A new mental health professional has been hired at Thomas Worthington High School for the 2022-23 school year. Taylor Brown is available to students and staff for support with their mental health. She was hired to replace Ms. Youse, who resigned last year. Brown gained a lot of important experience before coming to Thomas Worthington Highschool.

“My undergrad is in psychology and then I have a Master’s degree in social work with an emphasis in mental health, and substance use,” said Brown. “Before I came here I worked in child welfare for 5 years so I was a caseworker for Children’s Services for 4 years, and then I was a supervisor for Children’s Services for a year.” Brown’s decision to come work at Thomas Worthington was mainly to work closely with youth and have a bigger impact on the next generation.

“I wanted to work primarily in the school, just to be able to work more closely with youth and I just feel like school, especially high school is such a huge part of students’ lives and teenagers lives, so being able to be a part of that was just truly exciting and important to me.”

Brown is excited for the upcoming school year and to fulfill her role. Her goals for the upcoming school year include learning her exact role and being a safe space for the people of the community who need it. Brown reflects on her time in high school to better understand how to help students in her new role.

“So I went to a very very small high school that was in the middle of a cornfield, so I was in [Future Farmers of America] where I raised animals. Very different from here. Everybody knew everybody. I think it was just very different. I was in the middle, not super popular, just kind of existed. It was not super exciting. I just worked and raised my animals. That’s pretty much it.” Brown’s passion for psychology wasn’t always her goal, she explains she was unsure of what she wanted to do in high school. Working in psychology wasn’t always the end goal for Brown

“I didn’t even know I was going to college. I just decided to apply and went, it was just kind of like a random thing, and college should not be a random thing but it was. I actually went in as a biology major for pre-med and that lasted about 3 weeks, because I was like nope I can’t do this, so they just put me in a psych class to fill like my credits. I had taken psychology in high school and really enjoyed it so I was like, oh well I’ll just major in this and didn’t really know what it entailed or what it was going to look like.”

As the new year fills students and staff with excitement, Brown is excited to create an impact on students.

“I’m really excited to meet the students that I’m going to be working with, and really get to know my students, and also just see them progress and grow over the school year as well.”