Yaneishka Morales: Helping Families, One Conversation at a Time

Sometimes the hardest part for parents seeking therapy for their kids isn’t finding services. It’s being willing to open the front door.

As a member of the therapeutic training and support (TT&S) staff at ServiceNet’s River Valley Counseling Center (RVCC), Yaneishka Morales has learned what that moment represents. When families welcome her into their homes, they invite a stranger into one of the most personal parts of their lives, often in moments of great stress and vulnerability.

“People are letting you into their house,” she said. “It’s a big thing. They’re showing you what they’re not showing anybody else. They’re showing you they need help.”

Working alongside an in-home therapist, Morales supports children and families navigating challenges ranging from anxiety and emotional regulation to social skills and daily routines. While the clinician leads the clinical assessment and treatment planning, Morales helps families put those plans into practice, meeting with parents to discuss self-care, routines, organization, and practical strategies that support the whole household.

As a speaker of both English and Spanish, she also helps bridge communication when needed, ensuring that parents clearly understand both the services available to them and their child’s care.

“We integrate the whole family,” said Morales, who received ServiceNet’s Empowerment and Support Award at the organization’s 2026 Employee Recognition Dinner in April. “Parents sometimes need help knowing how to support their children. Sometimes we can help them understand how to meet a child where they are.”

Sometimes that means helping parents better understand a child’s diagnosis, or helping a young person who struggles with anxiety or anger learn coping skills. In other cases, Morales said, it means recognizing that before therapy can work, a family may need help navigating car repairs, financial issues, or other everyday challenges.

“We have to be realistic,” she said. “There may be something they need more than us explaining a diagnosis. If parents are stressed, the services are not going to work.”

She begins by listening. She asks people about their childhoods, family traditions, and the kind of parents they hope to become. Those conversations, she said, often help parents connect their own experiences with the future they want for their children.

“I want them to see that they can relate to me,” she said. “I’m not only the TT&S. I’m human too. I have family. I have history.”

The most rewarding part of her job, she said, is feeling trust grow, and seeing the effects. She describes watching parents learn to pause before reacting, as they start to understand their child’s behavior differently. She has also seen children begin to make friends, earn better grades at school, establish healthier routines, and begin to build confidence in themselves.

“When parents realize that they’re still the ones doing the work, we’re just here to support them,” she said, “that really helps.”

Raised in Puerto Rico by her mother and grandmother, Morales credits her family with instilling in her the importance of compassion and standing up for others. Originally interested in becoming an attorney, she discovered psychology after a high school counselor encouraged her to explore the field. The more she learned, the more she realized she had found her professional passion.

“I want to meet people where they are,” she said.

Morales became the first person in her family to graduate from college, earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology at the University of Puerto Rico before moving to Massachusetts in 2020. She then worked as a paraprofessional, supporting children with autism, before joining RVCC in 2023.

These days, she balances work with spending time with the members of her family who live nearby. She likes to play pool, to go bowling, and to jump into local rivers on hot summer days. As she considers the future, learning of ServiceNet’s tuition remission program has helped turn her goal of attending graduate school into a realistic next step. She hopes eventually to become a clinician herself, perhaps working with children in a school-based setting.

For anyone uncertain about seeking support, her advice is simple.

“People want to help you,” she said. “People care. So reach out.”

To learn more about ServiceNet’s services for children and adolescents, please visit https://www.servicenet.org/services/child-and-adolescent-services/.