Ghenaya Winanda

Ghenaya Winanda

Q: Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’m Ghenaya Winanda! I am class of 2022 - I did graduate December of 2021 but, still classify as class of 2022, it’s on my Aggie ring. I was in the CHANGE Lab for 1 year, so it was all of 2021. Right after graduation I moved back home because it was kind of tough timing; I had just applied to grad schools, post baccs, and other opportunities, and I was waiting around to hear back. I moved back home which is Katy, Texas and I immediately started substitute teaching. It was a great way to still work with kids and help kids but also kind of be flexible with time when I had interviews and things, so I did that right after graduation. I started hearing back from grad schools and post baccs in April and I ended up going further into my interview process with the McLean Hospital Post Bacc Child and Adolescent Clinical Fellowship in Boston. I got accepted and in June I moved to Boston and I started right away. I’ve been here for almost a year and I also just got accepted into the Harvard post bacc pre med program because through my experience, I found out that I really love medicine.

Q: What is your favorite part of the work that you are currently doing?

I think that’s a really hard question because I love what I’m doing so much, both what happens in the fellowship as a mentee and as a fellow and my work. So with the fellowship we work full time at a placement, so I work 40 hours at McLean Franciscan Community Based Acute Treatment Program which serves a really diverse population which I love. I think one of the things I learned from the CHANGE Lab is that I was really curious about how we can touch as many communities as possible and what are the gaps, what’s stopping people from getting the health that they deserve. So working in a community based unit really means a lot to me. I think that’s my favorite aspect of it. And also, just being in an environment like Boston, I always say it’s like the Mecca of psychology, you can look everywhere and there’s an opportunity for you. So just being here and coming from Texas A&M where I feel the focus is on engineering and business, while here it’s like healthcare! There’s a lot of focus on it over here. I think just going into that community was amazing and I feel so supported.

Q: Could you tell us more about what you do as part of the Fellowship?

So our fellowship is directed by Dr. Fabrett from McLean Hospital and Harvard Med. She’s amazing, and through the fellowship, there’s 9 different placements. So we go through an interview process and see which one fits best and for me that was the McLean CBAT Unit. I work 40 hours there and my day to day involves helping children with activities of daily living so that can be like going to school, because school refusal can be hard, or dysregulation and things like that. So we lead group, like therapy group which is like DBT, CBT, and mindfulness based. Yeah we kind of just hang out with the kids, teach them skills as we go just to set them up for success when they leave back into the community. Usually they step up to CBAT or they step down from like an in-patient unit. We also have seminars within the fellowship. Oh, my favorite, community outreach. We helped Boston CASA and we taught their volunteers about kids experiencing trauma and like a mental health intro and now with McLean Hospital we’re helping out with their stigma project so we’re interviewing people and kind of telling their stories, which is great.