Creating Hope

BY BRIANNA STEPHENS

Michaela Fisher came to know Christian Appalachian Project (CAP) through the fun and love she experienced as a camper at Camp Shawnee. CAP came back into her life in 2015 when the Disaster Relief Program helped her family after their home was impacted by intense flash flooding. Fisher always knew she wanted to dedicate her life to helping other people, and now she is giving back to her Appalachian community through CAP as a counselor in the Family Life Counseling Service (FLCS).

“This area and the people here have been so good to me and have given me many opportunities,” Fisher said. “In Appalachia I feel that mental health has always been underpromoted and underappreciated. I feel counseling is one of the best ways I can give back to the community that has been so good to me.”

As a child, Fisher received her first mental health counseling sessions, which she said were life-changing and inspired her passion for the field. When pursuing her passion for counseling, Fisher followed the same footsteps of her stepmother, who is also a counselor, studying at Lindsey Wilson College and earning an internship with FLCS. While she began her internship during the COVID-19 pandemic, Fisher quickly learned how to work virtually with people of all ages through telehealth services on top of building her skillset and caseload. She also helped provide training related to COVID-19 fatigue with CAP employees and volunteers alongside other FLCS counselors.

After graduating with her master’s in December 2021, she was excited to accept a counselor position at CAP to continue serving people in the region. “I enjoyed seeing Michaela transition from an intern to a licensed professional as a CAP employee,” said Dale Hamilton, an FLCS counselor who supervised Fisher during her internship. “As a clinician Michaela is very intentional in setting a positive expectancy for her clients in therapy. This gives her clients an increased likelihood of more positive outcomes. Her therapeutic practice of consistent, genuine empathy and effective therapeutic interventions is an agent of healing and transformation.”

As she navigates her early career, Fisher said the best lesson she has learned from the FLCS staff is there is always something to learn and to advance professionally. She was excited for the opportunity to use her training skills at the Camp Shawnee staff orientation this summer. The goal was to equip counselors with the training to utilize self-care and mindfulness practices with the incoming campers. She is also interested in advancing her training in trauma by obtaining the Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) certification and as well as the Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) certification.

“It seems most of my clients’ mental health problems have been exacerbated by the pandemic and the negative consequences that follow. I want to be able to help them anyway I can with a variety of services,” Fisher said. “If I can help one person live a better, healthier life with improved mental health, then I will have achieved what I set out to do.”

CAP’s FLCS has served people in Appalachia for more than 25 years with the staff performing around 1,000 counseling sessions each year. As professional counselors, the staff’s services are focused on restoring families by strengthening the family unit and caring for everyone's emotional well-being.

“Our counselors can change the course of our participants’ lives in a very literal way,” said Chris Griffith, manager of the program. “Unresolved issues can be healed, new skills are developed to lead functional lives, and people can become more resilient and self-reliant. The most powerful aspects of counseling, far more important than the method or techniques, is creating hope. That’s what we do.”