My Work

As a therapist and social justice worker, my passions are informed by healing in relationship and believing that we can change and create more authentic and just lives. I am a social worker by training and have been providing therapy since 2001 to adults and couples with a particular interest in queer and trans/non-binary communities. Using my gestalt and social justice backgrounds, I have provided workshops to mental health providers and groups over the years on trans-affirming care and the ethical imperative of addressing race and social location in the therapeutic relationship.

I graduated from Columbia University School of Social Work and have received advanced clinical training from the Gestalt Therapy Institute of Philadelphia, the Stone Center, and in Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR).

My consulting work includes working with mental health practitioners, leaders, non-profits, medical centers, and academic groups through coaching, facilitation, and training, all focused on strengthening anti-racist practice.

My work before this included non-profit management and community-based work. I served for eleven years as the executive director of the Therapy Center of Philadelphia, a non-profit providing affordable therapy to women, transgender, and gender expansive adults. There I helped move the organization through a culture change process to become more trans-affirming and racially equitable. Prior to this, I worked at the Mazzoni Center as they were building their LGBT medical center. I served as their first health center director and helped build Philadelphia’s first transgender medical program. Using this experience, I also taught a course at the University of Pennsylvania for nine years on “How to Build Non-Profits from the Ground Up.”

​Personally, I grew up White with intergenerational wealth in the South. I am still unpacking the ways that my white class-privileged lineage has impacted how my family upholds White supremacy and anti-Blackness and ways I can undo and disrupt this legacy. I am queer, able-bodied and have lived, built diverse community, and worked in Philadelphia on the lands of the Lenni Lenape people for 22 years. I am lucky to live with my daughter who reminds me often to infuse love, play, patience, music, and magic into life. I practice joy by playing music and doing art. During the pandemic I also began baking as a mediation and safe offering to those I love.

• My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem, MSW, LICSW, SEP
• Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad
• White Fragility by Robin D’Angelo
• Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun, ChangeWork, 2001
• Culturally Sensitive Supervision and Training: Diverse Perspectives and Practical Applications edited by Kenneth Hardy and Toby Bobes
• Teens who hurt, clinical interventions to break the cycle of adolescent violence by Hardy and Laszloffy, 1995

If you want to support this justice work in other ways, please consider giving to these organizations:

• Loveland Foundation
• Therapy Center of Philadelphia
• Whole Brother Mission
• National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Mental Health Fund
• Hearts on a Wire