We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shaina Fawn a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Shaina , appreciate you joining us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
Like many others, the COVID-19 pandemic was a tough and challenging time mentally, socially, and emotionally. Not only was I confronted with the devastating loss and uncertainty that the pandemic brought about, but I also found myself working in a highly toxic workplace environment. At the time, I was a supervisor of a behavioral health department and faced tremendous pressure to pressure my staff to adhere to unrealistic productivity standards. The negativity and lack of support took a toll on my mental and physical health. I struggled with panic attacks and frequent and consistent migraines, which left me feeling demoralized and lost. Realizing that my wellbeing and happiness were at stake, I decided to leap of faith and venture into entrepreneurship. I decided to take a risk and embark on a journey to open my private practice, which was daunting and terrifying. My years in graduate school and working as a professional social worker never taught me a thing about what it meant to own a business. The first year amounted to a lot of learning and stretching myself in ways I never thought possible. It was in private practice and working for myself that I realized my calling was to work with entertainment industry professionals. I have been adjacent to this industry for nearly 13 years, as my partner is an actor, artist, and storyteller. This pivot in private practice to focus on this specific population led to an eventual decision by my partner and me to create a new and bold non-profit organization called Wellbeing in Entertainment and Creative Arts (WECA). We founded our non-profit in 2022 with a vision to bring trauma-informed principles and approaches to entertainment sets and stages. Looking back at the form that this journey has taken is illuminating. This experience taught me that sometimes opportunities lie just on the other side of breakdown and discomfort.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I was born and raised in the beautiful high desert of Northern New Mexico by a single mother and am the oldest of two daughters. My mother suffered from debilitating depression her entire life, and witnessing this struggle led me to care deeply about mental health awareness and stigma. My mother was also a teacher for the visually impaired, and her work directly impacted my desire to choose a career where I could give back to the community. In 2003, I started my career in the field of mental health when I started volunteering at a suicide prevention crisis center on the campus of the University of New Mexico. I later found my way to social work, which eventually opened up opportunities to conduct therapy and consulting. Social work felt like a higher calling and deeply connected me to my sense of purpose. I feel honored to be a part of human healing and resilience building at all levels, including individual, familial, communal, and organizational. I am passionate about trauma, trauma-informed care, and the neurobiology of resilience. These principles are woven into the fabric of my work, whether it’s therapy, consulting, supervision, teaching, or workshop facilitation.
I moved to Los Angeles in 2013 with my partner as he pursued his dreams of becoming a professional actor and entertainer. As I already mentioned, in 2022, I pivoted the focus of my social work career towards supporting and uplifting entertainment industry members after years of witnessing how the industry has failed to respond appropriately to mental health needs. I have personally reviewed research on the wellbeing of entertainment workers and can unequivocally say that this industry needs a major overhaul, one built on the science and evidence-based practices of trauma-informed practices and approaches. Trauma is at the core of the human experience, yet we have little understanding of it and even less understanding about how to handle it appropriately. I believe we have an opportunity to bring new and innovative practices to the entertainment industry to help take better care of trauma, both as experienced by entertainment workers and as it relates to the narratives showcased and consumed by the masses.
