Welcome to the Continuing Education for Mental Health Professionals Podcast. Today we are hosting another CEU Provider Spotlight Conversation. This is where we learn more about CEU providers in our community and their journeys. My name is Natasha Moharter, and I'm a licensed counselor and OCD specialist. I run the Facebook group CE for Mental Health Professionals, and if you're a mental health professional, we'd love to have you join us in that space. I'm so excited to be joined today by our very special guest, Shaina Siber-Sanderowitz. She's an integrative therapist and social worker, and founder of Affirm Mental Health, LLC, an accredited CE provider delivering evidence-based, affirming, and accessible education for mental health professionals. Through clinically rich, trauma- informed, and culturally inclusive trainings, Affirm equips therapists with the tools to serve diverse and marginalized communities. Shaina also hosts the Affirming Minds podcast, engaging with mental health experts to offer practical insights and CE opportunities. With 15 years in community mental health in the Bronx, she has held clinical and leadership roles and served as faculty at Arizona State University and Albert Einstein College of Medicine. A respected educator and speaker, she has developed training on structural humility, LGBTQ plus affirming care, and Interpersonal Psychotherapy. She's committed to empowering therapists with knowledge and skills to provide exceptional affirming care. Shaina, thank you so much for being here. It's such an honor to have you here today.

Thank you so much for having me, Natasha. It's such a pleasure.

What inspired you to start Affirm Mental Health and enter the world of continuing education?

As you mentioned I am currently in Arizona, but back when I was working at a large hospital institution in the Bronx, New York, the New York State Board of Social Work suddenly changed its continuing education requirements for licensure in 2015. Overnight social workers were required to complete their CEUs with a limited amount of approved providers in those early years. So the options were incredibly limited. Most were expensive. At that time it was really in person only. I'm sure there's a few exceptions, but often the courses required long travel, and so for me it wasn't really a question of taking the courses I wanted, or ones that would best serve my clinical needs or educational needs, it was really about what I could afford or what I could fit into my schedule at the time. And at the hospital where I worked, there were hundreds of social workers, but no departmental offerings for CEs for us there, even though they had a continuing education department, they organized that around the physician's needs, which was around CMEs, which we were not allowed to accept for our continuing education accreditation and licensure. So it became this ongoing conversation that the hospital should provide CEs for social workers and everyone seemed to agree, but it was sort of like everybody pointing the finger at somebody else and no one was really volunteering to take the lead. And one day I thought like, maybe I could look into this. Maybe this is something I can explore. And I posed it to a large group of social workers, like, who's going to do it with me, who's going to partner with me? And it was sort of crickets. So I wound up just saying, you know what, I'm going to do it alone. I'm going to just check it out. So I asked my department chair if he'd cover the application fee if I figured out how to get approval and launch a program, and he said yes. So I just essentially took it one step at a time, and I navigated the approval process, and I got the Montefiore Social Work Academy off the ground. Once I had approval, I got some additional support, and we built out the CE programming, and the infrastructure and the clinical programming, and it really was adapted to meet the needs of the social workers that were working at that hospital institution. So when I moved to Arizona, I really had interest in sort of thinking about, transferring those skills in CE program development, because I was still finding that many of the CE options that were available were either too theoretical or didn't truly address the complexities of real world clinical practice, and I wanted to create something different and something that really prioritized clinicians that were doing therapy. So, I envisioned a membership model where social workers were blown away by the value they were getting for their money. Coming from an academic medical setting, a lot of the educational opportunities were centered around faculty, psychologists, and psychiatrists. I wanted to create more robust programming for master's level clinicians such as myself. Oftentimes I would go to professional conferences and they would provide CEs for everybody but the master's levels clinician. So I really wanted to have the heart and the ethos of my program be about the needs of licensed masters and clinical social workers, licensed professional counselors, licensed mental health counselors, licensed marriage and family therapists, that's who I saw sort of as like my people, and, you know, wanting to make it affordable, accessible, interesting for them, you know, and I wanted it to be painfully obvious that real clinicians, therapists, not venture capitalists, not out of touch academics, were at the helm of the program development, that they were made, like, by and for therapists, in terms of the educational content. So, that was sort of like how Affirm Mental Health was born, and my goal was to provide CE courses that aren't just evidence based, but really relevant to daily realities of clinical work, so therapists could feel more confident, they could feel they're strengthening their skills, and hoping that would translate to people feeling more engaged and more fulfilled, because when we feel like we're thriving and doing good work, that clearly translates to improved outcomes, and I also wanted this to reach the clients that we're treating.

You really saw from your own experience that there was a need, that there was a gap in accessibility for continuing education units that really matter, that can actually be effective and supportive in our work with clients. I think it's also really neat that you brought in kind of representation of, not venture capitalists, we are clinicians, boots on the ground, doing this work, and what is important to us. Your podcast episodes are very engaging and I think they are very relevant. One of my favorite ones was on the AI. And it's neat to have those conversations and be able to listen to that and say, Okay, these are real things that we're trying to navigate right now.

