SERVICES

Corporate Work

When organizations deal with loss, I develop workshops that are lively, thought-provoking and transformational, insuring the experience is relevant to their members and the goals of the organization.

Sheila K. Collins is an experienced consultant, teacher, therapist, author, keynote speaker, and mentor with a background in social work, education, dance, and the expressive arts. She has consulted, designed, and delivered training programs in numerous industries; healthcare, financial services, retail sales, professional associations, and non-profits. She has served on the faculty of four different universities, Wayne State University, the University of Nebraska, Texas Christian University, and the University of Texas at Arlington.

PERSONAL STATEMENT
I’m a proud descendant of women who worked for a living. My mother was a nurse; my aunts, a teacher and accountant for Ford Motor Co. My grandmother was a hairdresser who served wealthy women in their homes. Another grandmother was a farmer. My great-grandmother, an immigrant from Ireland, ran a boarding house after being left with seven children when she was widowed. So it seemed natural to me to do my dissertation on women’s careers. My dissertation focused on women in so-called women’s fields, where women had been for more than a century: Nursing, Social Work and Education. I compared their survey answers to answers given by women of earlier generations in prior studies of women’s careers to understand what had changed since the 1930s and what issues and difficulties still endured.

This research and dissertation led to my co-founding and co-directing the Women and Work Research and Resource Center, at the School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Arlington. This center was funded by corporations in the North Texas area that had an expanding women’s workforce, and who served predominantly women customers: Zale Corporation, Sanger Harris Department Store, and Tandy/Radio Shack Corporation.  Our center collected and compiled relevant resources, sponsored and published research reports from our yearly national conference, and consulted with employers and educators of women.

The colleague who worked with me on the center project was able to get tenure, partly on the basis of our achievements. When I came up for tenure the following year however, I was turned down in spite of an eight-to-one vote in my favor from the faculty tenure committee. It felt tragic at the time but, in retrospect, I see it as a generous gift from the universe, guiding me into a totally different direction.

“Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.”

DR. COLLINS HAS CONSULTED WITH THE FOLLOWING ORGANIZATIONS:

• K-12 school districts throughout Nebraska
• Sanger Harris Department Store, Zale Corporation through the Women and Work Research and Resource Center
• Value Behavioral Health, North Texas – Developing procedures to support group practices.
• Blue Cross/Blue Shield, North Texas – Instituting program to address psychological, behavioral, and social co-factors for persons with heart disease, diabetes, and chronic pain.
• Human Service Agencies in Western Nebraska, through University of Nebraska – Improving services to minorities (Mexican American and Native American people)