Interview with Dr. Deryl F. Bailey 
By Reisha E. Moxley, LPC
Dr. Deryl F. Bailey is an Associate Professor in the Department of Counseling and Human Development Services at the University of Georgia. Prior to earning his education specialist and doctorate degrees from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia, he worked as a secondary school counselor for ten years. His areas of specialization include school counseling, group work, multicultural and diversity issues, mentoring, counseling professional development, African American adolescent development and the development and implementation of enrichment and empowerment interventions for adolescents. He is the founder and director of Empowered Youth Programs (EYP), which includes: Gentlemen on the Move (GOTM), Young Women Scholars (YWS) and the Parents of Empowered Youth (PEY).
Dr. Bailey recently participated in an interview that allowed for a more intimate and candid glimpse into his career at the University of Georgia and the development of his interests in school counseling and counselor education. As Dr. Bailey opened up, several themes became apparent. He discussed the importance of forming meaningful relationships with colleagues and other professionals and the students he serves. We are privileged to have Dr. Bailey’s voice represented in this edition of our newsletter and trust that you will be as moved as we were about his journey to Georgia!
What cultivated your initial interest in school counseling?
I didn’t really have a great educational experience in middle and high school. My counselors were not that supportive of students who were considered “average” or “below average.” I, like many other Black males, who fell into one of these two groups probably could have been a better and happier student with additional attention and support. However, most of the attention went to students who were considered “strong students” and definitely those who were “better behaved.” I wasn’t a bad kid, I just never applied myself…you know, the kid who did just enough to get by. As a high school student, I thought about this a lot and as a result I wanted to be that source of support for other students, especially for students who I thought were like me, average and overlooked. I have always been very interested in the relational aspects between teachers and students and wondered why some students seemed to have better relationships with their teachers, counselors and administrators than others.
When I graduated from college, I reflected on my school experiences and decided to explore different careers in counseling and psychology. I knew that my experience had not been an isolated experience and I wanted to bridge the gap for those students who did not have particularly good or meaningful relationships with their teachers and counselors.
Can you share significant events in your career that have served to bolster your desire to pursue and excel as a counselor and counselor educator?
During my master’s education, I completed my practicum and internship experiences at one of the county schools and a young female student I worked with completed suicide during the holiday break. She was one of the students that was teased a lot and wasn’t considered popular, so the work I did with her before her death was centered on self-esteem and building relationships. Her suicide struck a chord with me and so I was even more determined to become a school counselor; I knew that was what I wanted to do.
During my second year as a school counselor I shifted to a new role… the In-School Suspension (ISS) coordinator and at that point fell in love all over again with the idea of being a school counselor. In this position, I was able to work with the full spectrum of students from different SES backgrounds, ability levels, race, and ethnicity. I mean everyone came through ISS and so I got to work with a lot of different kids from a lot of different places for a lot of different reasons. When I ran ISS it was different from the punitive process that had been in place previously. Not only did the students complete their class work, they also participated in individual and group counseling sessions. Students also knew I cared and had high expections for their academic and social performance. The principal of the school also recognized this and gave me the authority to assign students to additional days in ISS if they did not do their work…and I did. So ISS became a place where students wanted to come, not because they wanted to miss class but because they valued the relationships that were developed…at least that’s what I choose to believe. They still had to do their work and sometimes additional assignments (i.e., oral presentations, book reports, and counseling sessions). What I begin to see was that those kids who never had a reason to do well, began to want to do so and this allowed me to develop some really meaningful relationships with students and learn a lot about myself as a counselor in the process.
One particular relationship that I was able to develop stands out to me now as I reflect. It was with a young White male student whose father was an attorney for the school district. His father asked to have a meeting with me, so we met one Saturday after his son completed his Saturday detention (which I also coordinated) and he said to me, “Even though my son and I have a really good relationship, I’d appreciate it if I knew that my son had someone else that he also felt comfortable confiding in.” This really blew me away because this was an upper middle-class, highly respected White man who had a really great relationship with his son who was asking me to stand in for him when he couldn’t be available to his son….to basically be a secondary father figure to his kid. These types of experiences continued to confirm for me that I was in the right profession and that being a school counselor was an extremely important role and an integral position in the school.
Please share the development of the programs and research initatives you have created through public service.
I was a school counselor for ten years; while I was a school counselor in Ashville, I started a program called “Gentlemen on the Move (GOTM),” which was really borne out of the work I did with the schools Saturday Detention program. It was for kids who I truly believed really wanted to do well, but didn’t have the motivation or foresight to recognize how doing well academically could and would benefit them in the long run. So I started GOTM and have been running it for over 25 years, in three different states. It has been in Athens now for the past 14 years. The program now informs my research, teaching, and is a major source of my service to the community. GOTM has evolved into what is now known as the Empowered Youth Programs (EYP), which consists of GOTM, for boys in grades pre-k to 12th grade, Young Women Scholars (YWS), for girls in grades pre-k to 12th grade, and Parents of Empowered Youth (PEY). I also employ 8-15 graduate students each year through graduate assistantships, service learning opportunities, and 3-4 former parents of EYP participants, to work with the program. These opportunities provide undergraduate and graduate students with valuable out-of-class opportunities to work with kids, families and schools and to use their skills on behalf of the program.
How did you ultimately decide to share your talents here at the University of Georgia?
I honestly never thought that I would end up at Georgia, but I came here and I met the faculty and was really excited about what I was seeing with many of the people that I met as a doctoral student. They were really pleasant and seemed to really want me here, but there was one catch: they didn’t have a job opening. Luckily for me, the department (lead by Drs. Pam Paisley and Richard Hayes) was willing to advocate for the additional position. I think this was because of my 10 years of experience as a school counselor and other assests they felt I could bring to the School Counseling program and the department as a whole. While I was also getting offers from other institutions, UGA remained at the top of my list, mainly because of the faculty and the reputation of the School Counseling program as well as the Counseling Psychology and Student Affairs programs. Another attraction for me was the fact that the faculty were involved in national professional organizations like the American Counseling Association and the American Psychological Association. For a while, there was a back and forth between UGA and another SEC school, until my grandmother finally said, “You just need to make a decision, and if it is the wrong one, you can correct it later.”
In the end I decided to come to the University of Georgia. However, the first couple of years of teaching were rough because I wasn’t trained as a teacher, I was a practitioner. At that time, I believed that if you worked hard, good things would happen, but I was and continue to be a realist. I didn’t believe that if you did good work good things would always happen. What I knew was that there were/are a lot of folks who look like me that work hard but opportunities that I have been afforded still don’t seem to come for those folks. I know you can think of a lot of people like that too, there are a lot of unemployed folks with master’s degrees and PhDs but when things get bad for everybody, they get worse for folks of of color.
The interview with Dr. Bailey does not stop here. Much like the fact that his sphere of influence does not stop with his work as a professor, Dr. Bailey’s passion for his graduate students and the lives of the young people and families he serves is evident in all he does. As the above interview came to a close, Dr. Bailey was intentional in addressing the fact that while he would like to impact and touch the lives of all the students he teaches, he realizes that there must be a balance as he strives to continue to do the work in the “trenches” that called him to the field. Dr. Bailey is certainly doing great work in the trenches and reaching out to equip others with what it takes to do the same.