Interview w/ Ashley Kellogg, Program Director at Highpoint

Name: Ashley Kellogg
Position: Program Director
Campus: Highpoint
Time in Current Position: 8 years
Previous Positions: Lead Clinician, Clinician, Clinical Case Manager
Years with Hillcrest: 18 years

How did you first get started with Hillcrest?
I started at Hillcrest in 2004. I had graduated from Saint Mike’s College up in Burlington, Vermont with an undergrad in psychology and was looking for something in the field that would put my psych degree to use. When I started at Hillcrest, I honestly thought it was going to be a short-term position, but very much fell in love with it and have been here since.

Which campus did you start at when you started?
I started at the Hancock ITU, which was a nine-bed crisis unit program for adolescent boys. 

What were you doing there? 
I was the clinical case manager. So I did about 30 hours of clinical case management, family contact, skill practices with the boys, and I sat in and facilitated groups with them. And then I did about 10 hours of direct care work. I joke with people that it’s been the longest summer of my life. 

Because you thought you would just be there for a little time and then…
I spent 18 and a half years here, but honestly, from the minute I stepped foot on campus, I was like, “I don’t think I’m leaving.” 

What appealed to you about working for Hillcrest before you started? 
I really liked working with kids. I did an internship in my undergrad program in a crisis stabilization home with adolescents, and I really enjoyed that. Kids are incredibly fun to work with. It’s nice to have a real impact on people. I feel like that is something that I experienced more in the youth populations than I did in the adult populations that I worked with during my previous internships.

I think what also appealed to me about Hillcrest was not just how connected everybody was, but it appeared to me that nobody was just a number. Everybody was a name and that has continued to be clear in my 18 years. I’ve never felt like anybody is just one of 500. I feel like Jerry, Shaun, Chris, they know everybody’s name. They know something about that person. I’ve heard them say, “How’s your mom? How was your vacation?” They just know things about people that I don’t feel like upper management always do in larger companies. 

What are the happiest moments for you as a program director?
There are a lot of really happy moments as a program director. I think some of the happiest moments are when we have a really tough kid who makes a significant amount of progress and then returns to the community. We’ve certainly had our fair share of kids who have really struggled upon admission. And we worked really hard and they worked really hard, and then they get to a lower level of care or back home and were successful. 

I think probably my happiest moments as a program director can be summed up as when the kids are happy and the staff are happy. If those two groups of people aren’t happy, I’m not a happy program director. 

One of the other things that I enjoy about being a program director is being able to do things at an operations level that positively impact the program. Since I’ve been the program director here, we’ve built a beautiful brand-new dorm that we opened in 2015. We’re in the midst of a large renovation to our school building. So a lot of proud and happy things.

What are the hardest parts about being a program director?
One thing that’s hard is always wanting to do more for the kids. That is a struggle. You always want to be able to give them more. You always want to make sure that the kids are living their best life and we do give them a really good life, but you always want to do more. 

What surprised you the most about being a program director?
Before I was a program director, I was a clinician. And initially, I viewed myself going down that path. I was a clinical supervisor at the ITU and then here for a little bit of time. I think I surprised myself when I thought the [program director position] may be the path I wanted to go down, because I was really committed to being a therapist. But it looked like it was a really exciting job. It’s nice to have my hand in a lot of different things and be able to make an impact in a bunch of different areas. I get to collaborate with a lot of smart people. I work really closely with the department heads. I was initially surprised by how much I enjoyed it but really do love this job. 

So you went from the clinical supervisor to program director?
Yes. I was a clinical case manager when I started, which was a bachelor’s position. It’s essentially like the family permanency specialist now. 

Then I went to grad school while working at Hillcrest. I did my internship here and became a clinician at Brookside for a number of years. Then I became the lead clinician down there before transferring up to Highpoint to do that same role in August of 2013. After moving up here, I realized the program director position had opened up. And I thought that sounded like something I’d be pretty interested in. So I transitioned into that role in January of 2014. 

That was an interesting jump for me because that was out of my comfort zone at the time. To go from my clinical wheelhouse to a programmatic, budget-managing position.

Did it feel like a natural change?

Absolutely. There are certainly days when I miss sitting in an office with a kid and working through some really hard treatment matters. But I can’t imagine doing anything other than this role now.  

Who is the most influential person in your work life right now? 

I think there are two people who have really impacted me. A number of years ago a psychologist named Helen Bray-Garretson worked with me on some tough clinical cases. And she really shaped how I look at kids. She was thoughtful in her approach. She was steadfast in “kid first” and she was just a gentle soul, who was kind and incredibly brilliant. She was somebody that I really looked up to and I would model my interactions with kids after hers. That’s translated into this realm of my career.

The other person who I consider a professional role model right now is Michele Morin, Hillcrest’s Vice President of Human Resources. I think Michele has a real critical eye and looks at things from a variety of different angles. And every decision she makes is in the best interest of both the staff and the kids. She doesn’t have a knee-jerk reaction to things. And I really appreciate that about her.

What kind of person do you think succeeds in a leadership role at Hillcrest? 
I think in order to succeed in a leadership role at Hillcrest, you have to be a motivating personality. I don’t think you’re going to be a successful leader if you come in and say, “This is how it’s going to be done because I said so.” It’s really important to me to have an open-door policy, to make sure everyone’s voice is at the table. Because you have to have the people who work at your program following your mission. If you don’t, I think it’s largely going to be unsuccessful.

What kind of person do you think succeeds working with the kids? 
Somebody who likes to have fun. Somebody who is not afraid to be active. Our kids have a lot of energy and do their best when they’re kept busy and engaged in activities. I really like people who want to share their interests with the kids. We have a staff member who likes to play soccer outside of work and they’ll come in and run soccer clubs or soccer pick-ups with the kids. 

I do think you have to realize there are going to be difficult days. And, at times, kids may say or do things that they don’t really mean, especially when they’re having a trauma-triggered reaction. You have to not personalize that.

Do you have any advice for new employees?
I think my biggest piece of advice for new employees is to approach each day as a new day. Sometimes on really difficult days, it can be easy to think this is not for me, but those hard days are when the kids grow. Just keep making sure that [you] come back the next day. The kids need us to show up for them.

Do you have any favorite kid stories?
This summer the boys started working at the farmer’s market in Pittsfield. That’s something we have not done before. They’ve had a largely successful garden program, and they sell veggies to staff through their campus farm stand but we hadn’t really ventured out into the community. That’s something the kids really liked. It was great to see the kids proud of the products they’d helped produce, and be comfortable talking with people in the local community about Hillcrest. They were working on their social skills, introducing themselves, asking questions about the customers, using education skills. They were making change for customers and all sorts of things. So that was a really awesome experience. They’re really excited for next season too. 

Another cool kid story is we had a student who was with us for a number of years. When he came in, he was really in a sad place in life.  He was unsafe. He was dysregulated a lot of the time. He had experienced some really significant trauma and neglect, and he and his family were trying to work through that and get him back to baseline. It took a long time, he had to do some really hard work with his family members to get them comfortable with him going back home.

And after about two and a half years, he returned home and attended a therapeutic day program. He ended up being a kid that could speak at Hillcrest events about how positive of an experience he had and how far he had come in his treatment. This person now holds a job in the community and has graduated high school, which is amazing. And when you think about what he looked like when he walked through the doors is just incredible. 

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We’re looking for dynamic, compassionate people to join our team! Check out our career openings. We’re waiting to hear from you. 

Don’t forget to read our Interview w/ Eliyah Feek, Assistant Supervisor at Hillcrest. Center.