I specialize in empowering clients to work on increasing their insightfulness and targeting attainable goals for their desired outcomes for counseling. I provide a safe environment to discuss strategies to help clients cope with their emotional obstacles so they can be better prepared to find effective solutions to their unique challenges. I am certified in utilizing interventions from multisystemic therapy, which specializes in working with families and adolescents that may be experiencing behavioral concerns with aggression, lack of following rules or boundaries in the home or community, commercial sexual exploitation, and substance abuse. I can utilize interventions that are commonly utilized in multisystemic therapy to help empower caregivers to increase their parental hierarchy in the home to help decrease their adolescent’s at-risk behaviors.

I fell in love with the mental health world when I began volunteering with elementary school children as a teenager helping provide outreach to young students during their physical activities at school. I noticed a lot of the students I got the opportunity to work with had so many stressors and communication barriers throughout the day at school that I enjoyed helping empower them to overcome their problems. This grew into discovering my abilities as a licensed clinician years later after obtaining my masters in marriage and family therapy as well as continuing to gain tremendous experience working in community mental health with diverse populations or ethnicities and age groups.

I am a mother to four amazing kiddos at home. So family is a huge aspect of my interest and world outside of work. I have a large amount of family members who live very close, and we take the village mentality of raising our children together. I grew up playing competitive sports and enjoy being active with my children and husband with baseball, soccer, swim, and gymnastics. I enjoy home design and hosting parties with my family and friends. I also really love to bake and try new recipes.

I am very goal oriented, therefore I need to remind myself daily that productivity isn't just about what I do for others but instead focus daily on things I can do for myself to also rethink how I view productivity each day. I often set reminders for myself with sticky notes and electronic reminders with words of encouragement and affirmation for myself. I practice this with my family as well since that is a rather large love language for most of us.

As a child most of my favorite books were always fantasy themed books where I could imagine and be creative constantly. I often enjoyed thriller style books as a teenager where I could guess or discover a twist in the plot of the story. As an adult, I have really enjoyed self-help or autobiography style writings since they reflect on the wisdom that others may share to us all. I most recently have read Gary Chapman's The 5 Love Languages more than once again due to the nature of how relevant his message is to discovering not just what your love language is but what your partner's is as well. This book inspires me to continue to grow as a mother, wife, sister, and therapist to help provide love in different ways that I can to others. I enjoy reading this book and relearning things we can take for granted or forget the simple tasks we enjoy doing for ourselves or others.

My favorite organizations are: Gary Sinise foundation, wounded warrior project, and tunnel to towers foundation. These three organizations are huge supports for our veterans and first responder families throughout the United States that help provide not just financial but emotional support when families are struggling with tremendous loss and life transitions. They are advocates for connecting families to their community resources for mental health services and help raise awareness for heroes that serve us everyday in America.

I enjoy self-pampering and time alone each day with relaxing scents, yummy snacks, and bubble baths to help reset my energy. When I am with my family at home, I really enjoy making experiences hands on. So, you will see me at my fullest self when I am making dinner with my family, and everyone is getting their hands dirty. I feel recharged when I am sitting at the table eating a great meal with my friends and family and entertaining others by hosting a dinner/ party. As well as letting out my competitive side with family drawing and game nights where we can all be silly and compete with each other creatively.

I do not currently have any pets, just a million pretend animals that my children have as stuffed animals. I always grew up with a dog in my life until I got married. My favorite story with my Dog, Teddy, was when I was a young adult, I would take him with me on hikes around the area to explore. He was a unique dog that didn't look like a dog, more like a wolf. He would always scare so many other hikers around me thinking a wolf would be following me on these trails, I often had to explain to others that he was just my harmless pet dog. He would love hiking with me and getting outside of the house to see things outside of our front window of our house. He even loved jumping into the water when we went on hikes and would get my car so dirty and smelling like him for weeks.