Reimagining Mental Health Support in Schools with Misty Bonta

Educator burnout is a compounding global crisis, yet many wellness efforts focus solely on individual strategies while ignoring the systems that contribute to stress and exhaustion. In this episode, Misty Bonta shares her journey from school psychologist to founder of Get Psyched Inc. She reflects on how early career burnout shaped her advocacy for systemic solutions to educator well-being.

We discuss the importance of professional community, data-informed practices, and gradual culture change within schools. Misty highlights how strengths-based approaches, setting boundaries, and reconnecting with your professional “why” can help shift school culture—and why real change requires more than self-care.

This conversation is a powerful reminder that supporting educators means rethinking how schools operate, lead, and care for their people.

Connect with Misty and learn more about her services below:

Email: getpsychedsd@gmail.com

Website: https://getpsychedinc.com/

1. Live School Based Mental Health Trainings (CEU/CPDs)

2. On-Demand School Based Mental Health Trainings (CEU/CPD)

3. Get Psyched Instagram

4. Get Psyched Facebook

5. Get Psyched Linkedin

6. Misty's Psychology Today Profile

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing TAUT and Misty Bonta
• 2:24 Early Career Burnout and Lessons
• 8:52 Finding Community and Making Changes
• 17:07 Charter School Transformation Journey
• 24:38 The Birth of Get Psyched
• 31:36 Systemic Change and Actionable Strategies
• 37:46 Reflections and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Amy Schamberg: 0:05

Hi everybody. This is Amy Schamberg and you're listening to TAUGHT, the podcast for education changemakers who want simple, effective and actionable strategies to make schools healthier, safer and more sustainable places to work. By now you've probably heard it loud and clear Educator burnout is a compounding global crisis. Teachers are leaving in droves and students are paying the price, but despite the scale of the problem, most teacher wellness efforts still focus only on the individual, the least effective level of intervention. It's time for a new approach, one that looks upstream, moves beyond surface-level fixes and focuses on real organizational solutions, because, let's be honest, you can't self-care your way out of systemic dysfunction. Thanks for being here. Now. Let's dive in. All right, everybody, welcome back to this special episode of TAUGHT.

Amy Schamberg: 1:09

I am so excited because today we have with us Misty Bonta, joining us from San Diego, one of my favorite places in the world, and Misty is a licensed educational psychologist with over 17 years of experience specializing in neurodivergence. With over 17 years of experience specializing in neurodivergence, she is certified in school neuropsychology, child and adolescent trauma and anxiety treatment. After 15 years in school, she founded Get Psyched Inc, which bridges educational and clinical worlds through training, therapy and diagnostic assessments. Misty employs strength-based neuro-informed approaches to enhance school mental health services and support school staff. She's passionate about systemic change and has developed initiatives for foster youth, mtss and overall mental health and wellness. So today, misty is joining us to talk about mental health support for school-based professionals and how we can prevent burnout in education.

Misty Bonta: 2:03

Misty, welcome to the show. Thank you, Amy. That's such a lovely entrance. Very honored to be here.

Amy Schamberg: 2:09

I'm super excited for us to dig in, and I think you've worn a lot of hats in the education world when I think about your background and mental health, and I know that you were an administrator at one point and now you're leading this really important work through Get Psyched. So I'd love to start with your journey. Where did you begin, how did you get to this point and how did Get Psyched come into life? Yeah, that's a big question.

Misty Bonta: 2:31

I actually initially started as a teacher so I taught for three years prior to going into graduate school and figuring out I wanted to do school psychology and worked with mainly high school students with pretty substantial needs in a classroom. That way I also worked in preschool for one year, so I had two years in high school and then preschool but realizing I wanted to really dig in and do assessments and counseling and that kind of approach in going to the school psychology program. My school psychology journey started in a district that was definitely impacted in multiple ways and had very complex needs and there was a very limited amount of staff and not a lot of support from administration and or even mentorship. Right Like beginning as a new school psychologist.

Misty Bonta: 3:13

You come out and you have all these ideals of what it's going to be and that was not what my initial experience was right, coming out going okay, I'm going to change the world.

Misty Bonta: 3:22

I have all these ideas and just bombarded with assessments and I had a very big high school about 3,000 students and in addition to a continuation school that was K-12 continuation schools that had about five or 600 students and then any kid that went to juvenile hall or community day school, because I was the only person that did high school age students.

