COE Connections Episode 16: Vanessa Placeres

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Vanessa Placeres: I don't think there's an end destination to multicultural competencies, which I actually try and move away from. I think it's a journey, and it's a lifelong journey, and there's no checkbox. I've taken a multicultural class. I am now competent to serve everybody in every community. I think folks need to be curious, constantly, and humble, and ask questions, and investigate.

For themselves, and not expect community members to be spokespersons for that one lived experience, and knowing that that lived experience can look different from student to student.

(music plays)

Rachel Haine-Schlagel: Welcome to CUA Connections, the SDSU College of Education Research and Scholarship podcast series. I'm your host, Rachel Haine-Schlagel:.

I'm the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Education and a Professor of Child and Family Development at San Diego State University, a proud Hispanic-serving institution on the land of the Kumeyaay.

Welcome to our third episode of Season 3. Today, I am joined by Dr. Vanessa Placeres, Associate Professor in the Department of Counseling and School Psychology, and the Interim Director of the School Counseling Master's Program at SDSU. Vanessa earned her PhD in Counselor Education and Practice from Georgia State University, and holds master's degrees in Counseling, Marriage and Family Therapy, and School Counseling from Fresno State and Georgia State University.

She is a licensed professional counselor and certified school counselor in the state of Georgia, as well as a registered play therapist. Her clinical expertise centers on the treatment of children and adolescents, with her professional experience spanning community agencies, inpatient rehabilitation centers, and most recently, as a high school counselor.

Vanessa's research interests focus on cultural humility, multiculturally responsive services, and the preparation and training of school counselors. Welcome, Vanessa. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today.

Vanessa Placeres: Of course, thank you for having me. 

Rachel Haine-Schlagel: I'm excited to chat about the work that I'm doing. Yes, me too. Okay, I have a few questions for you today, and my first question is, why do you study what you do?

Vanessa Placeres: Yeah, that's a great question. I appreciate you asking, because I don't know that oftentimes I'm asked that, which I guess requires me to reflect a little bit. In short, I would say it has to do a lot with growing up in a small town in Northern California.

I was one of three siblings, from Tracy. No one ever really kind of went away to school, talked about mental health, went to counseling in any capacity, and I think there were times in my life growing up where I could have definitely benefited from counseling services.

When I went away to college and moved to Atlanta, I moved all the way to the South. I realized the world had a lot of work to do as it related to talking to folks that looked differently than they did on one level, and I had a lot of work to do, as it related to my own development, my ethnic identity, what it meant to be a brown woman in academia, and also my training as a counselor. And so, having these different lived experiences where mental health could have been helpful for me, where I could have benefited from folks talking about how my identities played into the work I was doing with the kids I was serving, I realized I wanted to focus on that as I pursued my doctoral degree. 

So a lot of my clinical experience in Georgia pushed forward my passions for investigating how to train counselors in a more effective way, and how to implement services that could be helpful for kiddos, especially from historically marginalized communities in the K-12 setting. So, in short, a lot of my lived experience as a kid, a little brown girl wanting support and systems that weren't necessarily there, and then realizing when I thought I knew all I needed to know to be a great counselor, I didn't, and there was, in fact, a lot more I needed to learn to be able to better help the communities I was excited to serve. 

So that's the, like, long-winded, short-ish version of how I got to where I'm at, and I'm excited to share more of that work today with you.

Rachel Haine-Schlagel: Yeah, I just want to… before we move on, I just want to say that I love that phrase you used towards the beginning of your response, that, like, the world had a lot of work to do. I think training our professionals and studying how to train professionals effectively is such an impactful way to help the world do that work that is so sorely needed. Okay, my second question is, what are you working on right now?

Vanessa Placeres: Yeah, so I think since I've gotten to SDSU, my research has really taken a pivot to being more, involved in the K-12 setting. So, initially, I was studying how to train the counselors, you know, that are going into the systems we want to serve, and now I'm doing the work in the school system, so…

The last, probably, 5 years, I've spent working closely as an SDSU research partner with the Center for Closing the Opportunity Gap, CCOG, through CSU Long Beach. It's a state-supported, multi-campus initiative where we're learning and researching and leveraging opportunities across the state to better support, student success, specifically students from historically marginalized communities. We partner with Long Beach, San Diego State, Fullerton, San Jose State. I think Riverside, and it's been a really neat opportunity to get to partner with these different scholars about work we're all passionate about.

