Interview by Annie Harte
When did you start at Pathways?
I started at Pathways about 10 years ago, when I was in graduate school at UVM for mental health counseling. I was looking for just a part-time job, and Pathways had posted a position on Craigslist for a part-time receptionist, and it was two days a week. And so I actually started at the reception desk, just doing basic admin calls and answering the front desk. I have moved steadily through the organization, and now I’m the Director of Program Administration. I’ve dabbled in direct service, but my brain has always liked systems and operations and detail. I love making study guides and stuff like that, so I’m really happy to be where I am in the organization. And the people who do direct service at our organization are just magical, magical humans, and I’m so happy to be able to support them.
What does your day-to-day look like as the Director of Program and Administration?
Every day is very different. Sometimes, I feel like the Director of Admin could seem like a very routine or boring title, and sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s just like regularly invoicing for grants and working with our teams to make sure we’re doing what we’ve told our funder we’re doing. But sometimes it’s definitely more dynamic, like putting out fires and writing proposals. It’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work. Today, we worked on a proposal for our Department of Corrections program based on the new Burlington Recovery Act. The interpersonal part involves working with our teams to identify areas where they are struggling, what resources they need, and what feels good and what doesn’t.
Do you work with everyone, or are you mainly working with a few different programs?
My position is agency-wide, so I work with all of our different programs. I feel like, based on how our staffing is in those individual programs, I might have more of a presence in one program than another. I feel like I definitely have a stronger role in our Permanent Supportive Housing programs. But yeah, the role is agency-wide. Some programs are a little heavier, a little more oversight, you know, you’ve got to give a little bit more. So it fluctuates.
What was your direct service work like? Who did you work with?
I was our first service coordinator when our Rapid Rehousing program started back in the fall of 2018. Rapid Rehousing takes folks who have been homeless for a short period of time and offers them up to 24 months of rental assistance. We still have this program today, directly through HUD. And as you can imagine, with anything, when you’re one of the first people getting a program off the ground, there’s a lot of learning for the agency. So I was getting our referrals from coordinated entry, which is the local list of folks that need services. We connected with them, looked for housing with them, you know, bringing them to the grocery store, all manner of daily life activity support. I’ll always remember my first client, we’ll call her S. I remember getting S housed and how exciting that was. I feel like it’s really important for my role in admin to have done direct service and know what that’s like and how much work it is for the people on the ground. This is true across all agencies. It’s probably really nice for somebody in school administration to have been a teacher. And then when you are working directly with people, I imagine that trust is a really important part of that.
How do you engage in vulnerable conversations?
Pathways operates from this foundation of Intentional Peer Support, which is really connecting with somebody on a peer basis, and connecting on where you’ve been and where they’ve been and understanding their worldview and thinking about the ‘why.’ Why might they think about something a certain way? I think it was really nice for me to have just gone through counseling school, because that’s actually really what counseling is. It’s listening, understanding, and thinking about why somebody acts the way they act. It’s being trauma-informed and assuming positive intent, right, like we’re all doing the best we can with the resources that we have. And just really meeting somebody where they are. So I feel like post-grad school, I was really primed to engage in those relationships, and really excited. I was like, ‘Oh, I feel like I’ve just learned all these skills about how to really connect with people,’ and I was really excited to put those to use. And it was really cool to see in real life. Listening and asking open-ended questions, sharing about my own experiences with trauma and where I’ve struggled with mental health, really does work. There is definitely a level of vulnerability to our work. I think staff members at Pathways really appreciate that. I think sometimes at work, or maybe at school, different schools, like, I think sometimes you’re not always encouraged to, like, bring your full self to work or to class, right? I think our staff does really value being able to bring their full selves to work and think about their lived experience as a value, as a pro, something that makes them better at their job, as opposed to something they have to hide.
What’s the most interesting part of your job that people don’t know about?
Something people don’t always know is how much time we spend navigating barriers—things like paperwork, ID replacement, landlord communication, transportation, and even gathering and submitting documentation to prove someone is chronically homeless. Clearing those hurdles is often what makes everything else possible
What is a particularly meaningful or inspiring story from Pathways?
The most meaningful and inspiring stories I have from Pathways are the stories of my friends and colleagues at work. I work with incredible people, and I love that, over time, I’ve gotten to know more and more about each of their stories, where they’ve come from, and what makes them who they are. Pathways is an organization that truly values lived experience and truly allows you to bring your full self to the workplace- it is one of the things I love most about Pathways and something that really impacts my day-to-day work.
