Fieldwork Coordinator
Jeni Leedy received her BS in Social Work from Boise State University and her MS in Social Work from Northwest Nazarene University. Jeni has been a social worker since 2000. She was employed in the healthcare setting as a medical social worker for 18 years until starting her own private counseling practice in 2019. Fifteen of her medical social work career years were spent as an oncology social worker at Mountain States Tumor Institute (now “St Luke’s Cancer Institute”). She actively worked with genetic counselors during her tenure there. She left the Cancer Institute to provide grief counseling to individuals and families and manage grief education and programs for the larger Treasure Valley Community as the Bereavement Coordinator for St Luke’s Hospice. During her time at St Luke’s, she completed the required direct counseling and supervision hours to take the Clinical Licensure exam for social work and obtained her LCSW.
Jeni has been teaching at Boise State since 2017, and was first hired to teach an online course for the social work Masters program at Boise State University. Her clinical work experience alongside teaching and interacting with graduate level students has allowed her to keep current on the knowledge of social work theories, values, ethics and research. She is well versed in both advanced counseling skills (empathy, active engagement, self-disclosure, group and family dynamics) and self-care techniques and stress the importance of self-awareness and self-care to staff working with individuals who are hearing difficult news or grieving. She also has experience working with interpreters, chronic illness and disability, mental illness, and identifying resources to advocate for families and individuals. These advanced skills will be important for genetic counselors, and Jeni is excited to impart her knowledge to the training of these health care professionals. Jeni is a permanent faculty in the MSGC program as the Fieldwork Coordinator, she teaches several courses for the program as well, and participates in other aspects of leadership and program delivery.
Courses:
- GENCOUN 532 Principles and Practices of Genetic Counseling III
- GENCOUN 550 Fieldwork II (co-instructor)
- GENCOUN 552 Fieldwork IV (co-instructor)