I would say the last 5 years two of my bigger projects have focused on two Southern California school districts and their implementation of culturally responsive interventions for historically marginalized groups. So, two different districts. We are specifically looking at things like sense of belonging on campus, the development of their ethnic identities, and how those two variables relate to their academic outcomes when the school districts are intentionally implementing more culturally responsive services, whether they're academic services, curriculum, counseling. We've kind of looked at a lot of that in these two different districts, and yeah, it ultimately gets at my research goal, which is twofold, right? To look at how we're training folks to do the work, and then look at how we're doing the work in the systems to support the kiddos that need it the most.

Rachel Haine-Schlagel: That sounds like some really, really important work that you're doing, and I, yeah, I think, you know, my original comment was about the training of professionals, but then also taking into account, or trying to impact, like, what those professionals are doing when they're actually out in schools, and supporting Black and Brown and other minoritized groups is so critical, especially right now.

My third question is actually a request. So, can you please describe an example of the impact that you feel your research has had on the community? And community can be however you want to define it. Just sort of what's your sense of the impact that you're having?

Vanessa Placeres: I'm thinking about one of the districts we're working with specifically, through the CCOG Center. We partnered with the district to implement an intervention that supports Black scholars, or Black learners, and is working towards addressing the long-standing disparities in K-12 education through a wraparound service approach.

The project that we're working on currently is being implemented to try and support the reallocation of funds, so there was a big chunk of money in this district that was reallocated to address these disparities amongst Black learners, and

Our research is being used to see how that intervention is impacting academic success, specifically for Black learners in this district. And so we have been in this school district for maybe 5 years now, I think, and we really spent the first couple years getting to know the community, getting to know the students, getting to know the way the system was functioning, and then asking how we could be helpful.

I know we were there, right, to assess the intervention, and at the same time, wanting to know how the people that were receiving the intervention were experiencing, this initiative. And so, the next part of the implementation was creating focus groups, doing interviews, attending different community events to better understand the implementation of this plan, and are currently in the process of analyzing data and providing preliminary results to support the implementation and the allocation of these funds to continue funneling this money into this intervention that's ultimately positively impacting, Black learners and reducing the disparities between them and their non-Black peers.

Rachel Haine-Schlagel: You've got this sort of built-in impact loop. You're being asked to study something that's happening, and then the system is asking you for that feedback to help them make decisions. That's a wonderful opportunity for scholars to have, so that's great that you've been able to do that work. Now I want to ask you, what do you struggle with the most in studying what you study?

Vanessa Placeres: There's, like, two parts to this question. I think the first part.

Being… kiddos are a really vulnerable population, in general, especially the kiddos that I'm supporting through my work, being mostly Black and Brown students. And gaining access to the school system is… it can be very difficult. Gaining trust of the school system can be very difficult.

I think just generally, access to the students that I hope to support through my work has been a bit of a challenge, especially moving here 5 years ago and trying to build relationships with these populations and stakeholders to be able to do the work that I desperately want to do. Currently, the bigger obstacle with the current political climate is funding. So, a lot of my work focuses on marginalized communities and bridging the gap between access to culturally responsive mental health services. What I found in the last probably 6-7 months is that it's becoming increasingly difficult to do this work when funding continues to be cut for programs and centers like the Center to Close the Opportunity Gap.

Because of its focus on serving, historically marginalized communities. And so, I think the access to funds to continue supporting the work, to provide support to the researchers that are in the school systems, to the communities that we're impacting, I think the limitations around funding has made it increasingly difficult to continue doing this really needed and meaningful work.

Rachel Haine-Schlagel: Two really huge access issues. My last question comes out of my own background as a clinical psychologist. So, if I could wave a magic wand and make schools be the way you're working towards them being, what would that look like? How would you know your job is done?

Vanessa Placeres: Yeah, I appreciate that question. I actually see a little pink wand that I… it's a bright pink wand that I have in my play therapy kit that I bring to class, and I ask students a similar question, like, what would it look like, if it was the way that you had hoped? And for me, I think…

 The shortest, most succinct answer is for schools to be a safe place in always, not just from a mental health perspective, for kids to be their most authentic version of themselves, and for students to be surrounded by educators who champion them. Who celebrate them and remind them daily that they are enough, exactly as they are, and that what makes them unique is celebrated instead of ignored and silenced. And so I think if I had my bright pink magic wand, that's probably the most succinct way I could… I could say what I hope for… for PK through 12, schooling and the students that I serve.

Rachel Haine-Schlagel: Oh, I… I do as well. I… I do as well, completely. Well, thank you, Vanessa, so much for… for talking with me about your really, really important work, and just thank you for being such an important part of our college, and just having such an amazing impact on, not only the students that we serve, but the communities that we serve as well.

Vanessa Placeres: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the time and the energy you give to us as academics and creating space for us to share our story.

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