“Every person is born with compassion and empathy, but it is whether it’s cultivated and how they continue to utilize it in their life and be able to share it,” Erin Kinney said. “Telling my story is an honor. We don’t all get to do that.”

Kenney has been one of many faculty and staff members participating in the Ruthe Boyea Women’s Center “Telling Her Story” series, in which members of the Central Connecticut family come together to hear the experiences of fellow Blue Devils.

Throughout her journey, Kenney gathered unique and diverse skills from the experiences and people around her. Part of her influence came from her mother and grandmother, who were school teachers; they were part of her inspiration to pursue a similar path.

Although she was an art teacher, Kenney’s work began to go beyond teaching her students. She started to connect with them and to get them to trust her to discuss what was going on in their lives. It was then that she decide to change her career and attend graduate school at CCSU to become a counsellor.

Throughout her graduate school experience, Kenney built upon her career foundation with jobs at Manchester Superior Court and local community mental health agencies that aided low-economic individuals.

After gaining the essential counseling skills need, Kenney felt jaded with her work so shifted towards pursuing professional endeavors. This landed her with a position at the Wheeler Clinic.

Much of her time at the clinic was spent on supervising young clinicians and working with women, mostly mothers, with severe substance abuse history.

“It was constant crisis and risk management. I, personally, was becoming triggered by witnessing some of the behavior going on,” Kenney admitted. “When we get triggered we don’t provide the best care and are not going to be fully present to a client. We may even have some judgements about a client, which is completely unethical and not okay.”

As an empath, Kenney struggled separating her emotions with the mothers’ and children’s, which led her to carrying much of the weight back home with her.

“I wasn’t fully present for my family and felt emotionally drained, so I felt that it was time to make a shift again,” she concluded.

Kenney decided she would create her own private practice to help and counsel her clients in the best way possible.

“One of the things I noticed from working in my private practice is not all gynecologists are trained enough to really explore postpartum depression and anxiety,” Kenney shared. “I wanted to ensure that women are receiving OBGYN services also receive proper mental health resources available to them.”

Along with running her private mental health practice, Kenney assists in running therapy groups for women on campus and in her community. Aside from counseling, she also is an adjunct faculty member for the Counselor Education and Family Therapy Department.

Jacqueline Cobbina-Bolvin, director of the Women’s Center, praised Kenney for her ability to use her experiences in life as tools to grow. She emphasized the importance of networking and finding connections as well.

“So often now, our students want to move from ‘I got my first job,’ to CEO of a company. But once you established the importance of having a solid foundation, that means you have experiences that will support you reaching a certain level,” Cobbina-Bolvin said.