- Massachusetts Department of Mental Health
Meet Whitney Marshall, MHA!
Child, Youth and Family Division Supervisor in North Grafton for the Department of Mental Health (DMH)
Why Whitney loves working with youth, young adults, and families!
I was 17 years old when I started working with youth. Unaware, totally ignorant and wide eyed, my passion was not yet fully developed or understood but there was a yearning, a longing to understand what my peers had been through, had endured and overcome.
Starting as a group facilitator for Wayside Youth and Family Support Network in Framingham I was introduced to a narrative that had not been my experience, a painful awakening to the reality of youth who had been through some of the most unbelievable challenges yet here they sit still hoping, still fighting to survive in a world that is harsh and unforgiving.
I fell head over heels for the work Wayside was doing to support and uplift these teens, these kids just like me who had been dealt a different hand but had made a commitment to win the game!!!!
From that summer on I have been committed to working with youth, young adults and parents around how to find happiness in the most turbulent of times, reassuring them that when they are too tired to hope, we at DMH lift them up and carry the hope for them until they are strong enough to see it, feel it and live it for themselves.
'"It is not always easy and the road is not clear but I have seen remarkable success and unbelievable resilience in my 20+ years of working in the field. It has come with laughter, incomparable joy, deep pride, heartache, tears and frustration but in the end it is where I find my peace and it is in my blood."-Whitney Marshall
