Sylvia Drew Ivie Joins Panel for Mental Health Career Symposium
Sylvia Drew Ivie, JD, Special Assistant to the President for Community Affairs and daughter of CDU鈥檚 namesake, Charles R. Drew, served as a panelist at the Mental Health Career Symposium held at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College.
The panel titled 鈥淢ental Health Career Pathways,鈥� featured mental health career practitioners and academic counselors to discuss the need for mental health professionals and the various pathways for pursuing careers in mental health.
鈥淚 am very aware of the need,鈥� remarked Drew Ivie during the discussion. 鈥淚t is not given the respect that it deserves, it is not given the person-power, it is not given the diversity that it requires and it was very disheartening to me to see how little energy really goes into meeting the needs of particularly low-income communities of color.鈥�
Ms. Drew Ivie shared with participants the work that CDU does to help meet the demand for more mental health professionals.
鈥淲e bring in 60 new physician trainees a year and then they spend 36-48 months working on a specialty afterwards,鈥� said Drew Ivie. 鈥淢any of them pick mental health because we expose them to patients particularly at Martin Luther King, Jr Community Hospital who need the services of the mental health community.鈥�
Ms. Drew Ivie was joined by Adriana Alejandre, LMFT, Trauma Therapist and founder of LatinxTherapy and Natalie Burke, LCSW, Clinical Therapist. The panel was moderated by Evita Limon-Rocha, MD, MPH, Adolescent and Adult Psychiatrist.
The goal of the workshop was to emphasize the need for more mental health professionals and for students present to visualize themselves in those positions.
Click here to view a recording of the webinar.