Edmonton, AB

Canada

t5h4n1

Social work, Clinical practice

Part time Private practice and Part time therapist at Aboriginal Counseling Services and sessional instructor at two universities in Alberta, Canada.

I have been working in the fields of trauma, grief and loss, mental health and addictions, as well as domestic and sexual violence for over 38 years with Indigenous families and communities, government services, mental health and addictions services, and non-profit agencies. I have held various leadership, clinical counselling, and community development positions in rural and urban locations. My clinical social work practice is trauma-informed and holistic: Incorporating expressive arts, somatic/sensorimotor psychotherapy approaches, EMDR, CBT and other contemporary modalities and traditional Indigenous ways of knowing and healing. I provide consultation, training and policy support to agencies in areas including compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma and self-care, impacts of colonization, intergenerational/historical trauma, trauma-specific and trauma-informed (TI) practice, TI agency assessments, as well as supporting human services agencies to develop TI delivery approaches. I provide training workshops and I am a frequent speaker at local, provincial, national and international conferences. I am on the Training Summit Planning Committee for the International Training Summit on Violence, Abuse and Trauma (held annually in San Diego, CA). My academic background includes a BSc in Psychology, a Graduate Degree in Health Administration, a Masters in Health Law and a Masters in Social Work, Clinical Social Work Practice. I am a registered social worker in Alberta, Canada and a certified trauma treatment specialist (CTTS) with the international Association of Traumatic Stress Specialists and a Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner. In addition to my private practice work, I provide individual and group counselling at Aboriginal Counseling Services Association (a domestic violence agency for Indigenous men, women and children) and I am a sessional instructor for the University of Calgary SW Faculty and field coordinator/sessional at Grant MacEwan University.