Misty Bonta: 3:42

Those were also students that I would support assessment wise or mental health wise. We still we did have county mental health kind of helping at that point, but it was just. It was just such a big caseload and I think the mix of having these ideals of what the job was and then coming into this role of like this really complex role and having all these demands that just made me kind of jaded, I guess would be a lack of a better way to say that going. Is this really what I signed up for? Like, is this really what I want to do is just trying to barely get by and write these reports and have people upset for various reasons and just feel not supported in those situations and it quickly led to burnout, like very quickly for me and early, early on in my career very much.

Amy Schamberg: 4:25

And how disappointing to be right to like have gone through all of that training and have this, like you said, this ideal of how you were going to make positive impacts and changes, and then being placed in a system you said 3000 students in the one school and 500 in the other. I can't imagine. I mean you must have been feeling stretched so thin all the time and no matter how much you worked, I'm sure you felt like you were never going to kind of meet the needs of all the students on your caseload.

Misty Bonta: 4:53

Definitely and I'm trying- I'm going to start this group, I'm going to start this. I reflect back going oh, my goodness, I can't believe how much I ended up doing in addition to the assessments and those kinds of things, but it was at the toll of my own mental health and wellbeing, my relationships, my family. It takes a toll on everything in your whole life. And then I came to resent the job before I taught, and even while I was teaching, I was working in restaurants and making a pretty good amount of money and I was like I have just kept working in fine dining and kind of gone that way. I don't know. Yes, because people you know where they were enjoying themselves, that was.

Misty Bonta: 5:30

The other thing is the emotional toll. It was not for, especially with the lack of support. Not only I got more demands, like for administration, so that things to hear certain stories you can't unhear, certain kids you need, so just the big caseload. It was a heavy. I will say take with the population I worked with and that impacts us and our well-being and we take that home, especially, I think, people that are passionate, as we all are, as educators, to help and then you can actually help me.

Amy Schamberg: 5:56

Yeah, that's so powerful. So that was in the first couple of years. So now you find yourself burnt out, feeling resentful.

Misty Bonta: 6:03

What's next? So several things I did that I think completely helped, which was one I joined our state association. I'm a school psychologist, so I joined our state association of school psychologists and that was huge. Just because I actually had other professionals that were going through. I was on the board and got to make changes. That way, they got me advocating at the state level because I was in Sacramento that's our state capital and so I think that like need for me to feel like I was actually doing something was met and the connection was met. You meet your people, you speak all the terms, you know all the acronyms and they get it. They understand where you're at. So that was one.

Misty Bonta: 6:41

The second I did during that time was create a Facebook group and this is like 2012, 2011, whatever so many years ago. But I needed that community. Again, I worked in a very small district. I didn't have that the administration, so it's called Life and Time Subhysical Psychologist. It was really a place for me to get support from other psychologists and share resources if you need something or those kinds of things. So that was the other thing building a community for myself, and I changed districts, some point where you have to call it when there is just so much. I tried Again.

Misty Bonta: 7:12

I did a lot of different things. That was where I got to do some multi-tiered systems of support work and a foster youth initiative support. We also did coordinate care with our probation officers and those kinds of things and create these monthly community meetings to coordinate care with our probation officers and those kinds of things and like, create these monthly community meetings to coordinate care. So there was a lot of that but and that did make a difference in the foster youth program still runs today, which is amazing, like 13 years later. But it wasn't enough for my change in the caseload and those kinds of things. Right, there's only so much and you have to. And I was commuting very far, right so far for me there was just so many reasons and the pay wasn't as good. So moved to a district that was right down the street from where he lived, got like $25,000 more and got to have schools that went, much more supported and administration. It was like the night and day of what I had before Very lovey and huggy and like supportive, very cool and non-supportive. So it was just a total change. It's still a lot, right, it's still a role, but that was huge. I needed that change and that really changed my whole outlook.

Misty Bonta: 8:11

To be honest, I went to work in Sacramento because I still live in Sacramento at that point, but again I was by my house and I had a high school and a middle school. Again, because I like program work, we were working at that point restorative justice programs, peer mentoring programs, we had grants that we were doing right. All of that kind of level work is what gives me joy in this work. So that was where I went. I had some family things happen and I moved. I needed to move back to Southern California that's where I'm from, san Diego. So I came back down.

