We recently connected with Ellen Sawyer and have shared our conversation below.

Ellen, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

I have been very fortunate to have a supportive family. Both of my parents were active in my life while still giving me the space to explore who I want to become, even now. My mom has an affinity for celebration. She celebrated every new beginning, acknowledged endings, and strived to find the extraordinary in every day tasks. One time, my siblings and I all received really. bad grades for a marking period. D’s and C’s across the board. So my mom threw a funeral/party. We had a fancy dinner and she gave us little plastic coffins and gummies in the shape of the letter D. We buried our D’s and moved on. While it was a great visual that bad grades do not define us, it was also clear that the this was the last time it was going to happen. I am happy to say that we all showed lots of improvement in the following marking periods. My mom always has had a way of making her point and holding someone accountable without making them feel bad. And that is usually done through a celebration.

Ellen, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Comprehensive Therapy Center (CTC) is a non-profit organization that helps individuals who are neurodiverse walk, talk, learn, and play – so they can read and write. I first got involved with CTC when I was in high school. I volunteered with the summer program, Therapy & Fun, working hands on with the clients. Then, it was something I did to meet a requirement for school, but it didn’t take long until I fell in love with our clients and their stories. In college I worked for the Therapy & Fun program as a Site Coordinator and that is when I fell in love with our teen volunteers. It’s really the volunteers who make our program successful and seeing kids from all different walks of life get to experience making an impact really changed how I viewed my career path. After college I worked for several different for profit businesses. During that time, I always felt as if my effort and ability were being wasted on things that didn’t really matter to the greater good. I ended up walking away from the for profit world to be a stay at home mom.

in 2014, I was at home with very young children and mostly felt lost. At no point did I feel like myself and knew something was going to have to change. Jean Silbar, who is the founder of CTC and the then Executive Director, called me out of the blue and said “It’s time for you to come and work for me.” I assured her there was no way we could make that work. I lobbed excuse after excuse at her and she kept meeting me where I was at. And then I came to work for CTC. I started with just two days per week, answering the phone, scheduling clients, managing our very small clinic. It didn’t take me long to fall in love all over again with our clients and their families. I finally felt like my work was making a difference and impacting lives for the better. In 2018 I had an opportunity to take on the Director of Operations role and eagerly did so. My kids were a little older and CTC had proved to be a flexible and family friendly environment. I was able to manage being a mom and a director. In 2020 I was again promoted to Associate Director and held that position through COVID and two leadership changes. Then, in September of 2022 I was promoted to Interim Executive Director.

CTC has grown exponentially and the reach of our services is further than ever. We are serving the growing neurodiverse community in tried and true ways combined with new and innovative ways. For example, we recognize the need for social skills groups for young teens with Autism or other language disorders. In today’s society, video games are also extremely prevalent. So we have created, with a social worker, speech-langauge pathologist, and the Director of E-sports at a local university, a video game social group. This gives our clients a chance to practice social skills while engaging in a safe way with something that neurotypical young people are doing.

I am most proud of our collaborative and people centered work style at CTC. Whether that person is the client, the caregiver, or the employee. It’s the people around us that make us successful and I am excited to be able to continue a legacy of a family friendly, people first work environment. This allows the clinicians to be able to be better for the clients we serve. I am honored to be in a position to impact both those that work here and those who we serve in equal measures, following in Jean’s footsteps of meeting people exactly where they are.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Coming from a for profit world into a non-profit world was really hard. In for profit, everything is about how much money you can make and how quickly. When I first started at CTC, I couldn’t understand why no one cared about whether our practices were making money or not. It took me several months to start to understand it was far more about serving people than it would every be about making money. Over the years, I have learned a healthy balance of knowing what things will be revenue generating and which will only lose money and how to navigate making sure we are honoring our mission and still paying our bills.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

Despite my degree in Non-profit Administration, the most important thing I can do is really listen to my clients. They will tell me what they are concerned about, where the holes in service are, why our services are important, and how they have been impacted. Specifically carving out time to be present where the caregivers are is crucial to the success of the agency.

Contact Info:

• Website: therapycenter.org
• Instagram: @ctc_gr
• Facebook: facebook.com/ctc_gr