Although she had known since 2001 that she wanted to create “some profound change” in her community, it wasn’t until 10 years later when her own daughter was born, premature and tiny, that Vincentia Paul-Constantin understood the shape her life’s work would take.
“I had to advocate for my own services,” Dr. Paul-Constantin told Laura Forbes on Sunday, as she spoke during the Consortium-broadcast show Live with Laura. “To think I had such an expansive background in special education and I had friends in healthcare, and I still found it very difficult to navigate those spaces,” she recounted. “It was then I was reminded that I need to go back to what I initially knew that I needed to do” – build an organization “to advocate for individuals who needed services.”
Today, Paul-Constantin, holder of a PhD in specialized education/educational leadership, is the founder and executive director of Beautiful Dreamers, which provides behavioral support services to children and families in Georgia and the Virgin Islands. The licensed mental health counselor with masters degrees in clinical mental health counseling, special education and student administration support and counseling is also the director of counseling services for Peas in Their Pods, an organization which focuses on giving a voice to missing children of color and their families. Paul-Constantin is also the chair of the territory’s Board of Licensed Counselors and Examiners, a certified psychometrist, certified anger management therapist, a reunification therapist, and the mother of two teenagers.
According to her, establishing strong and healthy boundaries is the key to maintaining a high functioning lifestyle. Enforcing firm boundaries is an act of self-love, she said. “That’s respecting myself, recognizing when my cup runneth over and there’s nothing else for me to give to anybody else, so I stop and I give it to myself,” she explained.
That firmness of necessity extends to herself, Dr. Paul-Constantin told Ms. Forbes. Achieving such a high level of success did not come easy. She responded to a question about motivation by dismissing the concept entirely. “I do not believe in motivation,” she said, describing it as a fleeting emotion. What’s important, according to Paul-Constantin, is “commitment and consistency.” That’s what took her “through the long nights and the defense and all of the other educational things that I have done.” She understood that there’s “no compromising” on goals and objectives, and thus no matter whether she was feeling motivated in the moment or not, “commitment and consistency is where the magic is,” she remarked.
In her professional life, Dr. Paul-Constantin’s dreams of creating “profound change” have been realized. Now, her community has the ability to access culturally-coherent mental health services. “I speak Creole. I don’t necessarily function on a westernized-based therapeutic model,” she said. “I am all about drums and movement and spirituality, and I do what is needed to meet the client where they are, and that’s different for everybody,” Dr. Paul-Constantin explained. “Cultural intentionality is important in working with these diverse groups.”