Misty Bonta: 8:40

I wouldn't have left that district ever if, like, I didn't need to move right. It was great I came here. I did some contract work for a little bit with San Diego Unified School District. I got this job in this district that's by where I live to again do become the mental health program manager trying to change their system. But that whole first year I was kind of at this elementary school with, just again, very like toxic systems and teachers that are burnt out and this judgment on both sides for the parents being mad at the teachers and teachers being mad at the parents and that kind of world. And I was like, oh man, I find myself in this type of system again. But all that I would have stayed, because then I was hoping that again I would like do that mental health program but they're laid off. So everybody that wasn't tenured in that district got laid off. They had this like special education review and everybody got laid off. So that's what happened with that.

Amy Schamberg: 9:31

Bring us up to date. What year are we at now?

Misty Bonta: 9:33

We're at about 2017. 2017. Okay, so next job is at a charter school and I worked at that charter school for seven years or so. That was also great. Like for me, this I liked working in a charter school because they had this philosophy and mission that was really aligned with my values A really putting the child first, a lot of focus on like strength-based work, not a lot of heavy administration. It was very much a collaborative type of. It's a big system. There is 17 schools. It's not a small charter system and they do work kind of all over the world on like project-based learning and this kind of bigger impact on the world and those kind of things.

Misty Bonta: 10:12

Are you talking about high tech? Yeah, the challenge in that was that there's not a lot of systems. They're definitely not like had student study teams or 504 like policy. There was no policies or procedures in the way. Yeah, none of that, which stressed some of the sites out that came in. But for me it was like there's opportunity, I don't have any red tape, there's opportunity for growth and that's what we did. Some of us just kind of chipped away.

Misty Bonta: 10:41

Change never happens A all by yourself or fast, typically in education. So from the first year I was at high tech. They're like, oh, we don't really believe in like school counselors, we don't believe in like a lot of mental health in schools. We do a lot of that work through advisory and teaching and what's kind of been like they felt like they were meeting those needs within the class. Yes, and there's going to be that need, right. So that was where we had to find like, how do we change that system over time? Myself, other psychologists right, it wasn't just and even our SPED director right, she had that same vision. But she also had to do it like mindfully right, because you're working in a system that had very strong beliefs about something they didn't want us to use the term mental health. When I started, that was 2017.

Amy Schamberg: 11:27

That's so fascinating and I think we'll come back to this later when I'm asking you for advice and actionable takeaways for folks. But I just want to highlight what you said, because I think it's so incredibly important, which is just starting small, just so small, and finding your entry points and going from there.

Misty Bonta: 11:44

Yeah, it starts with building relationships and trust too. Okay, so the way I started was just building that trust and relationship and taking data. So that was the other thing was anytime a kid did come to see me, because that did happen, just naturally, kids in crisis kid needs a risk assessment, like if you don't have anybody to do that, you need that. So I just started documenting those things and then, after I built trust and rapport and slowly showing him right, this is exactly what's going on and these are the needs and this is how serious those needs are. This is not something that a classroom can handle. Happy, we have social emotional learning and we need a better system to screen kids, to make sure the kids are getting what they need and to deal with crisis situations. Of course, and after one year, the next year he wanted a counselor. So it was slow and fast, like in hindsight, if that makes sense, it felt slow to me.

Amy Schamberg: 12:37

So one year is pretty impressive to kind of completely shift his philosophy or the philosophy of the school system from we just integrate our social, emotional learning and everything we do. We don't need additional counselors or mental health providers to one year later hire a first counselor. That's, that's a celebration. For sure I'll win to like 2020 in covid.

Misty Bonta: 12:57

Oh god, we actually got rid of I'm jumping ahead but they got rid of like they used to contract out for kids with iets have counseling, so they had to have that, but they they got rid of that and then brought more. They made myself and one other person. They hired out program managers and clinical supervisors. I brought in these additional mental health folks to do not only the IEP counseling but now make a mental health program, a robust, multi-tiered system, mental health program. So within three years that was the growth too, but it's definitely having made small steps, making that, building rich trust and having a community of like-minded individuals too that you can work with together. It did so well that they ended up hiring double the amount of school psychs the following year after year one, and they're still working at it.

Amy Schamberg: 13:41

Incredible story, and I think what I'm hearing you say is that simultaneously building relationships and trust and getting to know your staff, while also gathering data and building a case, so that way, when the time is right, when the relationship is where it need to do to improve the working environment for teachers and administrators and psychs and everyone in the school system, it makes me wonder if that same sort of approach would work in that as well.

