Episode 123

[Music] hey everybody and welcome to another amazing episode of Finding Peaks Yours Truly president founder and CEO Christopher Michael Burns so grateful to be joined by our new Clinical Director Dr Marissa Prince thank you for joining us today thanks for having me I’m excited to be here absolutely this is a new season of Peaks a new energy coming into 2024 and Marissa has been on staff for about a month now almost yeah almost four weeks now and she’s already got into the process and really informing a lot of the things we do and so I just want to introduce the community to one of our most dynamic professionals and newest employees Marissa so let’s get right into it okay um one of the things that really compelled me early on specifically in the interview process was It was kind of wrapped around your why and how you got into this field some of your family experience early be on some of that developmental process family history and then moving into kind of this professional life and the goals that you’ve set and walked through and um you’ve just you’ve been in so many different places and situations and scenarios of which you’ve drawn experience from and I just want the viewers to learn a little bit more about you know what what motivates Dr Prince why did you get into this and at such a young age been able to pursue and be a part of so much absolutely so um I’m a first generation American first generation college student my father’s from Ethiopia and my mother is Puerto Rican um and so my father fled Ethiopia um fleeing the genocide of the fascist government and so him and my Mom married and eventually separated um in my early childhood and he didn’t have a model of what a father was um his father was killed by the fascist government in Ethiopia um and so my father kind of dissipated out of my life after that and I was left with a single mom and a little sister and so my mom worked hard to show us hey get an education uh follow a good path and I worked even harder to find a different path and so in my teens I fought my way through Colorado Springs schools um six of them and I ended up graduating out of the 7eventh high school but I was always intelligent I I always carried I always did well in school I just like to hit people sometimes yeah turns out sometimes it’s a coping mechm you and um and I had dealt with colorism in my community and and um so I think it was kind of this oh I’m going to hurt you first before you could hurt me and um my mom looked at me when I was much older I was 18 I was a teen mom so I had my first child very very early and she said you’re going to die you’re not going to live to c21 and at that point I said there’s no way there’s no I can’t leave a child behind so I enrolled in school for an undergraduate in political science um I was going to be a lawyer because I said what can I do to change the lives of people who were like me and I thought high-profile defense attorney I’m gonna be rich and save all of the people like me and and as I started my my education I had a class with um Ronald Smith he was my first psychology professor and I said this is what I need to do and then of course as I progressed through my um undergraduate I said I’m going to be in the ba for the FBI and chased down serial killers and then I remembered I didn’t like to run that running thing so I went to graduate school and got um a few Masters degrees um one of them being in clinical mental health and at that point um I started to teach and um I continued to pursue a career or I’m sorry my education uh to get a PhD in Psychology um so I chose to be who I needed uh and to provide assistance to the individuals like me um in different Realms so although I did not suffer from substance abuse I still suffered from something else and so I needed to help those who were suffering I love that Dr Prince and thank you so much for sharing with me and and some of the viewers that experience you know it’s it’s interesting too because I would consider you to be somebody in long-term recovery um from just a disconnected system of which you were brought into right and um I think it really speaks volumes to the viewers today because a lot of the folks that are coming into our program now they don’t struggle with substances they have family systems generational disconnectedness and I think it’s important to mention that you can find healing for that as well and here at Peaks and one of the other questions that I have for you is what do you think professionally some of the other things you’ve done professionally has prepared you to have such what I would consider to be at least I’ve seen over the last four weeks equinity in the face of Behavioral Health crisis yeah um so I have worked a range of jobs in in my career um in Psychology I started off um working with kids with autism and so I was a behavioral interventionist and that’s what I did and as I progressed I have always kind of steered in the path of severe and persistent what we would refer to a severe and persistent mental health whether inpatient outpatient so I’ve worked just right up the street from us um and served many of the many of the displaced individuals in Colorado Springs and then I had I would say the pleasure of gaining information and working in the prison system and I worked from Maximum Security all the way down to pretty low security and maximum I was adeg I I worked CSP um some some pretty hardcore individuals um but they weren’t lost right and so and from there I’ve worked at one of the largest facilities uh inpatient rehabilitation facilities in the nation one of the largest in the state for sure um and as you know I I was a seven to seven person um and I I even was like why do I need an office yeah we’re here I’m never there yeah and so um I have never wanted to be complacent and so when I came to Peaks um I told I told our HR person I’ll see you at 7 what and she said no you don’t need to be here I thought we were doing this and I was like oh I was ready you know and so just that vast experience and then I was a professor um for almost a decade um I have I counted this morning right when I was coming in here over 3,000 students over that time period I’ve had and many of them today are