We are all trying to navigate a world that can feel overwhelming, stressful and threatening at times. No matter our age, we have more expectations, more demands on our time, and more access to information than ever before. This is challenging enough to cope with, but we are also trying to do it all on our own. We no longer have the same connection to community, and instead of having whole villages to share in our joys and our burdens, we have each become villages of one. Since humans are meant to be in connection, these social experiences impact how we perceive and interact with the world, with ourselves, and with others.
By joining with you, and building a relationship based on attachment and unconditional positive regard, I become a secure base from which you can explore your experiences and struggles, so you can heal and grow in a way that offers safety, connection, co-regulation and compassion. I take a holistic, client-centred approach that recognizes every person’s therapy journey is different.
This approach meets you where you’re at without judgement, and empowers you to determine your own therapeutic goals, and the best way for you to reach those goals by building on the strengths you already have and developing new skills to increase your capacity for healing and wellness.
As a Social Worker and a Child and Youth Care Practitioner with over fifteen years of experience, I have worked with individuals and families with a variety of needs, providing individualized, strengths-based and identity-affirming treatment and programming. I use my understanding of trauma to meet clients where they are at with compassion and unconditional positive regard, while also encouraging change.
I have worked in a variety of milieus throughout my years of practice. I have worked for a non-profit providing case management and psychotherapy to youth with complex mental health concerns and their families, an organization providing psychotherapy treatment for trauma and complex trauma to youth and adults, as well as a community mental health organization facilitating youth groups and the City of Ottawa developing and facilitating therapeutic recreation programs for autistic children and children with ADHD, ODD, anxiety and learning disabilities. I spent over a decade working in the public school system, most recently as a school social worker, but initially I was an educational assistant in a variety of programs, including a program for school anxiety, an alternative high school program for Indigenous youth, and a dual support program for students with a dual diagnosis of behavioural or mental health challenges and intellectual disability. Additionally, I have developed and facilitated online courses for the local college’s child and youth care and mental health and addictions programs.
