A Practical Approach to Meaningful Change
After more than 20 years in social work, I've learned that people rarely need someone to tell them what's wrong with them. More often, they need someone who can listen carefully, ask the right questions, and help them figure out what to do next.
My approach to therapy is compassionate, direct, and practical. I don't believe therapy needs to be about talking in circles or spending years trying to understand why you feel the way you feel. Understanding matters—but so does knowing what to do with that understanding.
I work with adults navigating anxiety, stress, relationships, major life transitions, and the challenges that come with trying to keep everything together. Therapy is collaborative and tailored to where you are and where you want to go. Together, we identify what's getting in the way, build practical skills, and work toward changes that can continue to serve you long after our work together ends.
How I Found My Way to Social Work
I didn't set out to become a social worker.
In college, I was a business major and struggling. After failing accounting, I took an introductory social work course because I needed to raise my GPA. I expected it to be a class that would help me get back on track. Instead, it changed the direction of my life.
The class made sense to me. So did the psychology and sociology courses I was doing well in. I began to realize that I was much more interested in understanding people than understanding business, and I changed my major.
My first jobs taught me just how much people can hurt—and how complicated the circumstances around that hurt can be. I worked in residential care with children in the foster care system who were struggling with significant mental health and behavioral challenges. Later, I worked in child protection, first as a case manager and then as a family assessor and investigator.
That work taught me something I still carry into therapy today: people often repeat what they know because they haven't had the opportunity, support, or awareness to imagine something different.
Families weren't simply making bad choices. Many were repeating patterns that had been passed down through generations, often without realizing that another way was possible.
Becoming a Clinician
After earning my BSW from Central Missouri State University in 1996, I went on to earn my master's degree from the University of Missouri–Kansas City in 2001. At the time, I thought I might eventually work in public policy. I had an interest in systems and in the larger forces that shape people's lives.
I couldn't find the job I thought I wanted. So I went back to where my career had started—a residential treatment center—and began training as a clinician.
That decision changed the direction of my career again. I received excellent clinical training and began to understand not only what worked in therapy, but why it worked. The work of Scott Miller helped me understand why therapy works and the importance of the client's experience of change. Albert Ellis's work in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy gave me practical ways to help people recognize the connections between their thinking, emotions, and behavior.
Over time, my career moved into program development and administration. I eventually served in executive leadership, developing programs and helping other professionals do good work. I valued that work, but I never really left the clinical side of social work behind.
Those experiences continue to shape how I practice today. I believe good therapy should be grounded in sound clinical thinking, but it should also make sense in the real world.
Experience. Expertise. Perspective.
My education and training gave me a foundation in understanding people and how change happens. My career has given me the opportunity to put that knowledge to work in real life—with individuals, families, organizations, and other professionals.
I've worked in residential treatment, child protection, hospitals, clinical practice, program development, and executive leadership. I've worked with people in some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable, and I've had the privilege of helping other professionals develop their own clinical skills. Those experiences have taught me to look beyond the immediate problem and pay attention to the patterns, circumstances, and choices that shape what happens next.
I've also lived a life outside of my professional role. I've been a partner for 25 years. I've raised children, adopted five children from the foster care system, and adopted my grandson when circumstances changed his life and mine. I've experienced career changes, unexpected setbacks, and the need to figure out what comes next when the plans you had no longer fit the reality in front of you.
I don't believe those experiences make me an expert on anyone else's life. They give me perspective.
I bring that perspective, along with my education, clinical training, and professional experience, into our work together. My job isn't to tell you what you should do. It's to help you understand where you are, recognize the patterns that may be getting in your way, clarify where you want to go, and develop the confidence and practical skills to make meaningful changes.
You bring your life and your experience. I bring mine. Together, we use both to figure out what needs to change and what comes next.
Finding My Way Back to Clinical Work
For much of my career, I moved between clinical work, program development, and leadership. I enjoyed building programs and helping organizations and professionals do good work, but I never really stopped being a clinician at heart.
Then COVID changed everything. I lost my executive position and suddenly found myself needing to figure out a new way to support my family during a global pandemic. I returned to clinical work and began seeing clients through telehealth. It reminded me how much I valued the work—and how much I had missed it.
Life changed direction again when my grandson experienced significant trauma and his parents were no longer able to care for him. I stepped into the role of raising him. At that point, I made a decision to prioritize stability for my family, and I took a hospital social work position that provided the security of a W-2 job, insurance, and benefits.
I work three days a week as a hospital social worker, and I genuinely love that work. But it also reminded me of something important: I missed using my clinical skills.
Now my grandson is older and starting school, and I finally have the room to return to the clinical work I've always loved. I'm building this practice around what has always mattered to me about this work—the opportunity to sit down with someone, understand what's happening, and help them figure out what comes next.
I'm not returning to clinical work because I have everything figured out. I'm returning because this is work I believe in, work I'm good at, and work I still want to do.
Where We Go From Here
You don't have to have everything figured out before you reach out. You don't even have to know exactly what's wrong.
Sometimes the first step is simply having a conversation with someone who can listen carefully, ask useful questions, and help you make sense of what you're experiencing.
If you think my approach might be a good fit for you, I'd be glad to talk. A consultation gives us a chance to get acquainted, talk about what you're looking for, and decide whether working together makes sense.
You don't have to figure out the whole path today. We can start with the next step.