Spotlight Series

Guest Name: Camille Hawkins

Credentials: LCSW

Welcome Camille. Thank you so much for being on our spotlight series for the best in Utah, um, pelvic health edition. And I’m so excited to jump in and introduce you to our audience here. And then we’ll dive into a bunch of questions we have for you. Great.

Thanks for having me.

You’re welcome.

Okay. Camille Hawkins, um, is the owner and clinical director of chapters and seasons, a center focused on mind and body healing. Camille is a licensed clinical social worker and holds a master’s degree from the university of Utah and a bachelor’s degree from Utah.

State University camille’s therapeutic philosophy is rooted in neuroscience biology psychology and attachment models Camille enjoys having an eclectic practice with a variety of clients and. issues related to grief trauma life transition and relationships, in addition to therapy traditional therapy model Camille engages in an extended therapy session model to help clients get to the core of their issues and truly heal in a shorter period of time.

Camille enjoys implementing modalities such as EMDR, CBT, IFS, and ACT, mindful art therapy, movement therapy, and animal assisted therapy, nature therapy, and more.

The other pieces too, Camille also is the owner of the Wellness Farm, and that’s a 2.5 acre piece of land that is therapeutically farming in Bluffdale, focusing on providing support for grief and trauma and building resiliency in the community. The Wellness Farm has a cozy counseling office cottage and a beautiful grounds with farm animals including chickens and a mini horse, Honey, and soon to be a mini donkey, Ophelia.

Camille is also the founder and board chair of the Wellness Farm Foundation, a 5013C nonprofit with a charitable focus to support the community.

Thank you so much, Camille, for being on here. I’m excited to jump in and dive into these questions for you. So without further ado, what made you decide to do what you’re doing and help the community in the way that you’re helping them?

Wow, that’s definitely a loaded question, but I would say that the very start of it was I was interested in both medicine and psychology and I couldn’t choose. And so I decided I wanted to be a medical social worker. And that started me on a journey to support people in an emotional way when they were dealing with something physical, something challenging on a medical level is kind of where it started. And then I realized I didn’t like working in the hospital so much. So I started making the transition to outpatient therapy.

And then my personal life, I experienced infertility and pregnancy loss. And so that kind of brought me to the world of supporting grief and trauma. in more of a reproductive mental health space.

So I founded the Utah Infertility Resource Center about a decade ago, and I’ve been involved in a variety of nonprofits now doing private practice and seeing clients, you know, traditional outpatient counseling, and then also involved in the wellness farm.

So for me, it’s been, you know, a combination of, just like general interests, but also some of my personal experiences have dovetailed with those interests I’ve already had and just create a lot of meaningful work for me in my day to day now.

That’s amazing. Love when those things collide like that. Kate, what do you feel like makes your practice different than traditional things?

Yeah. So a few things, but I would say the biggest is that I’m located on a therapeutic farm. And so right outside I’ve got animals. We have a mini horse. We have a mini donkey. We have a giant pig. We have an emu. We have chickens, bunnies, and some barn cats. and probably more coming, but it’s never planned.

You know, people ask me, are you planning on getting more animals? And the answer’s always no, but somehow.

They just arrive somehow.

They’ll make their way to us. I have a hard time saying no to cute, fluffy things. So that’s, I would say, something that really makes working with me a unique experience. And there are two different avenues to, working with me at this point and one is through my private practice which is called chapters and seasons

But i am housed at this farm and then also the wellness farm foundation is the non-profit that provides support for grief and trauma and that’s more through support groups and retreats and events and things like that and so i’m involved in the nonprofit i started it i lead it

But there’s a lot of other individuals who are involved in those services as well. And we’re actually doing the groundbreaking ceremony in 2 days on the renovation of our space, which is a 6800 square foot. home that will become our retreat center.

Oh, fun. This is so exciting.

That’s what’s coming.

That’s what’s coming. Awesome. Who would you say is an ideal fit for you in your practice, whether it’s the Wellness Arm or Chapters and Seasons? Who’s that perfect person that needs your services?

Yeah, so for me as an individual therapist, I would say that 99% of my clients identify as women and are navigating something challenging, typically related to some type of thing that has happened in their life.

So a lot of time it is centered around either reproductive mental health or parenting.

So that is kind of ranging from trying to conceive, infertility, pregnancy or infant loss, um, perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, birth trauma, um, any type of postpartum concern or parenting concern.

Um, sometimes within that is, uh, parents who are navigating a unique parenting situation.

Maybe their child has special needs or maybe their child has a medical condition that requires a lot of time and attention, and sometimes anxiety, you know, about, okay, you know, if my child has a heart condition, you know, I’m worried about their life. And so, of course, that causes a lot of distress for parents. So I would say that’s kind of, you know, probably 75 to 80% of of the clients who come to me, it kind of fit in that category.