Misty Bonta: 14:22

Right, with other staff, with teachers and other staff members, I think there's something to be said and you do want to speak up. You do want to share when things need maybe changing for various reasons, but there's, if you come at it like you're trying to make a system change, that's going to be when people maybe get defensive or have different thoughts, building that relationship and, over time, sharing some of that info. I didn't share that information all at once either, right, it was like I have to kind of build that in and it wasn't in a complaining way. I think that was also because I think people are busy in the education world and if it feels like an extra burden to somebody, unfortunately I don't know that they'll always listen to the ask and that's just being honest. Right, like you do want to speak up and that's that balance of speaking up, but in a way that feels like we're with together versus as Right.

Amy Schamberg: 15:12

We don't want to say you're doing this all wrong, here's the right way, because that's when you got people down and nothing will happen. Right, and I didn't do it perfectly.

Misty Bonta: 15:20

I remember one meeting with the director. I didn't think this was a big change but to him it was like oh, I have this template for student study teams and I really wanted to share it with you. He got very upset and got very defensive that I was coming with my outside values and thoughts and trying to change the system Right. So I took a step back. I remember thinking, oh, again have to be really mindful of how the pace I'm doing this, the relationship I have, and again feeling like we're doing this together versus act. That does take time and it's not going to happen at the same pace at every school with every individual. And then, right, if you're a teacher working with a principal, you really have to know your principal, really have to kind of know what their personality is and like when that right timing is and their mood, like all of those things Right and, I think, just like the culture of the community Right, and is it a culture where we welcome suggestions for improvement, or is it the opposite of that?

Amy Schamberg: 16:18

And I think you and I both have worked in both of those environments and you need to know where you're at before you present something. And is it really right? Is this going to be safe for me to even speak? This bring this up, I think, about. You said a lot of leadership is very overwhelmed and feeling stretched themselves, and so if we're making it, or if it seems to them that we're just adding one more thing to do, then that doesn't feel supportive and that will get shut down, unfortunately.

Misty Bonta: 16:45

So, at the end of the day, we're all working together as a system. Right, it's not this hierarchy Really. I know we have these different roles, but we're all together in it trying to support kids and families right. At the end of the day, we overcomplicate it, I think, with all these different like labels and I don't know right this whole system thing. Sometimes that kind of gets messy, but that's really our goal. So I think, kind of stripping that back, because what I was also trying to do was help the director with liability. At the end of the day, Absolutely that is his main role, and I understand that as administrator too, you have a lot of things on your plate. That was the thing that I could really share with him that resonated with him and his role. This is going to help his role too, not just my role.

Amy Schamberg: 17:27

So what is important to the person you're presenting this to? Role too, not just my role. So what is important to the person you're presenting this to? They're a top priority, and how can this change that you are proposing? Support their priorities, exactly.

Misty Bonta: 17:37

After High Tech High, I ended up working with this organization. That's like a statewide organization for charter schools as well. It's for kids that are 16 to 25 that, for various reasons, are still working on their high school diploma. Yeah, it was just it's passion area of myself. I went to continuation high school myself and just like I didn't graduate until I was like 19 and a half and that's just the kids I've always wanted to work with. So I saw this opportunity to being a wellness coordinator for this school. That was again had no program, kind of starting from scratch, and I was like, oh, I just did this. With high tech I can bring all my tools and those kinds of things. That was a learning experience too. They were definitely open to change right.

Misty Bonta: 18:12

This was a very brand new position. They had never had a mental health professional hired by their organization. They didn't Out of the set. I think they had 16 or 18 schools across the state. They had two school counselors, but they were not doing counseling. They were doing college and career. Even though they were like counselors and they could do counseling, they did not want them to. So what I did not know being hired was that some of the administration wanted this role, some of it didn't, and so there was already conflict when I came in as to if they even wanted a mental health professional on their staff, and no clarity on what the role is right. I did not know this. This is what I know now.

Amy Schamberg: 18:51

So easy to walk into that environment and you have that, are supporting you and have that, are like why is this person here?

Misty Bonta: 18:58

It definitely hit me. Almost. It felt, to be honest, because of their upsetness with the other individual I did not know. I felt things. I felt like there's no clarity on the support role. My boss would just say, oh well, this is up to you, right? This is up to you what your role is. So, ceo of that school is like, oh, you're going to do student wellness and staff wellness, great, okay, what does that mean? What does that look like? Well, that's up to you to make it, okay. So I did what I could, but I also realized I need to work with human resources, right, because we're getting into staff wellness, aa that could be complicated and they do that right, that is their. They have EAP. They have other like that's their thing too. That was the person that didn't want me there.

Amy Schamberg: 19:44

The one person who could be the strongest ally was the hardest one, okay.

