Marah Beltz

I would tell people within my field, which I'll define as social services, to get as much exposure as you can to different populations. Do not stay comfortable in what's safe. Even if it's not something that you plan to stay in, you should work with those suffering the most within our society, because it will grow your skills and grow your empathy to a point where you can handle anything that comes your way. I've seen in my cohort of classmates that everybody kind of wanted to work with kids in a school system or just do private practice. However, even if you end up just working in your own private practice and you're only taking people who can afford to pay 200 bucks an hour, you never know what's going to come up mental health-wise, and if you've never been exposed to it, you cannot serve that person. When I have my interns that come through here, I always tell them that it's great because we're serving some of the most severe mental health cases that you're ever going to see. They may never see it again, but if they do, they will be able to identify it and they will not be scared of it. The other thing that I always push is self-care, and I get a little bit deeper when I talk about self-care. It's not like going to get your nails done or watching the game with the boys, but it's truly understanding yourself and growing your own emotional intelligence through reading, through therapy. That is the only way that you are going to be able to identify when you are having a crisis or you are not okay, because if you're not okay, you're not going to be able to show up for anybody else.

Professionally, I am very focused on developing and growing my staff. It's very important to me that they don't just feel like work is clocking in and clocking out and going home. When I have one-on-ones with my staff, I'm very focused on where they want to go with their careers, and I like to grow them and give them exposure and experience, even if it may not be listed in their job description, to help them grow into the professional that they want to become. I'm very focused on helping my staff get to where they want to be and not just stay where they're at right now. That's a value that I have - it's something that was done for me, and so I passed that on from leadership that I was under. I think that is one of the things that makes me a very good leader. Because I work in human services, I'm very focused on the people that we serve and speaking life into them, helping them become who they want to become, because they do come from very rough backgrounds. I work with a lot of people who come out of Department of Corrections with long prison sentences, along with the unhoused population who has not been part of traditional society in a long time. There's a lot of support and molding and understanding that I give and model for my staff to give to people who have been rejected by society. Personally, a lot of my values come from family. I think that education is very important, whether traditionally being educated through the educational system or just educating yourself and becoming an expert in whatever subject matter you are interested in. Family is very important to me. I actually moved back to Denver from Florida for family because my parents are aging and I wanted to be here for them. I'm a Fonte, I'm the fun auntie, and I spend time with my nieces and nephews who range in age from elementary school all the way up to married with a child. It's very important to me to cultivate those familial relationships. Another thing that is very important to me in my personal life is giving back to my community. I do a lot of volunteerism within my community here in Denver. I am part of the operations committee of the Colorado Black Arts Festival. I have also served on boards and have been approached to serve on a board of a new nonprofit being created right now. I'm very much service-oriented. I like to think of myself as a servant leader, and that is how I make my decisions.