Every once in a while, I have clients that come for other reasons, whether it is more general depression, anxiety, divorce, relationships, stress, sexual abuse from the past, things like that.

People just sitting like, I’m not feeling as great as i want to feel and mentally emotionally i’m noticing you know triggers happening i’m noticing you know i’m just not feeling as great as i want to and i i want some assistance with that so i do help clients um with with some of those concerns as well and then on the wellness farm foundation um side that is um there are definitely over lapping situations but the wellness farm foundation is focused on providing support for grief and trauma and building resiliency in the community and that’s focused on death grief as well as non-death grief and so death grief right now

we have um some groups focused on pregnancy and infant loss loss of a child we also have some non-death grief groups such as divorce resiliency or unique needs parenting and over time will add more, and we also are doing once a month retreats. focus on different topics so we’ve done a pregnancy and infant loss retreat

We’re doing one for child loss we’re doing one for loss of a loved one to suicide or substances. And we’re that organization is only about a year old. And so with kind of the evolution of building out the farm and building out services and working on fundraising and donations, you know, we’ll see where the where the organization goes and, and the services that that are offered but that’s kind of where things are right now

that’s awesome so cool okay um what does the process look to look like to work with you either through personal or like private practice or the wellness farm like how does someone get in and and get help sure.

yeah so um typically we’ll start with a consultation a virtual 15-minute consultation that’s free and uh the best way to get on our calendar for that is to send an email for my personal private practice. That’s Camille at chapters and seasons dot com. And for the wellness that is hello at wellness farm beauty dot org. So sending an email, you know, I’m interested in services. Cool. Let’s book you a 15 minute free consult.

Then we chat face to face on a virtual call. answer questions, we get to know them, make sure that it’s a good fit, and then we’ll schedule a first appointment, whether that’s in the support groups or a retreat that we have coming up or on the counseling side, you know, an intake appointment. And then with an intake appointment, you know, I’m just getting to know clients.

It’s kind of like an all about them session where I just learn as much as I can about them and kind of what their goals are, you know, what they’re hoping for, um, some of the challenges that they’ve faced.

And then we start talking about, uh, how we’re going to meet their goals and, uh, kind of build that out for some clients I meet, um, typically more frequently at first, sometimes that’s a weekly basis, sometimes every other week.

And then over time as they build up some of their skills, and they’re feeling more confident, then we space out sessions so that they can kind of practice, you know, the things that they’re learning in between sessions and kind of see how they’re doing.

And then that usually builds their confidence because they’re like, oh, look, like I went, you know, three weeks and I, you know, did great and implemented these skills and then come back and they share that, you know, it’s, It’s an exciting thing to be able to celebrate with them.

So some clients, you know, I continue to meet with on a monthly basis kind of for that prevention and maintenance type approach. And for some clients I meet with just for a couple months, some for years. So it’s so individualized depending on the person and kind of what they are wanting to address.

Hey next question um what does recovery look like to you in your profession like.  Katie Iobst: What does like, can you kind of give us a broad overview of like someone who’s in desperate need of your services and then they’re. Katie Iobst: quote unquote recovered or what does that recovery process look like and then what, like you said individual like maintenance long term like walk us through that like window.

I think that with mental health mental and emotional health it’s. It sometimes does fit in with the medical model and other times it doesn’t really fit in with the medical model, and so there are sometimes situations where you know somebody is struggling and we work together, and you know they’re able to to boost. their skills and implement some of those skills and build those mental, emotional muscles and feel better. And then they’re at a place where they’re like,

“Okay, I’m good.”

There are other types of situations where, let’s say somebody experiences the death of a loved one, do we ever recover from grief?

That’s kind of a tricky question. Typically, there’s a really big grief reaction when we lose a loved one. And there is often a process of getting to a place where individuals can eat, sleep regularly, go to work, enjoy a meal, live their life. call it recovery in a sense in in that regard maybe more of a reconciliation um term is is maybe a little bit more appropriate for that type of situation because with grief we don’t identify that grief as a disorder um it’s more of a natural human experience.

So we don’t say, oh, there’s something wrong with you because you’re grieving. And so you need help. It’s that, um, there’s nothing wrong with you. Like, yes, like this is awful and it’s horrific. And like, yes, like, you know, it’s going to be beneficial for people to support you, but you know, there’s just a little bit, uh, different terminology. An approach that we that we utilize there, and then I think for like just mental health in general.

I think that is sometimes it can be helpful to say okay like you know we’ve identified that there’s something wrong and now we’re going to work on it, and now it’s fixed.

