Julie Baron

Find something that you feel is meaningful, and that you love to do, and figure out a way to make a living doing it. This advice has guided my entire career, and it's why I've been able to spend more than 30 years in this field and love every minute of it. The beauty of a career in social work or counseling is that there's so many different paths you can take, working with different populations, age groups, and issues, so there's a space for everybody in terms of where they find meaning and feel authentically drawn to.

Find a great program in either social work, psychology, or counseling, and just dig in. Really be curious, take all the information in, be open, and really do what you need to do to be self-aware. This career can take you wherever you want to go. The beauty of a career in social work or counseling is that there's so many different paths. You can work with different populations, different age groups, different issues, so there's a space for everybody in terms of where they find meaning and feel as they're authentically drawn to. And find good mentors.

I've spent most of my career working with adolescents, and I'm doing a good amount of work now with parents of adolescents. By nature, the developmental stage of adolescence is defined by both vulnerability and great opportunity. Helping parents and teens understand each other is critical because parents are wired to protect, and teens are wired to break free, and that can cause some conflict. When they understand that about each other, and helping them to have the kind of relationships where teenagers feel engaged enough with their parents that parents can be a valued resource and a meaningful influence is really more of a mission in terms of what I'm writing about and speaking about. Helping teens improve their mental health, and function better, and have self-awareness and good coping skills, has been just so meaningful as a career.

The value that everything boils down to for me is relationships, both in my professional life and in my personal life. The research tells us that relationships are the most impactful factor for creating happy and well lives. Professionally, it's the combination of using evidence-based interventions for different situations and symptom patterns, combined with a relational approach where there's connection and understanding and compassion and respect, and helping people find their way in a way that works authentically for them. I've created an innovative, evidence-based relational parenting model that embodies these values, and it's called the CARE model: compassion, acceptance and authenticity, respect, reliability, and regulation. All of that helps young people feel engaged.