, approved to take effect July 1, 2023. The BBS will provide an FAQ regarding these changes in the coming months – in the meantime, you can visit https://bbs.ca.gov/pdf/regulation/2021/cont_ed_adtext.pdf to view the revisions.
I read over this 20 page document and there are a lot of changes, but most seem to be in wording only. I’m waiting for the FAQ they’re planning on releasing to more fully examine this, but two things that stood out to me were
- The addition of gender identity and dysphoria to the human sexuality training requirements
- Changing the word “addict” to “client” in the alcoholism and other chemical dependency requirement.
Its really hard to tell from this document exactly what is going to be changing for who. From my look at it, this seems to mostly be applying to first time applicants and first time license renewals.
All of this isn’t going into effect for another year, so I don’t think any of this is worth immediately worrying about or critically analyzing at this time.
Things Coming Up In Session
The part of the newsletter where I talk about common themes that have been coming up in sessions this month.
School Starting
It seems everyone is affected by school starting up again. Whether you’re a parent, a student yourself, or anyone who has been in school in the past, this can be a hard, good, stressful, hopeful, mixed time. I’ve had many adult clients who’ve been out of school for years have some kind of experience around this time of year that can almost resemble a mild trauma response. School is/was a significant part of all of our lives and I don’t think our brains just let go of this thing we all did for 12 to 20 plus years. Sometimes people get depressed, sometimes they have thoughts about hopes and dreams and evaluate where they are in life, sometimes they feel happy about their success and growth in life. There’s a lot there, and people are talking about it.
Going off to college
As a therapist who does a lot of work with teens, this time of year is always a bit difficult for me. When teens go off to college, a lot of times this means we can’t continue our work together. In the best of cases, this means that I have clients graduating who I wish well and hold high hopes for their new adventures. But in other cases, this means that I’m somewhat forced into terminating with people who could really use the continued support.
This is a hard one for all of us, but being licensed in California does not allow you to see clients who are physically located outside of California. In order to continue working with a client in another state, you need to contact the licensing board in that state and check in with them about their requirements and possible reciprocity. So far, in my experiences, Washington, Oregon, and Massachusetts have all said no. I checked in with Arizona a couple of years ago and they had some wiggle room….but I’m not sure if this was because of the pandemic. Either way, you should check with the state your client will be in and see what regulations they have in place. I know this really sucks and brings up some of those unfortunate conflicts between law and ethics :-(.
Monthly Awareness Dates
Month
National Recovery Month
National Suicide Prevention Month
Week
National Suicide Prevention Week (Sep. 4-10)
Day
Every Woman Day (Sep. 3)
World Suicide Prevention Day (Sep. 10)
California Native American Day (Sep. 23)
National Women’s Health and Fitness Day (Sep. 28th)
Find more mental health awareness dates in our yearly calendar:
https://sacwellness.com/
This Issue’s Mental Health Articles
August 22, 2022
There are many ways to process grief, and writing can be a powerful tool. In this week’s blog post, Sacramento State Professor Emeritus Brad Buchanan shares a piece that dives into the complex feelings of illness and loss which leaves the reader remembering to not sweat the small stuff in life.
August 13, 2022
An update to an older post that talks about how parenting is really hard and painful but we do it anyways and oddly love it….sometimes….a lot of times?
August 12, 2022
Updates to the mental health crisis resources page, including the new 988 crisis line number.
https://sacwellness.com/greater-sacramento-area-mental-health-crisis-resources/
August 6th, 2022
My take on a TV show that hits a chord with me as a therapist.
If you’re interested in writing an article for SacWellness please contact me to talk about it or check out this link:
https://sacwellness.com/being-
Classifieds For Therapists
In addition to being a therapist directory, SacWellness is also home to a classifeids for therapists, where you can advertise to local mental health professionals for free ^_^
There are currently 31 active ads in the classifieds for therapists.
Visit the SacWellness Classifieds For Therapists to read them or click on of the links below to visit a specific section.
