I Have Reaped Much More Than I Have Sown: My Career in Community Mental Health

This is the author's memoir chronicling her journey of becoming a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. This book reflects on the lives of the clients the author personally served in schools, as well as in outpatient mental health clinics. It is intended to speak to the challenges which people, especially our vulnerable children, encounter every day and to shine a light on the resiliency and persistence of human beings to find a way through the adversities they face. Traumatic grief and loss are found at all ages and circumstances, as the tragic result of community and domestic violence, and other abuse of every type. The many mental health clinicians who work alongside caring parents and/or foster parents, sometimes struggle to make up for the lack which may be found in many parts of our communities. Social service agencies are often overwhelmed with the volume of need as there are over 30,000 children in the foster system in Los Angeles alone. The absence of hope is a killer of the human spirit. The author offers a tribute to all who work together to take care of the children and their families who avail themselves every day to the help that can give them hope as we all travel this road called life.