And that's like what's so much fun about doing a podcast, this format allows us to be so timely and relevant. I'm in the process of recording a podcast episode about gender affirming care and response to the legislation some of which has been dropped within hours or days of the podcast recording, so it just, you know, being able to reach learners in real time when they're actually struggling with these issues and having these questions is such an additional gift that you know, when I started this, I didn't really know, um, that this would be part of it, but I am so glad it is.

Think that's so, so neat as well. And so when you started Affirm, you started it as a solo effort. What were some of the biggest challenges as well as some of the wins along the way when you're kind of at it solo?

So it was me, myself and I, and, I was terrified. So when I told everyone I was moving to Arizona and starting my own business and that I wanted to launch my own accredited continuing education program. I kept on hearing like, you're so brave. Oh, you're so brave. And it's like, I don't, I mean, I'm sure that's intended to be a compliment, but it's like, Oh, no, like, people, I don't know if I want to be brave. Um, so, you know, internally, I was thinking I'm 100 percent self funded, my family is relying solely on me for my income, my children need to eat, they need clothes on their back, it's a massive financial risk and, you know, moving across the country was expensive and my husband and I made the decision that he would take over family responsibilities, while I focused on growing the business and, that meant no more employer provided health insurance, no more 403b, 401k contributions, no safety net, you know, just me building something from scratch. And I think taking the leap was the hardest part because I had this incredibly, clear, compelling vision of the life and business I wanted to create. And what I could offer, and the people that I wanted to reach, but I had to push past that fear. I think there was a long time that, you know, I thought about this, but I was like, when I'm ready, when I have enough money, when these conditions all are met, and, you know, it was like, tick tock, tick tock, and those conditions were not going to come to fruition. It required action of me, and, I think for a lot of people, COVID brought a lot of clarity of what is truly important, and I wanted more time with my family, I wanted more freedom and flexibility. I wanted to do things that were creative and felt aligned with my personal values. So, I just knew, like, okay, you have to do it scared. You gotta do it with your hands shaking, terrified, and just walk into the fire. Beyond the financial and emotional risk, I think one of the biggest challenges was simply how much I had to learn, all at once just to figure this out, like where to file my business, how to set up the tax structure, how to set up payroll, what tech do I need to launch courses, how to structure my business model, how to launch my clinical private practice. And I would say even now marketing is still my biggest challenge and I think marketing is both an art and an investment and I still have a lot to learn. I also struggled with imposter syndrome, everything I saw about running a business screamed, you must have a hyper defined niche. I'm an integrative therapist through and through, and I spent years in community mental health managing these massive caseloads. My private practice is a wide range of clients with transdiagnostic presentations, and I get interested in a lot of things. I have a lot of passions, a lot of interests, and I didn't know if I could succeed without niching down. You know, I kind of felt like a jack of all trades and a master of none, but ultimately I realized that most clinicians, especially those in group practices and community mental health or early in private practice, they aren't super niched down either, they need to know a lot about a lot, they need practical, flexible, evidence based trainings that reflect the realities of clinical work across different populations. Most people doing clinical work are not you know, handpicking their patients. They're getting assigned a caseload. Their intakes are being scheduled on their behalf. So they need to be prepared for a wide range of clinical presentations, people with different social and physical locations. So that's the risk I was taking serving therapists who, like me, wear a lot of hats in their private practice. And then there's been so many incredible wins. I'm so happy with the decision to just start before I felt ready. Little things like when I first got my logo for my business I was crying like oh my gosh! Even my my business when it was like just like the simplest little landing page it like these moments just got exciting. I started putting the trainings out there, either led by other clinicians or myself. I put out a 10 hour self study on gender affirming care, and somebody wrote me the most beautiful review on that training. They were an older clinician, like probably close to retirement, in their late 70s, and just talking about how a lot of what they were exposed to was conversion therapy and looking at sexual minority and gender minorities as mental illnesses. And he just gave me this beautiful feedback about how this training had shifted his worldview and that he wished he had done it decades earlier and that he was so happy that he was taking it even if he didn't even know if he was going to ever work with gender diverse clients. I was like, oh okay, this is why I'm doing this and those sort of wins are so incredible and so fulfilling.

I so appreciate your willingness to share a little bit more about kind of the mindset that has to go into creating something. We want to wait for the right conditions, or we do see other people being successful and we're like, Oh, we have to figure out, you know, exactly their systems, or what are they using, or okay, niching down, great, what does that look like for me? And not all of us fit in, in those boxes, right? And it is risky to go out on our own, but it can also be so, so incredibly fulfilling as well. One of the reasons that I actually really like your podcast too, is you do have diversity included, and I could see where they're very relevant, very helpful for clinicians in their practice. And I can only imagine how many clients then get impacted by that.

And I think I'm so lucky because I get to benefit from having a really broad lens, but then I talk to people who are super specialized and niched out, and they're just, like, brilliant about what they know well, and I get to just, like, soak in their genius. I think that's one of the most fun things, too, in both the live virtual workshops I offer and the podcast, I'm not always the trainer. I'm oftentimes not the person who's like featuring the educational piece. So I also get to benefit so much from the courses I offer selfishly. So also through that lens, I'm like, what do I want to learn? What do I want to hear about? What do I want to know more about? And, um, I think just like me authentically being interested and inspired by the amazing people that have been so generous to come and teach for Affirm or be featured on the podcast, you know, has really, served it to be sort of an authentic brand.

