Postdoc Spotlight: Voice for Help

After 10 years of teaching chorus as a public school teacher, Bridget Glass, Ph.D., decided she wanted to use her voice in a new way — as a mental health counselor.

It was a high school senior that pointed her in this direction. Glass was encouraging a few high school seniors to consider applying to college, she said, while discussing various career paths. One of them asked what she wanted for her future. “It was a thought-provoking question that led me toward a journey of new goals and change,” Glass said. “I am so proud of my work as a teacher, but I am also incredibly privileged to still use my voice to help others develop healthy and fulfilling lives.”

Currently, Glass is a postdoctoral fellow at FAU in the College of Education, researching secondary traumatic stress, which is the stress that can come from indirect exposure to trauma, such as hearing the stories of others, as well as compassion fatigue, and burnout in helping professionals. “I am passionate about supporting the mental health of those who work in careers that are inherently stressful, such as education, social work, health care and law enforcement,” said Glass, adding that believes providing tools for emotional regulation and self-care can result in positive outcomes for caregivers, their families those who they serve in the community.

Before her postdoc research, she earned a doctorate at FAU researching pre-service teachers and counselors — those still in college receiving training. Her goal was to determine factors that might indicate the risks for burnout and secondary traumatic stress developing before individuals enter the field of education. She also investigated social-emotional competency to determine pre-service teachers' capacity to demonstrate emotion regulation and relationship management through a newly developed judgement test that had rarely been utilized in the United States.

“One reason I wanted to pursue my Ph.D. was that it has always been a dream of mine to help guide and educate future professionals to learn adaptive and positive ways to promote professional longevity and ensure that the public receives the best care possible. … And to help others identify and value their strengths, while they build emotional resilience despite the experience of traumatic events and challenging life circumstances,” she said.