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December 4, 2024
From the outside, Anna Walden’s job as a counseling aide seems simple: triaging students and assessing level of need, playing games with students and coloring. However, Walden does much more than these clear tasks and, as one would expect, can take on the emotional toll of supporting struggling students.
Though Walden’s job can come with emotional chaos, she’s trained herself to separate work and personal life. She still worries about struggling students when she’s away from campus, but also understands that once she’s home, she no longer has a direct impact on how a student is coping. Walden shared that even though it’s “cheesy,” focusing on self-care has been extremely important for her – working out, a good skincare routine, anything to prioritize herself.
Her position at MBHS is not the only mental health related venture. Previously, Walden was a recovery coach at Monte Nido in Los Angeles. She left this position because, while she enjoyed the job and the clients, “Eating disorder treatment is very brutal and tough to witness.” After Monte Nido, Walden started with the position of clinical assistant at Paradigm treatment center and was promoted to education coordinator which led her to her eventual work in schools.
In these previous positions, Walden was working with adults as well as teenagers. Through working with these adolescents, she began to appreciate their resilience and said, “Kids would have a lot of hope when they left,” speaking of her time working at Paradigm. This resilience along with the “silly” nature of teenagers are prominent reasons she enjoys working in the high school setting now.
To get to these positions, Walden had a unique journey through college. She started at Cal Poly SLO in 2017 but decided to transfer to Cuesta College in 2018 for a smoother transition to a university in Los Angeles. Since she grew up in SLO, the area was already familiar to her and she wanted college to be a new and exciting experience. In 2020 she was accepted into the University of Northridge and studied there to graduate with her Bachelor of Arts in sociology in 2022.
Walden completed all of her primary and secondary education attending public schools in SLO. High school is the most memorable for her, as she enjoyed her high school experience. She felt supported by her peers and notable adult figures, such as her mother and some teachers. This support and her own struggles with anxiety in high school encouraged Walden to pursue the career path she’s on.
Walden said, “I’m glad I challenged myself, because I feel more able to support myself and others now.”
She’s a strong believer that working through difficult times helps people adapt into more empathetic and understanding humans.
Walden attributes many of her achievements to her family; they’re a tight knit family and have always supported each other closely. She also finds it important to highlight the success and growth of students at MBHS. Her favorite part of what she does is, “Seeing people become more successful.”
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