One of the reasons I love doing this podcast is because I really get to connect with different providers that are also, I'm like, how did you do that? How did you jump through the hoops and push past the fear and imposter syndrome and everything else.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think just like being transparent too that my podcast is not monetized, and I think that, uh, yeah, that's the part that's hard. You know we see sometimes a lot of people succeeding in this space and it, you know, like anything else that's being sort of forwardly presented we kind of fill in the blanks and make assumptions about their income and how it's like generating and I think right now my business is very much an investment and I believe in it wholeheartedly and you know, I'm so excited to scale but right now, yeah, it's my one-to-one clinical work that is like supporting this business and you know, I want to be transparent with other people that have this interest of diversifying their income. don't give up because I think a lot of it is slower and more steady than, you know, social media or sort of our assumptions would lead us to believe. And, you know, I'm totally okay to be transparent about that because I think therapists are awesome and they have so much to share and being willing to do it, like, slow and small and consistently like if something doesn't blow up overnight doesn't mean that it's not valuable and a worthy contribution.

You bring up another really good point and you mentioned this earlier about the marketing piece. I think, uh, so as a, as a clinician, I didn't do any sort of studying for business or marketing or advertising. And so this has all been kind of new for me. And one of the things that I've realized on this journey is marketing is you have to play the long game. You really have to continue to, to be consistent, to show up. And sometimes, when I first started putting out my own trainings, I wasn't advertising as much. I thought, oh, I'll post something and then nobody shows up or has interest, well, I guess that wasn't a good idea.

Yeah, and I think we're all on the other side of that, we're inundated with ads and content and we see things all the time, you know, bypassing something or not engaging with something doesn't mean it's not valuable, so I really try to discern the quality of my program based on people I'm able to successfully get in the door, the people who actually take the courses and, it's just been so overwhelmingly positive, that's what, like, kind of keeps me engaged, but like most of the things that I put out, in terms of advertising on social media, I get one thumbs up on Facebook, three hearts and I'm like, yeah, we did it, the willingness to show up and feel invisible and ignored and stupid, is, 90 percent of the battle.

There was a training that I wanted to register for. So I went and I was like, oh, let me go register for it. Clicked onto it. And then lo and behold, there's other things distracting me. Right? So then I'm like, oh okay, and I move forward. That training was still something that I wanted to do, but it wasn't until a couple of weeks later when I saw it advertised again that I was like, Oh, Oh yeah, I went to click on that and I got distracted. So I do think that sometimes when we're kind of putting ourselves out there and it feels anxiety provoking, we can say, Nobody likes it. It was a bad idea. Somebody might have had ADHD and got distracted. And it's okay. We just need to tell them again.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

So you are growing and you've brought on someone to support your vision, how has that changed the way you operate? How you're growing?

Yeah, so, shout out to Lyndy, my Operations and Marketing Coordinator. Bringing on Lyndy was amazing. And, you know, honestly, scary, um, I knew that if I wanted to grow, I had to invest in a team. I'm doing like 30 plus hours of clinical work a week and I was trying to grow the CE program, as much as I can independently. And I, you know, recognized at a certain point, I definitely had to let go to grow. Like it was just the only way. But I also wanted to do it like ethically. I wanted to pay someone well. I wanted to offer them flexibility. I wanted to create a work experience for them. So putting someone on payroll was like definitely the biggest and most important investment I made in my business, and it's really helped in the way I operate, you know, so just as an example, before I hired Lyndy I was about 85 percent done with my ASWB accreditation application. So that's for The Association for Social Work Board. And I hit a wall. I can hyperfocus and I can fly through something. But then when I hit a roadblock and all those small details and organizational work come up it starts to feel like reading code or, a language I don't understand. And Lyndy, on the other hand, just has strengths that I don't, so when she came on, we were able to get through that application, she's incredibly organized, she's detail oriented, and on top of that, she's just a very genuinely kind person. Also, in terms of, like, just letting yourself start small, like, to me, like, uh, someone's values and their worldview and their mindset was more important than their resume. Not that she doesn't have wonderful experiences and all of that, but she didn't have any marketing experience. She had never worked for a mental health service. She never worked for a digitally based business, but she intuitively understood the ethos of Affirm Mental Health, and she was so willing to learn, I couldn't have started to scale this business without her. The entire last year has been about building the backend infrastructure so that we can scale. She helped automate so many administrative tasks and CE related processes. Which freed up my time so I could focus on creating content and networking with educational clinicians growing the business and doing my psychotherapy practice. She was also the one who really pushed me to launch the Affirming Minds Podcast. I initially thought that was something we would do much further down the line, but with her support we were able to launch it within like four weeks within deciding that we were going to do it, and then we could just move forward. So I think especially because I still am doing so much clinical practice, which I love, I'm just doing a lot of it, I'm still a little bit in that trading time for money, and I think bringing her on was really sort of, um, valuing my time in a different way I really want to optimize my time for the things that are going to be contributing most meaningfully to the business.

