Education Liaison and Trainer
Much of my career has been spent working closely with schools, administration, and teachers to foster the learning experience of students. While many schools do an excellent job educating their students, there are often challenges that arise which are outside the training and expertise of many teachers and even administrators. My role has often been to support the school in developing and implementing strategies to increase engagement and decrease time spent resolving issues. I did this through providing trainings, supporting staff and student individually, and by problem solving with schools on particularly overwhelming cases. I’ve attended and contributed to many IEP meetings and assisted in the development of Behavioral Intervention Plans.
Group Facilitation
My very first position in the field of mental health was comprised mostly of facilitating groups and conducting training. Group facilitation soon became one of my favorite modality to support people. When we learn in connection with others, learning happens faster and with greater depth than when we learn individually. Throughout the years I facilitated groups with adolescents and adults. Topics ranged from Self Esteem and trauma healing to symptom management and substance abuse. Groups are a wonderful place to learn and grow.
Crisis Response Services
Many of the services I provided over the years required Crisis response counseling. Sometimes this support was provided to pre-existing clients, sometimes to people I never actually met. No matter what, in the last few years I have been able to thoroughly understand and advise situations with love, acceptance, applicable information and support in resolution.
Family Counseling
Much of my career was spent either providing or supervising those providing a service to families in crisis. These services were provided in their homes, schools, and communities based upon the needs of each family. The purpose was to support family stability and either support transition of a child returning to a home or prevent the out of home placement of a child. Each case was intense and required the ability to work with people with many different experiences, cultural backgrounds and current challenges. Often at the same time. Through this work I have become familiar with the US Public Education system and have contributed to many IEP meetings in addition to meetings to support resolution of a current issue.
EAP Counseling
Everyday people doing their best to eek out peace in this life. Employers provide counseling services as a benefit. I provided the counseling. I also provided training on topics ranging from trauma in education to sexual harassment to city employees. The military provides wonderful EAP benefits through Military One Source. I was a provider for them during the last few years of my career and adored working with military client. My personal family experience with the military provided a foundational understanding of military life which supported our work together.
Mediation
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Much of family therapy is about supporting all family members to be heard, validated and a middle ground achieved. In addition to my family work I also participated in a program that provided mediation services for families. All people involved in a particularly sticky situation were invited to the table, professional and personal alike. These mediation meetings were incredibly productive in supporting smooth transition for families during challenging times. We supported decisions like visitation, placement, educational changes, and medical considerations.
SPMI Population
For a time in my career all of my clients fit into a classification given to people who were deemed as having a “severe and persistent mental illness.” I have experience working with people exhibiting a wide range of symptoms and a strong understanding about how the mental health system works. Some of my clients were court ordered to engage with my services so I gained additional experience completing court documents and engaging with the legal system.
Supervision
The last couple of years of my career were spent as a Regional Program Supervisor for an agency with offices across 2 states. I was afforded the opportunity to supervise staff providing clinical and non-clinical services as well as interns.
Education
BA in Psychology and MA in Counseling Psychology. Many conferences and independent study have supported my knowledge and understanding.
Mindfulness Meditation
Facilitated a Mindfulness Meditation class 2x / week.
Resilience with Kelley 