Misty Bonta: 19:49

Yeah, Again, I did not know this the entire year until now, later on and reflecting on this role. But my boss at the time would just say oh yeah, you're probably not going to want to meet with her she's very hard to work with and kind of gossiped about this other individual because they had this weird dynamic going on. And that's what I realized that the whole time this organization really had this. That's a system I couldn't change, that. There's so much to fix there that I wouldn't even have known where to start. To be honest, I felt unsupported. I did certain things and certain people would applaud me. I do other same things and other people would be upset. So I couldn't get clarity on what I needed to do and that's a total recipe for burnout.

Amy Schamberg: 20:26

Right there, right.

Misty Bonta: 20:53

Like everything you're saying, like role ambiguity and lack of support and just not knowing which way to go. Yeah, like medical care and dental care, because my role was like to coordinate services. I did a lot, gave them a whole program on suicide prevention, intervention, postvention they didn't have that at all. Oh, and we worked on like dating violence prevention program. We worked on because that was a big thing in our population. We worked on, I think, groups with UCLA and like got them like a relationship so they could do group therapy for like a lot. And I'll just say, at the end of all of that, what I got was my own boss wouldn't even write me a letter recommendation. Oh, that hurts, it still hurts oh, that does hurt.

Misty Bonta: 21:24

Oh, I'm so sorry it was my boss, like, out of all the people in our organization, the one person I thought that I could trust. I realized later on, right in April of that year in a meeting, that I couldn't trust her. That was the moment I was crying. I was like upset. I'm telling my husband what just happened. He goes Missy, you've wanted to go out on your own. You've worked so hard for all of these organizations and all these systems. It's never going to be enough. You need to go and do this on your own. You have all the tools you can do this.

Misty Bonta: 21:55

Another friend said that Lady I do some of my workshops with she's an LCSW and she also said like please, please, don't. It was my decision to leave. Like it wasn't that I was let go or anything, but I didn't know if that was the right choice. For very long I'd like I remember the first year being on my own, like should I have left? Like that was a secure job and I really had kids I worked with, but it was the best decision Like I could have ever made. Actually, this is very sad, but they just lost their entire grant and the whole school is closing, so I would have lost my job Like I would have been let go right now, but that was the push I need to go back.

Amy Schamberg: 22:29

Thank you for sharing that journey and I'm really so sorry about that awful experience, but it's like cliche, the universe works in mysterious ways. It's like that's what. Like you said, that was the push that you needed to do, something that perhaps you had kind of been thinking about for a while. Anyways, I would imagine.

Misty Bonta: 22:47

I got the license. In California, we become licensed educational psychologists and that's when we can start our own practice. I got that in 2016 and had been like writing little notes of like this is going to be my business theme and this is going to be the model it had been a thought for, actually since I was in grad school, because I knew that that could be a possibility. So a very long time and there's definitely no way I would have done it without all of those steps, including the you know slap in the face and those kind of things I felt like this is it, that's my door.

Amy Schamberg: 23:15

Yes, and so now you're leading Get Psyched, so tell us about Get Psyched and the services that you offer and how that has allowed you to lean into the things that you're really good at and the things that you're passionate about.

Misty Bonta: 23:27

The initial like thought from Get Psyched was one thing that we definitely saw in schools was a gap between the training that we have all of us, not just schools I'm a school psychologist, but all of us in mental health and the complexity of that and supporting our kids, whether that's in counseling, whether that's in the classroom. And so we wanted to bridge that gap myself and the other program manager I worked with at High Tech High because she had left too and she's just a wealth of knowledge. She's ran the county agency of mental health, she's worked in hospitals and she's worked in schools and ran entire school programs, so she's like the guru of this clinical and educational world. And that's what we thought there's this gap between the clinical and all of that information and how that information could help in supporting kids in the educational spaces. So that was the initial thought with GetSight to see if trainings, consultation and those things help. It's evolved. Our company provides training and workshops to other professionals, other school psychologists, other therapists. That's our main focus is mental health, so whether that's doing something on anxiety or depression or these kind of things, and we have also incorporated legal trainings as well around that. So that's the other kind of workshops we do, but it's all based on school mental health that we really wanted to focus on.

Misty Bonta: 24:58

That's one piece. And then we do independent assessments. We work with families. That has just been such a rewarding piece that I didn't think I would love. But I think there is often miscommunication between families and the school for various reasons and if you can be that one piece, that might help kind of move the family forward, move the school forward and see some commonality so that they ultimately can help the child, that's pretty cool.