I also appreciate that you share your experience of really balancing and maintaining a pretty large caseload while you're trying to launch this other project as well. As we look at adding additional income streams sometimes we have to be the patron of our own art. My clinical work is funding this project right now with the intention and the goal of it being self sustaining eventually.

Yeah, that's my hope, you know, my fingers and toes are crossed and I really believe in that potential and I think now we're really in a position that that's possible, but you have to build it out first. If there was some wild world where a year ago that thousands of people started signing up for our membership, I wouldn't have been ready. You know, like, it would have imploded on itself in a way. And now I think I've grown into, with Lyndy's help, a position that we actually can sustain a much larger audience and that we can give them a great experience through the whole process in terms of an educational experience, which I think was always there, but now also a customer service experience. Because people have to purchase things, they're putting in credit card information, they want to make sure the email doesn't go to spam and the tech is convenient to use on their end. And, you know, I have people that are coming in with all different levels of tech savvy. Like some people, it's just like, they're taking an online course for the first time. They don't know like the buttons to push or whatever. So we had to make sure it was intuitive. And a lot of it was like, launching, putting it out there, and then refining as we go, and there was sort of no way but through.

Clarity is kind of one of my words for this year, and it is so much more challenging to simplify things than to kind of just, you know, I tend to kind of be maybe wordy, or like, I'll put a lot of information on, on older flyers that I would have for trainings and things like that. And I'm like, when I scroll through and I see lots and lots and lots of wording, I don't necessarily sit and look at it all, so I wonder if that's happening to mine as well. And then how do you advertise in a sentence? Right? How do you advertise with colors or make your logo something that matches the this product that I have, right? Not too complex, easy to see on little micro buttons and Google and, you know, all the little things too. There's so many logistical pieces that go into it and it's totally doable. Absolutely. And if it's not your strong suit, we hire somebody else and we help you get them kind of on board with that as well.

Yes. And I think contrast brings clarity. So sometimes we get clarity by something going wrong and be like, Oh, okay. So we're not going to do that. You know, experience being the greatest teacher. Readiness and people feeling like they have to be ready, whatever that means, is the greatest barrier to a lot of these things. Doing it is what gets you ready. Messing up is what gets you ready. Falling on your face is what gets you ready, you know?

Totally does.

Yeah.

I think it's not my favorite to be uncomfortable. And to, like, be anxious and questioning and uncertain. And yet, that is the biggest teacher, right? I was learning keywords for SEO and I put together a certain phrase and I was like, great. And then I posted it and I was like, that sounds odd, but now it's out there that would take a lot of time to redo that. I'll pay attention as I go forward. Great.

Yeah.

How did you develop your business mindset and what advice would you give to other clinicians who want to do the same?

Yeah, I think even in my previous role at the hospital in New York that I worked at I naturally gravitated towards program development. So if I saw a gap or a problem, I wanted to come up with a solution. I wanted to try to see like, okay, well, what can we do about it? Both of my last supervisors there would comment that I had an entrepreneurial spirit, and I was like, huh, I didn't really see it in myself, I could be very self critical, so I believed I had the soft skills but not the hard skills that I needed for business. But now I see things a bit differently, I think therapists actually have so many transferable skills to entrepreneurship. You know, we're constantly solving problems, we're adapting to new challenges, we're thinking creatively, and I think those are all essential for building a business. And so much about entrepreneurship is just figuring things out as you go. So, a big part of my preparation was just like listening to personal and business development podcasts, most of which had nothing to do with mental health specifically. And just sort of adopting the mindset that everything is figureoutable. You don't have to have all the skills in place before you start, you just have to be willing to learn and experiment and take action. I think a big piece of it for myself was that I was going to give myself credit for everything. Like, there was no way to, like, prevent myself from having self critical thoughts or maybe some shame or embarrassment in the process, but with intentionality and consciously, like, every time I took action towards this goal, like, I was going to acknowledge that and be with that and savor that, no matter the outcome, like, that I was just gonna be encouraging to myself the whole time. And, to me that that is what I have come to see like my specific brand of being entrepreneurial is persisting forward with some self kindness. So I think for clinicians who want to develop business acumen recognize that you have transferable skills. Recognize like you're not starting from scratch. Therapy trains you to be adaptable and intuitive and resourceful and all of that will help you. I think it's just sort of like bringing out what is already entrepreneurial within you rather than thinking It's something you don't have that you have to earn or get. Instead of focusing on what you don't know, lean in what you can figure out, invest in your learning, and I think, podcast books, courses, and then surround yourself with positive people. If you're gonna be around people that speak to your limitations or tell you why it's gonna be too hard or too challenging or why it's not gonna work, that can be sort of, infectious, and no shade to people that sometimes people are trying to be helpful or play devil's advocate. That's their temperament. They're a bit of a contrarian. But I think being able to really protect your energy and your peace when you're doing that, and pull in people that like, can see it with you and sort of, uh, screen out people that are going to uh, overemphasize on the problem. You know that's how our brains are wired anyway, that's like the easy thing is to see the problem and see the challenge and the threat. I think it takes the skillfulness to override that and see the possibility and I again I think that's the mindset piece, and the most important thing is take action before you feel ready. You'll never have all the answers up front. But as you mentioned clarity is so important and it really comes from action.

