A Hero's Welcome Podcast
A Hero’s Welcome Podcast
Hosted by Maria Laquerre Diego, and Liliana Baylon, both LMFT-S and RPT-S
A Hero’s Welcome is a podcast for mental health professionals committed to culturally responsive care. Each episode features in-depth conversations with clinicians, supervisors, and consultants who bring diverse perspectives to the forefront.
We discuss mental health topics including psychotherapy models, clinical interventions, trauma-informed practices, and the role of cultural humility in therapeutic work. Our guests share their experiences serving children, families, and communities impacted by systemic stressors, offering insights and practical tools for fellow practitioners.
Whether you're looking to deepen your understanding of culturally competent care or seeking a community that values diversity and inclusion, A Hero’s Welcome offers a space for reflection, learning, and growth.
Hosts:
Maria Laquerre-Diego
maria@anewhopetc.org
Liliana Baylon
liliana@lilianabaylon.com
A Hero's Welcome Podcast
SITH Conference 2025: Rooted & Resilient: Healing Ourselves While We Heal Systems with Maria Laquerre-Diego
Maria introduces the SITH (Supportive Innovation for Therapeutic Heroes) conference, taking place in Las Cruces this October, featuring her session, "Rooted and Resilient: Healing Ourselves While we Heal Systems."
• SITH conference provides in-person learning with a fun, geeky pop culture vibe for therapists
• Maria's session focuses on therapist self-healing while working in depleting systems
• Conference specifically addresses court-involved cases and high-stress clinical situations
• Session will explore expressive arts, journaling, and sand work as self-healing modalities
• Honest discussions about systems that make clinical work difficult, including sociopolitical and family systems
• Opportunity for clinicians to replenish personal resources needed to sustain their work
Register now through the link in the podcast description to join us at the SITH conference!
https://www.anewhopeacademy.org/sith25
A Hero's Welcome Podcast © Maria Laquerre-Diego & Liliana Baylon
Hello everyone. We are here for another special episode of our podcast Maria. What are we talking about today?
Speaker 2:First off, this is very odd because you're starting. I did. You flipped the script on me, so we're going to talk about the SIF conference that I'm hosting in Las Cruces this October, but you're chatting with me because I've got my own session.
Speaker 1:I'm offering you do so before we start. What is SITH stands for?
Speaker 2:So SITH is Supportive Innovation for Therapeutic Heroes. It is a play on a very special fandom, If you know. You know, but it's the in-person conference that I offer in my hometown for the people in the southern part of the state or other states that want to come and do some in-person learning with just a very fun geeky pop culture vibe.
Speaker 1:So what is the name of your session?
Speaker 2:The session that I'm offering is called Rooted and Resilient Healing Ourselves While we Heal Systems.
Speaker 1:Amen, mic drop. That feels huge. So for people who have not registered, why should they come to your session?
Speaker 2:Because it's fun. No, yes, and Period, yes and Period. This session in particular is really around kind of self-therapist healing work, recognizing that the systems in which we work are burning us out and they are draining. So SIF this year is specifically we're looking at court-involved cases and high-stress situations and can we be honest that that's just clinical practice these days? I don't know anyone who doesn't have a caseload full of high-stress, trauma-based, even court-involved cases these days. So this is towards the end of our conference time and we're going it's a space that I'm offering to do some self-healing, whether that's through expressive arts or journaling or sand work, but we're going to look at how do we take care of ourselves working in the systems that work very hard to deplete us.
Speaker 1:Especially nowadays. Yes, that's always been the case for our field. They're like let's add more, why not?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and we're going to have an honest look at the systems that each individual clinician finds themselves in, because I think we're also in a space now where it's not just the sociopolitical climate that we find ourselves in which is taxing, but it's also being able to look at our own family systems and the systems in which we are working and being honest about how difficult these systems are and make our work hard, and we're giving up our own personal resources to continue to do what we're doing. So this is just an invitation to kind of pour back into our cups with some honesty and some whatever feels right to you to explore what do you need to keep doing the work you're doing?
Speaker 1:Awesome. So if you haven't registered, we're going to include the link below the podcast information. Hurry up, let's join us. We're going to have a blast. And if you have registered already, this is just a description of the session that you're going to see with Maria, and then you get to hang with us. How cool is that? I mean, what more could you ask for? Thank you, maria, for sharing about your session, and until next time Sounds great, thanks.