I think that mental health for a lot of people is. a lot more fluid than that. And so it’s kind of like, I would say for a lot of people, you know, a lifelong engagement with learning about them and how they interact with the world and what their nervous system is like and what their nervous system needs, how they respond emotionally. And so I, I typically see kind of engaging in counseling as you know, a lifelong learning opportunity.

And so for some people, they might get to a point where they’re like, okay, I have this traumatic experience, went to therapy, now I’m feeling better, you know, and, and don’t go to therapy anymore. But for others, it’s like, man, you know, I, I, it’s beneficial for me to talk with somebody in an ongoing way to kind of process you know, navigating life and this, this world.

And I think that it, you know, the way that we grow up, especially in our early years and the way that our nervous system rose and develops in those early years definitely sets the stage for, you know, how we interact with the world and in relationships for the rest of our life.

And so for some people, it’s like, you know, they kind of had a great start and, you know, they’re kind of on a good path. Other people have kind of harder childhoods and harder situations, or maybe they are a little bit more predisposed to having kind of just that anxiety depression.

And so they might feel like, okay, I need a little bit more support, not just for when things, you know, a hard thing happens, but just continually. Yeah. Beautiful descriptions there for sure.

Okay. What’s something that people don’t know that you think that they should know about the services that you provide?

I can’t speak for other therapists. But for me, I would say that often clients feel a little bit intimidated to go to therapy and it can feel scary and uncertain, but for the work that I do with my clients, at least the way I understand it, It seems to be a very warm, welcoming, gentle process where people come in and they feel safe.

And of course, you know, it’s important to find a good match for a therapist. and I might not be that for everyone, but you know, I, I tend to see that people come in and they’re feeling really anxious, especially if people have never done counseling before and they’ll express that.

And then as I’m working with them, um, you know, I noticed them really kind of, um, allowing themselves to work through some of these hard things that they weren’t sure that they, that they were going to, or know they weren’t sure that they would feel safe with me um to open up about certain things that they do and so i think as part of that you know just that uh a therapeutic space is for the most part confidential um you know there are some legal limitations around if people share they’re going to harm themselves in a serious way or harm someone else and a few other things but in general things are confidential so you know what’s shared in our therapy session isn’t going to be, um, you know, shared in other places. And so I think for a lot of people that safety is, um, is, you know, really reassuring. Totally.

Absolutely. Okay. Next question. And you kind of talked on this a little bit already, but is there anything special you want to share with our audience and promote? I know you have your groundbreaking thing. Is there anything in addition to that that’s happening?

So something that I would say is a very special thing that we have at the Wellness Farm Foundation is an opportunity for people to work with us, to create something on the property that is in honor of a loved one who has passed on.

So let’s say someone experiences or maybe someone has a sister and their sister lost a baby and they just have so much heartache for their sister and they want to do something special. you know, maybe rallying with some of the other family members and saying, hey, like, let’s come together and let’s go plant a tree at the wellness farm.

And we work with that family to create a meaningful experience and then put together a little plaque that can be here for, you know, hopefully for forever, right? And, yeah, just to be able to have another meaningful place for people to remember their loved ones and to be able to make an impact where, you know, people will be coming here when they have aching hearts and then to be able to see, you know, a beautiful tree or a bench or a pavilion or a water feature, things like that.

So that’s something that I think is really special and exciting that we have started to do. And being able to meet and talk with families and find out ways to honor their loved ones has just been a really meaningful and special experience.

So cool. Awesome. Kate, my final question for you, my favorite question to ask is what do you want to be known for?

What do I want to be known for? I think for me, I would say, I’m not sure how, how much of it is what I want to be known for or what I feel like is just kind of happening. But I think that, you know, for me, I have dedicated my career essentially to support people when things are really hard.

And I have done that through a lot of nonprofit work. And so, um, Helping people receive services, regardless of you know what their financial situation is.

You know I I feel dedicated to to help people and help people get connected to support if they’re suffering and so yeah I think that’s what I what I would like to be known for and I. work to do that in a couple different ways and feel like I’ll probably continue to do that throughout my career.

Awesome. Okay, where can we find you Camille? Social media, website, all the things like that.

Yeah, so we obviously have two different areas that you can find us in, or me at least. So chapters and seasons, and then Chapters and Seasons on Facebook, Instagram, and also the Wellness Farm Foundation, wellnessfarmut.org, and then wellnessfarmut at Facebook and Instagram. We also have a newsletter for the Wellness Farm, and you can sign up for that on our website.

And also I mentioned the previous emails, but I’ll share those again. Camille at chaptersandseasons.com or hello at wellnessfarmut.org. Both of those are ways that you can directly get in touch with me.

Amazing. Thank you so much, Camille, for being on our spotlight. Thank you for everything that you’re doing in the community here in Utah. And I can’t wait to see you around town.

Yeah, thanks.