We have to also encourage ourselves. We have to be able to say like, I did a hard thing. It was really challenging. It was scary. I might have cried, but I did it. It's there. I put it out there, right? And I think about, sometimes some of the fears of like, Oh, well, what if I get a bad review? What if somebody doesn't like my stuff? That will hurt. It probably will suck.

Your stuff is not going to be for everybody, and I think that's absolutely okay. I was a little shell shocked when I first started reaching out and putting my stuff out there. The name of my business is Affirm Mental Health. The branding colors are the colors that are indicated in the transgender pride flag. And that is a communication that my Business will always be, no matter the political climate, centering that mental health should be a safe, affirming space for gender expansive folks. In terms of the clinical education that I put out, certainly we have some courses on that, but the vast majority of things are, you know, more broad and things like that. I've gotten some emails from people that have, you know, sent me some, like, incredibly transphobic things, and I, you know, I'm a cisgender woman, I am just simply someone who advocates for these educational, clinical experiences. And obviously, like, as, a human rights issue, so, I was like, oh, my goodness. But I think I just recognize like you're putting yourself out there in the world and you're gonna your presence, your existence, your content, it's it's gonna welcome in the people that it's meant to and for some people it's gonna upset them or trigger them. And I think I remember when I first got an email like that I was just like it made me sad that people just have these really visceral reactions just to like the suggestion. I like wasn't posting anything that I felt was like particularly controversial I think it was about my gender affirming care course but you know, I think I just sort of recognized that I have to use that as motivation. I have to just say, okay, well, this is the reason that that's a core part of my business, like, right? I think that, it's easier said than done, but other people's opinions of you has nothing to do with you, and it's not about you. And I think I'm more trying to be like, am I proud of it? Does this align with my values? Does this align with what we want this company to stand for? And if any of my clients saw this, heard this, experienced this would they feel like it's in dignity and respect to them? Because I think that's important too. Like I always want the people that ultimately are being reached to feel respected.

You know that you're doing well in your marketing or your advertising if you have people that like you and really are attracted to the things that you do. And also if you have people that don't like you. Because you're taking a stance. You are putting out there that this is what I do, and this is what I don't do. And the people that are going to be good customers are going to be naturally drawn to that. And you don't have to serve everyone.

Yeah, it's a very powerful reframe to take.

So another question, Affirm Mental Health offers CEUs in multiple formats. So live workshops, you do self paced webinars, and pod courses. How does this approach enhance accessibility and learning for therapists?

Yeah, I think as I mentioned, I want to really over deliver to the people who take their hard earned money and invest it into education with Affirm. They have so many options nowadays, which is great. I really want to provide continuing education that fits into their lives, not that they have to be moving mountains to make work. And then there were some practical aspects as well. As a licensed clinician in New York, 24 out of our 36 CEUs that we earn in our tri annual review period have to be from live, interactive content. And many of the continuing education membership programs that exist don't include live trainings at all, or if they do, they're sort of prohibitively expensive. So I saw a gap in the market there, and I wanted to create a membership that offered multiple formats to help therapists build the most elite therapeutic toolkit possible. Therapists have different learning styles, they have different schedules, they have different needs, so offering multiple formats enhances accessibility. In terms of the live workshops, those provide real time interaction and networking opportunities and direct engagement with expert instructors. People can ask questions, people can talk through cases, obviously barring that PHI is protected and all that good stuff. In terms of the self paced webinars, it allows therapists to learn on their own time without the constraints of a set schedule, but also those people that really benefit from visual learning and visual aid in their learning process. And then I think for many people, pod courses are really like game changers. You can listen to CEUs on the go. You know, I think if there's one thing therapists don't have is a lot of time. I just really wanted to maintain quality and offer content to more clinicians in a way that feels sustainable and supportive of them and the way they learn best.

Your courses focus on process oriented relational approaches rather than rigid protocols. Why would you say that is so important in clinical practice?

