Service Array:
Psychoeducation and Psychotherapy

 

I was raised in a working-class family in Northwestern Wisconsin. While most of my basic needs were met, the effects of unresolved generational trauma and addiction permeated into my home. To make sense of my environment I took on adult roles at a very early age and learned to abandon my own internal experiences to survive. 

Growing up with these messages lead me to look outside myself for identity and self-worth, and I spent much of my youth and early adulthood turning away from my true self. My life changed when I discovered mindfulness and its powerful messages of acceptance and internal focus, waking me up to the present moments in my own life. I began to live the change I envisioned for others and consider myself to be on a continuous journey of healing.  

In college I felt a strong calling towards service work with children or incarcerated men and women. I sought internship in Corrections and quickly learned that the traumatized children from our communities often grew into the adults who overpopulated our prisons and jails. I felt compelled to learn and understand what these people needed to heal, not only what I could teach them. It is no stretch to say that the incarcerated men I worked with became my teachers. 

I spent over sixteen years providing mental health & social services in Corrections and through this work have seen the disparities and limitations of many of the large systems’ approaches to mental health care. Because of this, I was naturally drawn to the person-centered approach of Peer Mentoring at CC We Adapt. 

I operate from a holistic & trauma-informed therapeutic lens, helping the people I work with to see they are not defined by their past circumstances. I have been providing Clinical Supervision to the Peer Mentors at CC We Adapt since 2022, which has been one of the most rewarding parts of my career to date. And it is through this work that I have felt called to provide additional services of psychotherapy and psychoeducation to the Participants we serve since 2023.