The Value of Experience

Lived experience versus a university degree. The recovery movement in mental health is founded on the value of lived experience. But experience without knowledge of the best practices in the field risks perpetuating ineffective practices. It is important to be grounded in the experiences of people on the receiving end of services and supports, but it is also important to know the current and upcoming practices and to have the capacity to critically scrutinize those. I suppose the question might be how to best achieve both these ends?

I am reflecting on something a good friend, who was also one of the early family to family professionals, said to me this week. She shared a statement by another early family leader who maintained that family to family professionals would have to obtain degrees to sustain the field. I am a family leader who, before I knew the field existed, pursued education because I wanted to help assure that there were stronger supports for families like mine in their communities than those I had experienced. I chose occupational therapy, but it could have just as easily been social work or counseling or any number of other disciplines. 25 years ago, my original degree did not teach me about systems of care, or wraparound, or trauma, or recovery. Decades ago none of the many mental health professionals my family found knew anything about those emergent concepts either.

The people who introduced me to the best practices that families raising children with mental health and behavioral disorders urgently needed were by in large not people with degrees. They were family advocates who knew those emergent practices, the reality of the systems that families rely on, and how to leverage organizational missions, state and federal laws and mandates to get children, youth and families the support they needed. They were people that families trusted, not because of a degree on the wall, but because of the shared experience of desperately watching our children fall into an abyss for which we had no solutions. Families who had been there before me could walk with me along paths that I had not considered. I could hear them because they knew the abyss. They had lived my fear and my grief. They knew my broken heart and ever so tenderly helped see a way forward.

So having taken my son to professionals with every kind of credential, why did I go to university for more of the same? I was seeking a holy grail. You see, families generally begin our journey wanting to find a solution that makes the condition holding our children back just go away, as a good dose of aspirin to a headache. Aaron was living on the streets, abused and in mortal danger. I was looking for a fix, some magic carpet that would swoop us out of the abyss and deposit us gently onto firmer ground. I had that first degree before I started to realize that our voyage was not going to end with Aaron restored to what I imagined was his potential.

So what of value is my education? While I didn’t learn about wraparound, recovery, or trauma (this was before the ACEs study that put it on the radar), my education did prepare me well. I learned to apply frames of reference to shape my practice, and to evaluate outcomes. I learned how to use myself intentionally and therapeutically. I learned how to modify and grade tasks to create just right challenges. I learned that there are much broader outcomes than broken versus fixed. Essentially, I became fertile ground so that when I encountered solid practices I could both discern them and orchestrate their application in divergent situations. My degrees have also given me credibility.

Degreed or not, family professionals without a deep knowledge of best practices and their principles aren’t necessarily helpful. Families who are bound to the agencies that they need to be holding accountable, and who don’t know federal and state laws or regulations, can’t effectively provide leverage to meet the needs of children and families. So family professionals serving children and families have to have some essential knowledge and skills that may or may not be obtained through earning a degree. They must dive deep into the practices, rules and regulations that are put in place to assure that children and families have their needs met. They must have experienced the abyss.

I believe that the best means of effectively serving all children, youth and families is through multidisciplinary partnerships among co-equals. Professional family partners bring their experience but they must also bring knowledge about best practices, laws and regulations, and sufficient independence to feel safe leveraging their experience and knowledge to advocate for the best possible outcomes. Do they need a degree to do that? Not necessarily. What they must have is respect and agency. They must feel free to speak out for the families they serve, and for all families. That may not happen if their jobs are tied to agencies they should be holding accountable. We must all advocate for family professionals to be in the front row wherever new strategies, policies and practices are being considered. Professional family partners should be held to the same high standards as other professionals in terms of ethics, knowledge and skills, and their experience needs to be respected in the same way my credentials are. We all have important contributions to bring to the work of building hope and recovery to youth and families.