Yeah, I mean, I personally, I have lived experience with both trauma and mental health challenges, and one of my biggest priorities is reducing this divide between us and them. You know, in a lot of my educational experiences the way that, like, clients were talked about sometimes, I'd be Oh my goodness, like if they knew about me, would they be judging me? It felt sometimes like judgmental and obviously that varied and sometimes it was like few and far between because I've also had amazing trainers and mentors and supervisors along the way. But I really do love that more clinician educators are leaning into sharing their lived experiences, not as something that undermines their expertise, but something that legitimizes it. And you know, at Affirm Mental Health I really want our training to serve a purpose that's not over pathologizing people, that acknowledge that this being a human being thing is pretty hard, and the focus should really be on leveraging clinical treatment to help people build meaningful lives and relationships. Not just allowing rigid frameworks, and that's the criteria and lens I use for everything we put through Affirm. And that's not to say that we don't share evidence based treatments that have protocols to them. We do trainings on ERP, Cognitive Processing Therapy, Prolonged Exposure, all which have structured treatment. However, the clinician educators we have have a flexible lens and they can really talk about it in a way that translates to real clinical practices and the realities and challenges that come with that. I think that therapy is fundamentally about the relationship that we have with ourselves and other people. And sometimes when we're clinging too tightly to rigid protocols, we fail to capture the complexity of human experiences. There's some people that think that anything that is not 100 percent in pure fidelity is sort of like bullshit treatment. It's like less quality and less value and I sort of think that our educational offerings counter to that a lot. We center the person, we center the people that benefit from the treatment. We don't have the treatment dictate the way that the person is served, if that makes sense. I think that old adage that principles over protocols and while structured interventions absolutely have value, taking this process oriented and relational approach allows clinicians to adapt intervention to each client's unique needs and their values and their structural and cultural contexts, to foster genuine connections and trust. Which I think is really essential for therapeutic progress and promote flexibility and responsiveness and allow therapists to navigate the diverse and nuanced challenges that arise in real world clinical work. I want people to be able to go to trainings and have it translate into the way that they're providing care and reaching clients. So, as I mentioned, I'm an integrative therapist through and through, so I really have no allegiance to any one modality. And yet, I feel like I can learn from everybody. You know, I care about what works for the human being that's in front of me. So that's really why we emphasize evidence based strategies with a flexible, human centered framework. Ultimately, therapy should be about meeting people where they are and not forcing them into rigid models that don't reflect the complexities of their lives.

How do you incorporate trauma informed and evidence based LGBTQ affirming and culturally affirming principles into your courses?

Yeah, so inclusivity and affirming care are really at the heart of Affirm Mental Health, and I feel like having the name Affirm Mental Health kind of keeps me accountable, like, I have to, I have to be thinking about this, um, so, you know, we don't like check a box, we, I really want to focus on integrating the principles at every level to ensure our courses are trauma informed, evidence based, LGBTQ affirming, and culturally responsive. We prioritize those values by prioritizing trauma informed frameworks. So our courses emphasize safety, choice, collaboration, empowerment, ensuring that both clients and clinicians are supported while reducing the potential for harm. It's also recognizing that the psychiatric, psychologic, social work traditions and our frameworks have historically harmed people, right? I think that a willingness to be with that, and sort of be in that acknowledgement of always, working towards betterment um, while sort of that willingness to be with those, those uncomfortable truths. But also not extract the value of like research and good clinical products that have come from that. So I think always navigating that, um, is important for me. Using evidence based interventions is also incredibly important to me, whether it's ACT or um, EMDR um, or ERP, we, you know, we really want to ensure our courses are rooted in interventions with a strong research foundation. My priority is clinical applications, right? So I don't want a training that's like three hours of talking about the research base or the theoretical framework. And that gender diversity, cultural and racial diversity, it's not an afterthought. It's woven into the way we discuss everything, into case examples to interventions and therapist reflections and challenges. So, you know, always highlighting intersectionality and that mental health treatment doesn't exist in a vacuum. I'm a big proponent of holding a structural competency framework, and understanding how larger, political, environmental, structural forces like racism, economic policies, et cetera impact mental health experiences. And also thinking about what we can do outside of the therapeutic milieu to support clients in a way that is protective, proactive, and at a community level. So, I hope that shines through in our offerings, it's certainly an intention, and it's something that I'm thinking about a lot.

Many therapists dream of creating CEU courses but don't know where to start. What are the first steps that you would recommend?

Yeah, so, if you want therapists to receive CEUs, you'll need accreditation through a accrediting body like NBCC or ASWB or APA or the state level boards. I think that if you're considering becoming an independent CE provider, Google is your friend. Where I would specifically tell you to start is whatever discipline you are, so if you're a licensed professional counselor, I would go to the accrediting board where you receive your own continuing education from. So, whether that be NBCC or your local state accrediting board, depending on what the laws are in the particular state where you are licensed or located. I would recommend just starting at the national level because if you're going to do it, why not just get the broadest scope possible, download the application and simply read the application. It's so easy to build this up in our minds to be this big bad monster in your head. But if you go through the application, and highlight what you need, it becomes much more tangible and doable. And you could say I don't have this information. I do have this information. And it will tell you exactly what you need in order to start the process. You'll know where the gaps are, and then you could actually formulate a tangible plan around that. I think that if you're not quite ready to sort of go it alone, you can partner with an approved CE provider. It's a great place to start teaching as a guest with an existing CE provider, you know, like Affirm Mental Health, just as a suggestion, but things like PESI as well. I think you can apply for your course to be offered through their programming. So it's sort of a great way to test the waters, before building out an entire program. And then just in terms of actual content development, I would say choose a topic you're passionate about. When I'm looking for podcast guests, I say what could you talk about for an hour with no notes and just ramble on and on about. If that also fills a gap in current training options, great, but I think also not worrying about things being saturated. I think the more you start with what you actually like to talk about, the better. Almost like every state board requires ethics, but if you don't like talking about ethics, then I wouldn't start there just because there might be a bigger need. And then you work on defining your learning objectives. Like what should participants walk away knowing or feeling or doing differently, because all accreditation bodies will require clear measurable objectives. And then you can start thinking about the format. Will it be live? Will it be a self paced webinar or a podcourse? Like right now we're doing this on Zoom, you press record it issues a recording. That is a self study you could populate. Even if you don't know your distribution, like you probably have access to more things than you realize to get the process started. And then, obviously once you get all of that together, therapists need to know that your courses exist. So, I'm still working on this. But social media, podcast guesting, email marketing, are all great places to start in terms of getting the word out. I post so frequently because I have the weekly podcast, and then we, run a workshop, and then we, populate the self study from that. So every week there's new content. I've been kicked out of a bunch of groups for posting too much, to me that was so embarrassing. But again, it's just that willingness, that willingness to just be like, no, I'm just gonna do it. I'm just gonna take forward action every day. We'll see what sticks and sometimes it's just like those funny, like, embarrassing moments where you're like, wow, I really don't know what's going on here, but I'm going to keep on showing up.