clinicians in our state that’s cool that’s so cool I I love that you mentioned the death row thing that was one of the things I brought up you know or the team brought up said how do we know when you’re stressed he’s like yeah probably won’t see it very often because of the situations scenarios and that I’ve been a part of one of the stories that you chatted with me about on death row is cu I have a tough time with the punitive direction in which our legal system goes for a lot of different reasons because people are struggling with mental health issues um and we talked about believing that everybody has value we believe in healing for even some of the most worse heinous of crimes and you tell a story of uh people that were on 23-hour lockdown where you would just go and hold space right and talk what why’ you do that so something that we spoke about is if you treat people like animals they act like animals but if you treat them like humans they will be humans and 23 we don’t even it’s illegal to lock a dog up in a cage for 23 hours a day but we do it to humans across this nation every day and just to have a conversation I and I I’ve learned so much from inmates um from these people who are locked up across the United States just hearing them talk and and I’ve learned information about the law I’ve learned how to make tamali out of chicken uh chicken um with the Doritos and Stu Doritos yeah Doritos and dried chicken like the the meat steak the cheese wig I mean and you know and the I something I’ve always said to people is they like to call us us individuals with these degrees essential people of society but all I know how to do is read a book really well I can’t fix a society that will Crum I don’t know how to go outside and fix the ground right the concrete so am I essential or are those people who have learned to survive more essential than me yeah that’s a big that’s a big deal and I I love that you say that because it really shines a light on like value for individuals and humans and I think for whatever reason in our culture we’ve displaced that and L others to believe that they’re less valuable through the way that we communicate with our systems appr and a lot of times in my opinion the systems just need a bit of restructuring so they can speak clearly to people’s value so that they too can see the light at the end of the tunnel of healing and growth otherwise to your point it makes a tremendous amount of sense I acted quite a bit like an animal until uh I got some people around me that spoke truth into me which was light and love through the recovery community so um I appreciate you sharing that of course uh with being The Clinical Director of the team what are you most EXP excited about heading into your second month with us so I am so excited to review the curriculum myself and our executive director will be doing that next week and we are going to start moving things around we are a breast of new curriculum and uh being on top of our game in this field and so start implementing more advanced more upto-date curriculum while we’re here I love that too and it’s it’s just really nice because there’s what we have in place right now has been pretty functional um for a handful or a variety of people I think a couple opportunities to integrate some skill building and some insight on that side of things specifically not not just in our impatient program but the outpatients of levels of care and really tying those together right and marrying them in a really efficient way probably for the first time I’m really really excited about that because we’ve definitely had those curriculum meetings but really being sure that we’re like carrying out this mission and vision in an appropriate way in a more connected way into the future not only satiates the team and allows people to settle there but the client Mill you yeah as well so absolutely yeah I love that one of the reasons that I really connected with you initially is your willingness to be distrustful when things need disrupting right you’re very I would say more pragmatic in that regard you come in and you assess things and you’re willing to um say that doesn’t look right and let’s make a change um where does that come from how do how do you form such good edges you have great boundaries uh you speak so clearly to the team and you do this thing that I really struggle with which is like say no and people still trust you right um so something uh that I have
always said um was you should never be the smartest person in the room cuz then you’re in the wrong room and I heard that phrase when um when I was in an undergraduate program and a professor that I highly regarded um said that he said if you’re the smartest person in the room you’re in the wrong room and he said question everything be curious because we don’t we don’t want you to be complacent so that is something that I’ve done throughout my career is I’m never the smart SM EST person in the room and and when I thought about it as an undergraduate student I said you are the smart he had like four phds I was like you Wen Prett sure and but and I talked to him about it and he said I’m never the smartest person in the room he said you have so much more to offer me than I have right now um and this man also learned to live off of Tire refrigerators like he had no electricity in his house he was just such a cool guy yeah but when I go into a room I easily build rapport because I can easily relate to individuals on a personal level and then I carry myself with my own boundaries and so when I present them I’m going to present them kindly um but also I’m going to present them in a way that hey we need to get this done um so I stay curious I I love that too and curious is a catchy word for me lately I’m really really liking it but what what that does is it allows cuz I can remember in the early parts of my career and shoot the vast majority of our team at least 50% of them are not graduate level students aren’t doctors and so what you do when you walk into a room and and you you assume I’m not the smartest person in the room because what you said was it doesn’t always have to do with this educational s people have experiences that they’ve lived that are really