Shely Benitah Email & Phone Number

Shely Benitah is a Mental Health Intern at Cupertino Union School District. She possess expertise in leadership, customer service, spanish, hebrew, microsoft office and 3 more skills. She is proficient in Hebrew. Colleagues describe her as "I was finishing my postdoctoral fellowship in cancer biology and trying to transition to industry when Covid hit, preventing me from transitioning, so I agreed to work in a friend's dental office to help out. This is where I met Shely--I worked at the front desk with Shely when she was (still is) the office manager at Smiles by Pai during the majority of the pandemic. Shely is by far one of the best, most compassionate, most hardworking people I have ever had the pleasure of working with. It's extremely important to her that everyone on the team be equals. She never wanted to be recognized as a position that was higher than others, unless it was absolutely necessary to maintain order and harmony within the group. She fought for the good of the office and the patients, and when she didn't know what was best or how to do something, she learned. She was proactive in setting meetings with the accountant to learn the office finances, she met with the lawyer to learn state employment laws, and she set meetings with the software company to learn our electronic health record system. Even though she came in not knowing anything about dentistry or office management, we were so grateful for Shely because no one else would be as proactive or hardworking as she was. Shely's compassion became the most obvious in two situations. One, when nervous patients walked in the room, anxious about the dentist and the dental procedure they were scheduled to have. Shely did everything she could to help ease their fears by talking to them and relating to them about her fear of the dentist, especially when the patient was scheduled for wisdom teeth removal, which Shely had done twice (much to her dismay, haha). The second situation was when conflict arose in the office among colleagues. Shely managed these conflicts beautifully by understanding both sides of the situation and withholding judgment (despite peer pressure to be judgmental). By doing this, she was able to de-escalate the problem and help the parties in conflict reach appropriate solutions. She used the same strategy when she herself was involved in the conflict. If she learned that a colleague had an issue with her or a decision she made, she addressed it as soon as she could, and did not ignore the problem. For these reasons, conflicts directly involving Shely never escalated. She also never hesitated to teach us what she knew about conflict resolution, and anything else she knew, like self-care. I learned the concept of "saving space for others" from Shely, which was amazing advice when friends and family were extremely anxious about this last election. I was able to be patient and save space until the election was over, and my friends and family were much calmer. I was so glad I took Shely's advice. I have spent 10 years in scientific research and I have never met anyone like Shely. I wish people like her were more attracted to science because we could sure use her warmhearted, empathetic, and selfless nat"

Listed skills include Leadership, Customer Service, Spanish, Hebrew, and 4 others.