Qualifications
I have a Master of Education in Counselling Psychology and I am a Certified Canadian Counsellor. I have been registered with the Counselling and Psychotherapy Association of Canada, as well as the Academy of Naturopaths and Naturotherapists of Canada since 2020. I returned to school in 2024 to begin a Master of Clinical Social Work specializing in Infant, Children, and Adolescent Mental Health and this program is ongoing.
My vocational background is in the field of child development and I've had the honour of supporting children and youth who are neurodiverse, LGBTQIA2S+ and/or are New Comers to Canada.​ Some of my additional training courses include:
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ACT for Adolescents
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DBT Skills for Adolescents and Families
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Mentalizing and Mentalization Based Treatments with Children, Young People and Families (MBT CYP) ©
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Be Body Positive - Fundamentals ©
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Emotion-Focused Family Therapy Coaching for Eating Disorders
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Parent Management Training ©
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Individual courses on Anxiety, Depression, Emotional Regulation, Gender Identity, Indigenous Culture, Racial Discrimination, and General Mental Health specific to children, adolescents and families.
The Approach
“I call myself a philomath, someone who loves to learn and study, and I’ve always been very inquisitive, much like children! I don’t pretend to be an expert in anything when I meet with a young person…I always tell them that I have just as much to learn from them as they do from me and what we both don’t know, we will learn together. Depending on the client and their main concern, I explore different therapy approaches, but most often I use Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, skills from Dialectical Behaviour Therapy and Mindfulness strategies to guide us. Because the adolescent brain is still developing and conversation isn’t the only way to interact with my clients, I use a variety of creative activities, visuals, worksheets, games and sometimes exercises like yoga, to really engage with them. Of course, I only do this if they are receptive to the activity because the key thing for any young person is having a sense of autonomy.” – Desiree