Misty Bonta: 25:24

Now, it doesn't always work like that, but a lot of it can. If you are working in a way to help be child-focused, right, because that's kind of reminding everybody that's what we're trying to do, even if we have different perspectives on what that support means doesn't mean we need to be at odds with each other, right. And then providing counseling We've realized that, at least here in San Diego and actually in California, because I work with other professionals, that there are tons of therapists. There are tons of therapists out there, but there's not a ton that work with kids and teens that are neurodivergent. And we, working in schools, that's what we do. So there's been a big need for that. I get a lot of referrals for counseling and those kinds of services and with kids and teens that are navigating the families are still not getting 504s or IEPs or just having special needs in general. Helping the family and child that way, I think those are all the things we do for now.

Amy Schamberg: 26:15

You have such a robust range of offerings and I will link your website in the show notes so that everybody can check it out. But I wanted to comment on the values that you have posted on your website as well, because I think that it really speaks to this conversation that we've been having about systems as well. So I'll just read a bit of it. It says we believe that every person has the ability to thrive given the right support and environment. We believe that for an individual to transform, the surrounding systems must work together to provide an integrated approach to care and treatment.

Misty Bonta: 26:51

That is from all of what I just shared the years of me being burnt out and being like I don't want to be in this work to seeing when that actually can work and you can actually see tape that was where that came from and to actually see your impact and it's never alone. It's not about you. It's about how you leverage other people's needs, strengths to work together and coordinate that change. And that is the part I have loved the most, because that's where we're going to get the most support right. It's not about changing or fixing the kid in the classroom. It's about working as a system to change our mindsets, to change our practices, to change our ways, that we support each other and, ultimately, that child in the classroom.

Misty Bonta: 27:34

When we work by ourselves, we burn ourselves out and we figure like we need to do all on our own and fix things on our own. That is going to lead to burnout right away. But when you collaborate and you are open and you're vulnerable and you talk about these issues together, that's where the power is and if we're all just working in silos, we're gonna go to burnout. Really opening it up and being open to that, I see, is the way that you really can create a completely different culture which will have ripple effects to the children, which is ultimately our goal.

Amy Schamberg: 28:09

That just gave me goosebumps. Thank you for sharing and, yes, I agree 100%. I often say that we can't self-care our way out of systemic dysfunction, and personal resilience is only one piece of the puzzle. You're absolutely right, we do have to work together, and that can be hard when we are all feeling stretched thin. But we've got to find a way, and I think your story is so inspiring because it's focusing on the humanity, the relationships and also taking care of yourself. You knew that, for instance, that working in a toxic environment wasn't going to allow you to really shine, and I'm curious when you think about the factors that are fueling burnout in education. So, whether those are cultural or social or systemic, you've been doing this for a long time now, misty. What do you think are some of those factors that are making it so hard right now?

Misty Bonta: 28:58

A lot of demands, a lot of expectations with little staff. It's definitely one big piece for sure. The amount of pressure I think that we get as educators in our society is different now than it was 30 years ago. If a child is struggling, it is kind of what are you guys doing? What are you going to do different? And that onus should be on everybody and I'm including family, I'm including community right, and there is a lot of pressure right, especially as new teachers coming out of the field. Like that is so hard. You have kids with so many various needs in the classroom and of course, I'm all about that and I don't feel like we're adequately supported any of these roles to like do this work alone.

Misty Bonta: 29:41

Definitely better mentorship, better structures around supports, better ways that we just build into individuals, especially coming new in the field, to have that collaboration and to be honest with each other and to talk about. Because I also think we all come out with egos, right. We come out with defense mechanisms, because that's how you are when you're a new individual in this field you don't know a lot and you want to know a lot. It becomes defensive and you compare yourself to others and these kind of things and I think even having like those discussions early on with all staff so they can feel open to collaborate, so they can feel like that's okay, so they can feel to say I don't know this or I need help with this, open that communication a little bit more, because I definitely I see that a lot in various ways and I think that tends to lead to those silos a little bit and then having a system of leadership modeling that you have to have a leader that models that same vision, that same take and don't have that.

Misty Bonta: 30:38

Maybe we need to do better training in our administrative programs and these kind of things around that kind of leadership style. A good leader really is about listening to the needs and serving the needs of your community. It's not about you. If you're successful, great, but that's not success in really working and building your community up right. It's not about you, it's about what you can do for your other, your team, and I recognize there's tons of pressure. We have just a limited amount of time and resources, so that's obviously it's going to always feel like that. We probably need a completely different educational system.