My training and experience as a social worker have shown me that we do not have to keep operating at the status quo regarding wellbeing. Instead, we have an opportunity to create practices that center psychological safety and uplift wellbeing so creative artists can thrive. At WECA, we are doing just that! We are busy developing an online resource hub with toolkits, info sheets, and other resources that can be used to support wellbeing on sets and stages. We also have developed an online, asynchronous course called Wellbeing Essentials for Sets and Stages. Additionally, we offer customized consultation and support services for productions and educational institutions. In the next year, we will be re-launching a podcast called Lights On! Mental Health, developing trauma-informed care for sets and stages online course and working to develop a support group for entertainment professionals. We are really excited about the momentum we are building in entertainment spaces, and we hope to generate more awareness for our vision and mission.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
The story I want to share takes place in July of 2021, the night my partner incurred a traumatic brain injury (TBI). The events leading up to this night are important to the story. As I mentioned, my partner is an actor and storyteller. One of the reasons he became an artist was because his mother was murdered when he was just three years old. For the past several years, he has been working on a documentary about her life. In June of 2021, we traveled to Washington DC, so that he could interview his father and his sister about the events surrounding his mother’s death. We also visited the home where she died and took video footage. A few days later, we returned to Los Angeles and went out for a friend’s birthday. We didn’t stay out late and came home relatively early. I had gone to bed, and my partner had stayed on the front porch with a friend of ours talking. The next thing I knew, I was awakened by my friend frantically yelling to me that my partner had passed out and hit his head on the concrete. I ran outside. It was terrifying. Had it not been for his breathing, I would have thought he was dead. We called the paramedics, and he was rushed to the emergency room. It was determined that he had two brain bleed and spent 8 days in the ICU. After he was discharged home, I became a 24-hour caregiver. No one ever prepares you for this moment: the moment you stop being a wife and suddenly become a nurse, bookkeeper, head of household, etc. Nights were the hardest as he experienced extreme agitation, frustration, and anxiety, and I found there was little I could do to ease his discomfort. For me, the hardest part was the uncertainty of his condition. What would the long-term effects be? How would we manage them? How long was he going to be out of work? How would we manage financially? These and a million other worries would flood my brain. We made it through this time with the support of our amazing friends and family community, but it was incredibly difficult, to say the least.
My partner and I continue working through this experience and what it has meant for us individually and as a unit. Anyone who has had a similar experience knows that there is your life before and after the event. These events shape you, and no matter how hard you may try or wish, the life you had before becomes only a distant memory. As hard as the experience has been, it has been one of many that have helped me to confront and sit with the truth that uncertainty is the only truly certain thing. It has also helped me to develop a stronger mindfulness practice. For me, mindfulness and meditation have been practices that have been fundamental to my health and wellbeing.
We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.
When I decided I wanted my private practice work to focus on the mental health and wellbeing of entertainment workers, I began to conduct extensive research on what was already being done in this area. Surprisingly (or not surprisingly), very little was being done and hardly any research in this area. In my searches, I came across a name: Leo Anna Thomas. After some digging, I learned that Leo had similar concerns about mental health in entertainment but that they had worked in the UK’s film and television industry for many years. Similar to me, they had experienced workplace toxicity that drove them to make a drastic career change. This eventually meant that they would become the first Wellbeing Facilitator used on set in the UK. I immediately knew I wanted to speak with them and reached out. We set up a Zoom meeting, and Leo told me their story. I left feeling inspired by the potential to center wellbeing in entertainment in the United States. In June of 2022, I happened to be in Europe for a friend’s wedding and my partner and I stopped in London to meet Leo in person. Since then, we have remained in touch, and I continue to be extremely inspired by Leo’s work.
After I returned home from Europe, I received a call from Leo saying that someone named Ari Simon had contacted them and that they also lived in Southern California and were also interested in wellbeing in entertainment. I made a connection with Ari for the first time in August of 2022. During our first phone call we both shared experiences that inspired us to make a shift towards focusing our work on wellbeing in entertainment. Ari, too, had experienced toxicity in their work that had also caused them to make major shifts in their work. We found out that we had much more than that in common, and the connection between us felt very natural. I invited Ari to join the board of WECA, and they have been active ever since. In 2023, we collaborated to develop an online course called Wellbeing Essentials for Sets and Stages. In this course, participants learn about the current research on wellbeing of entertainment workers, specific threats that exist to wellbeing in the industry, and showcase simple-to-use tools that can be implemented to make an immediate shift in industry workplaces. In addition to the work with WECA, Ari has a coaching business where they provide support and facilitation services centering on grief, wellbeing, climate change, and more!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.wellbeinginentertainment.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wellbeinginentertainment/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wellbeinginentertainment
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wellbeinginentertainment/?viewAsMember=true
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/show/74XkOMpx4h3lxcJCeXWVR4 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lights-on-mental-health-podcast/id1587291407
Image Credits
Tyee Tilghman