Dominique Bailey sees role as guidance counselor as listener

Dominique Bailey is the guidance counselor at Hayti High School and became the first African-American male to graduate from Southeast Missouri State University's master's program in school counseling in December. Bailey also has worked as a youth specialist for Division of Youth Services in Cape Girardeau. Bailey has also done various community service projects in the area, some with his fraternity, Omega Psi Phi.

How was your time as a student at Southeast?

I'm originally from Kansas City, Missouri. I came here to Cape Girardeau back in 2009, finished my undergrad here, got my master's here and try to be a part of the community. For undergrad, I did psychology. It was OK, but my master's in counselling was one of the best master's programs in the state. It honestly should be a doctoral program. But the way that it is set up, it's actually one of the only two or three schools in the state of Missouri that is CACREP [the Council for Accreditation of Counseling & Related Educational Programs] certified. So when you go through as a licensed counselor you also have the opportunity to be a practitioner, open up your own private practice. A lot of people want to get into counseling, they just don't know where to start. There needs to be more advocacy for it because mental health is real.

What is your current job and and how did you land there?

I work down in Hayti, Missouri, as a high school counselor. It's my first year in education. It's been a big change because I worked for two years for the State of Missouri, working with adolescent teens. It's a change, but I like education, too. I come from a long line of educators. My uncle was an educator, my mother-in-law is an educator, my grandmother and aunt were educators. It's a long genealogy, so it's almost like a rite of passage.

What did you do when you worked for the State of Missouri?

I worked for the Division of Youth Services in Cape Girardeau. It was an excellent facility. It serves as a liaison between sending boys straight to the prison system and actually giving them a chance to slowly rehabilitate themselves. They are real big on rehabilitation instead of just conviction. When you think of a juvenile center, you probably think that they are in shackles and jumpsuits. But no, they go to school every day, they wear regular clothes. You try to make it as normally civilized as possible. I feel like when you put them in numbers and jumpsuits, there is a stigma there.

How do you try to reach students and affect their lives?

My official duties at Hayti are to ensure that the student population is prepared academically, career readiness and are socially and emotionally prepared. So you get them ready for the world, you get them ready academically and you get them ready as an individual, which is hard to accomplish in eight hours on top of ACT scores and pushed assessments.

I take it one day at a time and one mind at a time. I have an open door policy, so one morning it might be five students there, the next morning there might be no one there. And I never sit myself in one place. I move around the school, so I'm not just in my office. You will see me in the gym, you'll see me in the middle school, you'll see me in the cafeteria. I don't believe in confining myself because that limits me.

What makes a good leader?

I'm really big on respect. I've always been like that. Respect and love. If you have respect for somebody and it's mutual, then you are going to want to see them go far. You are going to want a lot for them because they want the same for you. You also need trustworthiness to be a leader. If they don't believe in you, they won't follow. If they can't trust your word, then they aren't going to be with you.

Who are some of the role models you have had in your life?

To name them, it would be too many. I think role models get outplayed sometimes because your role model could be somebody that you never met before, it could be somebody that you have never seen. It could be somebody that you've grown up with, your role model could even be yourself. You carry yourself the way that you want to be. But if I have to say who my role model is, it would be my dad. I'm a product of him.

What do you hope to accomplish in your lifetime?

I want to be that black man that everybody talks about, like how they talk about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. I want to be talked about amongst the greats, and just try to not only help my people but help mankind. That's why I chose counseling. It's a vague term. You're a counselor, you're an educator, you're a mentor, you're a coach, you're a teacher, you're a parent, you're a student, you're a friend. You wear multiple hats, and that's why I picked it.