Amy Schamberg: 31:12

It's interesting because we often talk about MTSS multi-tier systems of support for students and we also need an MTSS for staff, for organizations and staff, and it's just you've got to come at it from all angles. You've got, like you just said, leadership is a big component, and how can we support leaders so that they can feel empowered and energized to be that model that we shift cultures, to be collaborative, psychologically safe, and just so many different layers are necessary. So there's a lot of overlap and, I think, just something that's already existing in education and then these other frameworks that are kind of being developed on the public health side of things, which I think is interesting.

Misty Bonta: 31:57

The leadership definitely needs support. I mean, I think that they're often, as being in a role like that too, before you're alone, you feel very alone and especially because they're always looking at you for the answer Really glad. You need that Like we definitely need more support for them. I think one difference between working at high tech and the other school that was they were so top happy, they had so many of these roles with these fancy titles that I don't know that they all it wasn't all necessary, like I feel like we could have been more effective with our funds and just create maps. It was so much about their ego and their titles and these kind of things.

Misty Bonta: 32:30

I'm just being really honest, like versus high tech, and they have their own set of it. You know every school is never going to be perfect, but they really focus on the school and making sure the researchers are there versus like top heavy kind of district administrative roles. They have less of that. So it's like a bottom up type of model versus top down type of model and I think that worked so much better. There's again, there's still going to be things, but also we had philosophies that led with humanity. You kind of mentioned that. So our IEP started with celebrations and we have like snacks and just just we had the student really share their strengths and do these little one pagers and the entire meeting then was different, like I remember. After working there for several years and going to an IEP at a different school, I was like, oh man, this feels so cold.

Amy Schamberg: 33:14

Yeah, well, and that's like an easy thing that can be done as well.

Amy Schamberg: 33:17

Right, everybody's busy.

Amy Schamberg: 33:18

I am guilty of having, in my school psychology career, rushing into a meeting like 30 seconds before it's about to begin and we will rush through our introductions and hellos and then the next thing, you know, we're diving into data.

Amy Schamberg: 33:30

But I've also had the pleasure of being in meetings where we started with a strengths-based approach and we started with some chit-chat with the family and how are you and what's going on outside of school for your kiddo and what are your plans, you know, over the summer or whatever that might be, and just kind of taking five minutes to build some rapport. And you're absolutely right, the energy and that kind of meeting is so different and that might meeting might be really hard. That might be a meeting where we're telling a parent something that they haven't heard before and there's going to be some grief involved because their child isn't on the trajectory that they had envisioned, whereas maybe the meeting that was rushed was just a standard, typical, nothing out of the ordinary. You kind of know what's expected. Human connection before and during makes such a difference, such a difference.

Misty Bonta: 34:20

I think our kids have a lot of ideas too, and I think leveraging their ideas of how we can be better, constantly, even kindergarten, first grade, like they know how things could be different or their voice should be heard so much more, I think that's something we could do better just in any role as a system, as a teacher, as a school psychologist.

Amy Schamberg: 34:39

As a parent, I'll be the person to say. My kids probably have a lot of ideas on how I can be a better parent.

Misty Bonta: 34:45

They're exposed to so much, they have so much to offer, right With new ideas and new perspectives, and I think we definitely should listen. That's so true.

Amy Schamberg: 34:55

Let's kind of come back to your ideas around what a school could do. If they're listening, you know. Let's say you're an administrator listening to this or you're a school psych. What are some specific actionable strategies that you would love to see more educators put into place?

Misty Bonta: 35:14

While it's hard to do, a pause and a reflection, it's needed, right? Especially we're in summer. This is a nice time to A. Whatever role you're in, take time for yourself if you can. I know some of the administrators, right, they have longer years.

Misty Bonta: 35:28

But because each system is going to be a little different, but what is one or two things differently that I think would be really impactful in my community? And taking that time, writing that down and making a plan to move forward. Maybe it's hey, I heard this podcast, I'm going to start celebrations in my IP. It doesn't have to be big. Small changes make big results. Maybe it's more focused on yourself. Maybe this year, your one or two goals is about taking more time to spend with your family, because the more time we take care of ourselves, more we can give to, even while we can't probably fix the whole system that way like you said, we can't self-care or we end up a toxic system but we can at least take care of our own needs, right, if that's where we're at. And I know when I started to put my health first, when I started to exercise and prioritize nutrition, that was another thing I did during that time and that switch life-changing and I showed up better every day. I showed up better for the families, I showed up better for the kids. So that could be your one change Again, maybe more strength-based, and meetings more strength-based with your staff.