I think that's so, so important, right? That piece of like, okay, that hurts, that stung a little bit. And I'm still going to show up. I'm going to do it again. I'm still going to keep posting. I've seen your stuff repeatedly because of that consistency. I've looked into your membership. I listened to your podcast because I'm like, it's cool. It's out there. You also had interviewed some ERP specialists, which I was like this is amazing. I really like them. I'm going to check this out. But I wouldn't have known that if you didn't keep consistently showing up, right? Even if it's anxiety provoking, even if you only get one thumbs up. I do think sometimes people are lurkers and they don't always interact, but they still see.

Yeah, that's what I'm counting on. I actually got approached by the venture capital company, and I have like no interest in selling it. I think certainly, not to a venture capitalist firm. No offense to anybody who takes that route. It's just not my journey. I was like, oh, okay, venture capitalists are seeing me, so I got out there enough that I'm in the competition, and that was kind of a fun internal moment for, for me.

That's amazing. What a milestone, right? That is so cool.

Yeah, but, you know, I think one of the, like, other things too is by learning from other people it really benefited my practice. So when we started to do the CE certificates I had no idea how to automate the certificates. So I looked into a lot of different companies that could do it. It was just like I wasn't making enough money to justify the cost It was way outside of my budget. There was no way I could do it and then I took a CE course and they were using Certify 'Em, you know and that tool streamlined our CE certificate process and it was super affordable, again, like not sponsored by them, it's just what I happen to use. And that's why it really pays to see how other people are running their programs because it really can save you time and money. I swear, I was researching this for months. You know, and then I also think once you pick a platform see what's free and available within what they're offering. So I run my courses through Kajabi. Again, like, no sponsors. I'm just sharing. No gatekeeping. There's pros and cons. Uh, again, it was one of the bigger investments that I made in my business. They offer all of these courses within the Kajabi platform that tells content creators how do you make a mailing list? How do you create a course? How do you automate responses? All of these things I didn't know about running a digital business were offered. I think just making the time because, knowledge is power in so many ways. I would also say that your Facebook group, Natasha, has been wonderful for me because it fosters a collaborative environment amongst CE providers. Not a competitive environment we can learn from each other rather than treating it like a zero sum game. I love to see what other people are doing and how they're flourishing and what they're putting out there and what they're interested in. It's how I find a lot of my podcast guests. I would definitely endorse your Facebook group. I love it.

I so appreciate that, Shaina. That definitely is the goal of that group, right? Is to kind of have us all come together. You don't have to be a venture capitalist in order to pursue these types of goals. And it's just, I'm so glad that it has been a resource. You're just putting out some really cool stuff and it's neat to just kind of see what that collaboration can bring or kind of having and fostering those different connections and the different conversations around these topics. That's really cool. So, what's next forAffirm Mental Health? Are there any new courses or innovations you're excited about?

Yeah, I'm super excited about Affirm Mental Health and where we're going in 2025. We're really trying to continue to grow and innovate, make high quality courses. Some specific things are expanding our pod course offerings. I feel like I'm always recording nowadays and I love doing those interviews. It's amazing to connect with so many amazing clinicians doing such good work, and bring those valuable insights directly to our audiences. Also doing live courses on topics that I think are deeply relevant and where there's a lot of clinical interest. So I have incredible clinician educators coming up, doing trainings on AI and mental health, EMDR, narcissism. Um, so, while I host the podcast, I only lead about 20 percent of our live trainings, so it really allows us to bring in diverse voices and perspectives and expertise to really enrich our offerings. We have a monthly membership that is $17 a month, no commitment. You could literally come in, do all your courses and be out for less than $20. We also offer group options for clinics and group practices. It's not gonna take the place of being compensated appropriately or anything like that but I think thinking about what are the ways that you can make your program or your group practice a wonderful place for your clinical teams to work. What is really nice is we can work with group practices and institutional partners to say like, well, what is your clinical staff need? What kind of trainings do they want? What do your patient population need? And then we can tailor our clinical offerings based on the needs of our participants. So, you know, we hope to really evoke more group and institutional partnerships. We really want to scale the Affirm Academy membership. And then we launched a YouTube channel a couple weeks ago. We're really just focused on dissemination and making the information widely available by sharing video versions of the podcast and webinars that I host. And, you know, this is especially important for me to also reach people who can't afford CEUs right now, or non clinicians that still want valuable mental health insights, so I'm really excited to provide this as a free resource. I really want my courses to be accessible, so I launched a lot of these courses and was not thinking about including closed captioning. It was a gap in my bias and my privilege in many ways. So I definitely want to go back and figure out a process for transcribing that we can put on the YouTube podcast versions to be available. My long term vision, my like vision board goal is I would just love Affirm Mental Health to be like a go to platform for continuing education for master's level social workers, I'd love the podcast to reach a broad audience, the Affirming Minds Podcast, it's so cool to see in the analytics for the podcast that people are listening in Malaysia and Spain and Germany, I mean, it just like, tickles me so much, like, I got so excited about that. I want to help therapists not just, meet their CE requirements, but, grow and feel confident and feel fulfilled in their work, so, we're going to keep on trucking along and trying to do that.