really valuable and that matter a lot I’ve seen that with our culture you’ve been able to walking not just in a clinical room but the residential side and people feel valued in their interactions and um I love that it seems to have permeated from that Professor into your dayto day absolutely every day I walk in and I I think this person has so much more to offer me than I have to offer them and I appreciate every single person um I as I said I was I was raised by someone my entire family I was the first one to go to college um I was the first one to finish and so I I know that my grandfather who had a GED um and served in the military was vastly more experienced in life than I was and he gave me some great advice in life so yeah that’s really really cool I love that you had that initial kind of human family generational experience it created this why and you move into this professional opportunity and you have so much compassion and empathy and insight because of that um which really creates an opportunity for you to be a really well-rounded professional and we’re just so grateful to have you at Peaks and the clients we grateful to have you the team you can tell since you’ve been there um even though we’re getting to work it’s like people are settling and feeling connected with and um a lot of that has to do with you so really really appreciate that oh thanks absolutely uh what is your experience in the time that you spent at PRC in your opinion in your opinion what makes Peaks recovery centers so special everything yeah everything so I walked into a room for an interview with yourself um and our cgo and I sat in this room from day one and felt not just heard but listen to and that from your perspective you’re an owner who am I you know who am I this person coming in for an interview but I felt appreciated and I felt listened to and as I’ve been here for a month I see that our clients are treated the same way they get individualized care they’re not just heard they’re listened to and what is best for the client is followed and I appreciate that and that’s not true for every um place that I’ve worked and it’s not true for every facility out there MH oh that’s awesome yeah thank you for that it’s it’s really indicative a lot of times like how you treat your clients is probably pretty similar to the way you treat your team you know I love that you connected with that because that’s a really important aspect of what we do and how we do it not just with the individuals we serve but the team members and I always like to bring this up on the show but when we started the program 10 years ago it was the Theodore Roosevelt quote that says nobody cares what you know until they know that you care yeah it’s one thing to do it with clients but to allow professionals to experience that same energy absolutely is really really important to us so I’m grateful that you experienced that yeah uh lastly um Dr Prince doesn’t only only work at Peaks and guide our team and our clients into healing um but she does a lot of work in the community um I want to allow the viewers to get to know a little bit of uh some of your causes that you’re passionate about and what you’re doing in the community to make this world great one day at a time oh thanks so when I I came in to Peaks one of the things that I informed everyone is I said hey I need a few days off a month because it something I’m so passionate about is to dismantle the Cradle to prison Pipeline and I do this through building leadership skills with youth in our with youth in our community um and so Peaks has been so gracious to let me take those days to go to and serve over 300 students in Colorado Springs and help them build those leadership skills um help them build financial literacy and all of these different things currently in my car I have 50 bags to go deliver to foster care students um acoss Colorado Springs just up the street um because we complete service learning projects so just as though I am helping those students they are helping their own communities that’s R yeah cradle the prison talk to me just a little bit before what is that what what have you what were you seeing there is this like is it family systems that are incarcerated or is it absolutely what is the I think it’s a community as a whole so what we see um we see this line and it’s often called the school prison pipeline um but we know that it starts way before the school systems get in um impoverish and minority students are more likely to enter the criminal justice system than any other person in the United States um they’re also likely to get harsher sentences um specifically related to drugs um and alcohol um violations and so often times implicit bias is seen as this child of color is the Diller but this child of of um Caucasian or white descent is an addict and so they and there are Judges here in Colorado Springs who have said that that that is how they thought um so it starts when we think of poverty and it starts epigenetically before a child is even born um their risk of being in prison goes up tremendously and so if we can disrupt that um they are more likely to complete and something with the organization that I volunteer and work with um 100% of our students have not entered the criminal justice system and 90% of our students after completing our program say they will pursue higher education or military service wow yeah that is absolutely incredible and I kind of got like chills when you said that I was like wow that that is changing the world one day at a time I think we talk about it a lot and we kind of throw it out there but it’s if you show up and put that best foot forward we have this authentic opportunity to make serious incredible and identifiable change in this world absolutely and I I I love that I love your cause I love your mission I love the passion behind it I love that we have you here at Peaks now and I’m looking forward to fulfilling our mission and vision um with a great professional but an even better human Dr Prince everybody thank you excited to be here absolutely catch us next time on all of your favorite podcast locations Instagram Facebook Spotify wherever you get your podcast until next time my people peace [Music]