Misty Bonta: 36:26

So it's not just IP, but really leveraging what everyone knows and their different niches in the building and understanding how it's a collective from an administrator. How can I leverage all these things versus just putting demands on everybody at the beginning of the year? Let's start different and make sure that every child, every staff member has a peer-like connection. I remember doing an activity where we had every kid's name, we had every staff name and we just made sure that everybody had a peer buddy an adult with a student, but adults and adults together too and having that connection right. So something like that Make one or two goals around being more strength-based, being more focused on your own health and being more community-driven to make those connections. I think those would be my takeaways. Actionable items, love that.

Amy Schamberg: 37:10

So you've touched on something that is so important here. It's relationships, it's community, it's connection. It boils down to treating each other the way that you want to be treated, that you want someone to treat your child, and it doesn't matter how difficult or how stressful our job is, but if we can't just pause and see the humanity in one another, then things will not change. So, before we wrap up, what else would you like to share that I haven't asked yet?

Misty Bonta: 37:38

We're moving so fast. We have a lot of things in our plate and it's so important to like pause and remember your why and the reason behind this work. We get the honor of helping kids. We have that. We get to do that. It's an opportunity, it's not a have to. I feel like you too for the bills, but it's not a have to. There's a reason that brought you here, for whatever reason, and remembering that, even on those hard days, could be that you write this down and you can look at that.

Misty Bonta: 38:04

When I did work and commute, I, on the freeway, would allow myself to kind of reflect on the day for a certain period of time, until a certain freeway sign and the freeway sign was my like signal to turn it off, but it was. It helped me. I really I was like oh, I'm at Waring Road, which is in San Diego. Waring Road, that's where we're at which is in San Diego, like Waring Road, that's where we're at Traffic. You know, I had about 30 minutes to just ruminate on all that and I'm going to pause now, because that pause and that taking care of myself, it's not about bubble baths, it's about like really being able to unwind and unplug and not just be in it all the time, right, so that was really important. That definitely helped me.

Misty Bonta: 38:38

I've said this throughout, but it's okay to say you're not okay and that's not just for our kids, right, that is for our staff. And I really do hope that future shift is that we do, like you said in your program, kind of have more systems in place for our staff to get support to More than just EAP and a few sessions. That is great and if you have that, I would utilize that, and it needs to feel like it's safe to open up. If you're really struggling and for various reasons, you need to take some time out of the classroom or you have a certain student that just is like you love kids and this one kid triggers something in you that just whatever, we need to have those outs and that support built in.

Amy Schamberg: 39:15

I completely agree with all of that. I really appreciate your honesty and vulnerability and sharing your journey and your story with us. I think there's so many pieces that will resonate with others. I know I resonate so much with everything that you shared, so I learned a lot and I really thank you. Thank you for having me.

Misty Bonta: 39:34

I really, really appreciate it, and definitely a passion area, because we've all been there, we're all in this together.

Amy Schamberg: 39:39

Let's make sure everybody knows where to find you. Like I said, I will link your website and your Facebook group and your LinkedIn and all of those great things, but why don't you just go ahead and share what those are?

Misty Bonta: 39:50

Yeah, our company is Get Psyched Inc. We can do different trainings and workshops. I would love, if anyone is feeling like, oh, something that I said resonated with you, please reach out. I'm always very responsive and would love to support whatever your need is. We have a website, we have an Instagram, we have LinkedIn and we do post a lot of resources as well. We also have on-demand workshops. We have legal workshops and mental health-related workshops on demand that you can watch, and if you are a psychologist or someone that needs CEUs, we're a NASP provider, so you get those units. Ceus. Yes, yeah, amazing.

Amy Schamberg: 40:22

I encourage units to use. Yes, yeah, amazing. I encourage everybody to check out your offerings and your resources, because you really have so much out there. All right, I think that's it for this episode. We are going from burnout stories to burnout solutions. I think we have a lot of solutions, a lot of nuggets of wisdom in this episode and until next time, everybody take care. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for listening to TAUGHT. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with a colleague and leave a quick review, and be sure to follow the show so you don't miss what's next. For more tools to support educator well-being, visit amyshanbergcom backslash taught. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. I'd love to keep the conversation going. Finally, remember to check the show notes for links to today's guest and additional resources. See you next time.