Youth Movement: Eddie Carrillo '15, MA '17 Cares For The Next Generation

More than a decade after his high school graduation, Eddie Carrillo ’15, MA ’17 can easily list the teachers who helped and inspired him at California’s Milpitas High School.

There was Mr. and Mrs. Roy, Mr. Cummins, Mr. Escobar and Mr. Castro among the many others who not only helped Carrillo through high school but continue to inspire him as he helps youth through their mental health challenges.

It was the unconditional love and support that those teachers provided that made the difference.

“I remember one specific day that I was having a really hard time,” Carrillo recalled. “I went into Mrs. Roy’s classroom before school and told her ‘I don’t ask for a lot of things but I just can’t be here right now. Can we come up with something for this next period?’ She didn’t think twice. I can’t remember what I needed that day, but she didn’t care what it was. She knew I needed help and she gave it to me.”

It is that same type of care that Carrillo strives to provide over 1,700 students as the licensed mental health specialist at Sherwood High School in Sherwood, Oregon.

That passion for mental health and helping those youth find the tools to help them navigate one of the most formative times of their lives has earned Carrillo the Pacific University Alumni Association’s Emerging Leader Award. Presented for outstanding leadership in their vocation, community and service to the university, alumni are eligible to be nominated for the award through their 10-year reunion. The award was presented during the university’s 2024 Homecoming & Family Weekend.

Since August 2021, Carrillo has worked as the school’s licensed mental health specialist where he, along with Sherwood’s counseling staff, aim to meet the needs of students where they are. It’s not about what he thinks students need, but rather about what they think they need.

A football defensive lineman during his time at Pacific with a gregarious personality and a heart sized to match, Carrillo makes it hard for students not to recognize him.

“I try to be involved as much as possible,” said Carrillo, who also advises two student clubs as part of his duties. “I want kids to know me. ‘That’s Eddie, he’s the mental health guy. I may never need to talk to him but at least I know if I need to at some point, I can.’”

Sherwood is the latest stop in a career dedicated to helping youth, which has included roles as a counselor in youth intervention programs for both Washington County and Yamhill County as well as work as a therapist at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland.

Carrillo entered Pacific intending to become a teacher before an introductory psychology class opened his eyes to careers helping others outside the classroom. That led Carrillo to an internship with Harkins House, a home operated by Washington County for troubled youth between ages 12 and 17 that provides an alternative to incarceration.

Working with those youth provided a critical epiphany.

“I was sitting there eating lunch with these kids, talking with them, and I realized that these kids are exactly like me,” Carrillo said. “We look the same, we have the same background, we have parents that immigrated from a different country and work a ton. I realized that I could have been two or three steps away from the same thing happening.”

Carrillo credits his parents, Jose Carrillo and Silvia Armenta-Carrillo, both immigrants from Mexico, for instilling the value of education and work ethic into him and his sister. Eddie was the first member of his family to graduate from college. Since he walked, his sister and at least four cousins have either completed or are attending college.

The Harkins House experience also reinforced within Carrillo the need for more diversity in the mental health workforce. The stigma of mental health can be lessened in the Hispanic culture, he believes, by having providers who youth can relate to. He wants to be an example.

 “They need somebody that looked like me, that has the experience and the licensure to be able to help them as a therapist, wanting to be a support for kids,” Carrillo said. “I want them to know that there is opportunity for kids like us, that get to make an impact on other people’s lives.”

Carrillo believes he makes that difference with every Sherwood student he interacts with.

“Anytime I get to share space with somebody, they impact me,” he said. “Any student at our school, I hear from them and learn from them and figure out what they need so I can use my skills to help them out.”

Aside from his work at Sherwood, Carrillo uses his skills to try and make the topics of mental health and psychology easier for everyone to understand. He teaches as an adjunct instructor in Pacific’s School of Graduate Psychology. He is involved on the board of the Oregon Counseling Association and will be the organization’s president-elect in 2024-25. He has also appeared on Portland-area television stations discussing youth and mental health.

In November 2019, Carrillo joined forces with his friend Justin Romano, a board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist, to produce the Millennial Mental Health Channel podcast. The duo has released 132 episodes as of June 2024, addressing everything from anxiety to imposter syndrome to mental health apps to the relationship between law enforcement and the mentally ill.

“We’ve really made it a conversation between two professionals trying to make information easier to understand,” Carrillo said. “We’ve been really lucky to have guests who also share their expertise. We’ve learned a lot and we hope we have helped spread easy-to-understand information for the mental health world.”

Carrillo is grateful to have found Pacific University, for the challenges that it provided him and for the chances it gave him to discover his purpose. He is also grateful for the recognition for his work in a profession that often does its work with little fanfare.

“Working as a therapist, I don’t expect a lot of thank yous or a lot of recognition, because what is important to me is helping those who need help,” he said. “So to get an award based on the work I am doing is really special.”