Psychology

Several years after obtaining a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the University of Florida, Janette Berne earned a master’s degree in Community Counseling from Georgia State University while working full time at a shelter for children taken out of the home for abuse and neglect. Janette went on to create the shelter’s Positive Parenting Program, which continues today, to offer parenting classes and counseling to at-risk families. Janette then served adults and families as a staff counselor for a county mental health center before joining a county community mental health center. While working at Beyond Words Center for Social Skills, leading social learning groups for children and teens on the spectrum, she created the Center’s first adult services program. In a group setting, young adults with a variety of developmental issues would practice specific social skills that were aimed at helping them live more independently.

It was after her time at Beyond Words, that Janette returned to an educational setting to work with elementary aged children in a self-contained special education setting. There, she created a hybrid social skills program that was both classroom and field based. This program helped students spend social time with typically developing children, a relatively new concept at the time. Janette expanded her experience in education, when she worked as a school counselor while opening her private psychotherapy practice. Now, having retired from school counseling, she has time to fully devote to her practice where she continues to see children and teens, and families. She sees adult women in individual therapy as well. Her passion for helping people reach their potential in creative ways has led her back to UF, the place where her journey started. It is her hope that through mentoring and serving on the Advisory Board to the Department of Psychology, she can help others who are considering a career in mental health.