You are being creative in how you disseminate the information and, okay, if I create this membership and an individual can have it. What about group practices? How do I offer it to them? How do I get this out a little bit more? And kind of, again, multiple ways of bringing in additional income for you. That's so cool. And if you didn't take the risk, to go put yourself out there and do this, those people in Germany or Malaysia might not be benefiting from some of the stuff that you're producing, that you are putting out, some of these perspectives that are really important as well. And I just so appreciate your honesty and your authenticity with this, that we are going to make mistakes. There are certain things, whether it's bias, privilege, whatever it might be, and it's okay to then say, Oh, okay. I'm going to do something else. Okay, how do I problem solve that? And again, kind of create that accessibility. It's just so, so cool.

Yeah, thank you so much. I really appreciate that.

Yeah. So, if people want to find you, what is your website? And how would they go about registering for the membership?

Yeah, so if you check out AffirmMentalHealth.com, you could check out our courses. You can sign up for a membership there. If you're already, a member, you can log in there. AffirmMentalHealth.com is like really the hub. If you want to follow us on social media we're @AffirmMentalHealth on Instagram. Feel free, you can, follow me on LinkedIn, I'm Shaina Siber-Sanderowitz, I always love to connect, love to hear from people what kind of courses they're interested in seeing from Affirm Mental Health. Also anybody who's interested in becoming a CE provider and has questions about how to get started. I always love to see people taking action on their dreams. So.

Are you accepting new podcast, uh, guests?

Oh, yeah.

If so where can they reach out to you for that?

Oh, yeah. Um, I am accepting new podcast guests. So for the Affirming Minds Podcast, check it out. You can email me at shainasiber lcsw@affirmmentalhealth.com. Also, if you go to our website and if you look through the courses there's a tab where if like people are interested in becoming instructors they can take a look at that as well. Feel free to email me. You could also send a private message on our Instagram, whatever is most helpful.

That's so incredible, Shaina. Last thing, is there anything else that you want to make sure that we highlight?

I think that, I would just echo that same, like, start before you're ready, you know, whatever that's applying to in your life right now, just start before you're ready.

Absolutely. Such amazing advice. You had mentioned earlier that you were kind of researching for several months at times, and there is going to be research involved. We're going to have to find and do digging and how do we search for the things we don't know what to search for just yet. We can get caught, I'm guilty of this, in procrastination learning and trying to feel ready enough. It just emphasizes that, are we ever going to feel ready? But we learn when we get out and we do it.

Yeah

Shaina, it has been such an honor and a privilege to have you here today. I so appreciate your time and your willingness to share your expertise and your willingness to share more about the Affirm Mental Health Podcast, the trainings that you offer, and just the things that you're doing in the field.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, and likewise, the feeling is very mutual and I love your podcast and again, just like for our own sort of self encouragement, 90 percent of podcasts don't make it past episode three. I'm like super proud this upcoming week I'll be releasing my 21st podcast which will put me in like the 99th percent of podcasts for not giving up, right? So, you know, I think also people are feeling like the market is saturated in any of these spaces. The perseverance is key and it's the consistency over intensity. You can never lose if you are willing to continually show up and not give up on yourself. So I feel like we should both mutually be proud of ourselves for getting past those statistics and keeping with it, even when it's hard and scary.

Thank you so much for that encouragement, Shaina. Honestly, when I see you posting yours every week, I post one about once a month, is kind of my cadence right now. And I see yours weekly, and I'm like, that is so badass. And, Podfade? Mm mm. Not for Shaina. Not for me either. We are going to absolutely embrace that. Because, like you said, it's, I think that, we start to put out projects like this and we can feel new, it can feel uncomfortable, and it can feel like did I even do a good job? I don't even, what am I even trying to do here? It's important to me. I'm going to keep growing. I'm going to keep learning.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Again, such an honor to have you here today. Such a pleasure to be able to meet with you and to chat with you about this. I would love to have you back in the future as you continue to grow your trainings and the podcast and everything that you're doing.

Yeah. Absolutely. And I would love to have you on the Affirming Minds podcast to talk about OCD. I'm really excited to just hear so much about your clinical perspectives as well. So absolutely. Anytime. I'll come back. Anytime.