What a Social Work Intern Learned About Mental Health Recovery at Karis Community

“The greatest gift you can give someone is to listen to them without judgment or interpretation.” – Lewis Mehl-Madrona

My Story

My name is Mike Kosiak, and I served as a Community Coordinator at Karis for the past year while completing the final year of my Master of Social Work program at Metropolitan State University of Denver. I graduated with my MSW in May of this year, and I’m currently serving as the trainer for Karis’ new Case Management Intern. The primary goal of developing the new Case Management Intern position is to increase Karis’ capacity to meet the case management needs of Community Members. This will help Karis provide better services to Community Members and allow the organization to focus more time and effort on other activities.

What led me to intern at Karis?

I initially sought an internship with Karis because I knew that Annie Wharton was the organization’s Executive Director. I met Annie while working together at a community mental health center where our teams briefly shared an office that was more densely crowded than a call center. I was impressed by Annie’s compassion and assertiveness when working with people. I also appreciated her resiliency and how obvious it was that she enjoyed her clients’ unique characteristics and humanity. I think that is a rare combination of qualities that make someone excellent at working where human difficulty and need are greatest. At my interview for the Community Coordinator position, I met Karis Program Director Dalia Rubenstein, and I was equally impressed with her as I was with Annie. It was immediately clear that Dalia’s approach to mental health treatment was very similar to my own: compassionate, humble, non-hierarchical, curious, and hard-working. I knew our values were aligned and that Karis would be a place where I could practice and develop my social work skills while knowing that community members would be treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.

What are my takeaways from working at Karis?

My primary takeaway from working at Karis is that effective mental health treatment can look like the programming at Karis. Karis is the least restrictive environment for mental health programming in the state of Colorado, and this affords Karis several unique advantages over more restrictive environments, such as psychiatric inpatient facilities. Karis's advantages converge on vital social components of healing and recovery that are present or accessible at Karis but often restricted or absent in other treatment environments. Social components of healing present at Karis include community, culture, friendship, mutual support, opportunities for employment and volunteering, self-exploration, and the ability to spend extended time in communities beyond Karis. In addition to the standard medical treatments for mental health conditions across all treatment contexts (e.g., therapy, medication), Karis gives Community Members opportunities to develop the social components of healing necessary for independence and long-term wellness

My views on mental health/substance use

I want to share three beliefs I've developed over my time at Karis that have helped me become a more effective social worker.

I have found that the most valuable action you can take to support someone is to listen without judgment or interpretation. This simple act is extremely powerful, and I think part of its power is that people do it so infrequently.
I believe that the individuals I work with are the experts on themselves and the problems they are seeking to resolve. Additionally, I believe this puts them in the best position of anyone in their support network to identify solutions to their problems. Given these beliefs, it is even more important that I listen to individuals without judgment or interpretation because, if I do so effectively, they will articulate their problems and potential solutions.
I believe the clinician’s job is to support the creation of a safe space for healing so the client can engage in self-healing. This belief assumes that the vast majority of healing is self-healing. I have told Community Members that when they make progress toward their goals, it is because they are doing over 90% of the work of self-healing. I like to remind them of the importance of the social components of their healing: their cultural and spiritual beliefs, values and purpose, and support networks. That’s at least another 5%. And lastly, I like to claim that my role in their healing process is likely less than 5%, and although the community has tried to haggle with me to claim my contribution is as high as 9% or 10%, I have declined their offer. I’m not giving them anything; I’m just trying to make the space safe so they can do the work they need to do to be well.

Anything else that feels relevant

Karis is both the best job I’ve ever had and the most effective treatment context I’ve ever worked in. I’m hopeful that introducing the new Case Manager Internship will help Karis grow and further its mission of providing a community where people heal together. My hope for Community Members is that they take pride in their identity as consumers of mental health and substance use services that are in recovery. I’m hopeful they can recognize that, based on their shared experiences and how society has regarded them, they are a community by default, and they can grow it so it yields benefits everyone can enjoy. I’m very excited to witness Karis continue to grow, and I’m incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to work with such an excellent organization and even better people.

Mike Kosiak, Community Coordinator/Intern

What a Social Work Intern Learned About Mental Health Recovery at Karis Community​