I am a trauma recovery specialist with over 20 years of experience.  I began my career as a community organizer and activist working with BIPOC youth in the South Bronx in New York city, empowering them to be self-advocates and become organizers in their communities.  I then worked as a program developer and manager, co-created an alternative to incarceration program for adolescents; and provided supportive counseling for youth and their families. Years later, while working for the Crime Victims Treatment Center in New York City, I created programming for victims of intimate partner violence, human trafficking and for surviving families of victims of violent death (homicide and suicide). 

My clinical practice has included providing therapy to children, adolescent, adults, couples and families with attachment and childhood trauma, acute and complex post-traumatic stress, and traumatic grief and bereavement.  I’ve provided individual and group therapy to women and transwomen forced into human and sex trafficking, immigrants and refugees, incarcerated youth and victims of crimes.

Since beginning my private practice 7 years ago, I’ve supported individuals and couples navigate life transitions and build more connected partnerships.  Today, I continue to have the privilege of facilitating a healing space for adults to repair, reconnect to themselves, and to renew their lives after trauma.   I support adults from diverse cultural, racial, and spiritual backgrounds, sexual orientations and gender expressions.  And I provide bicultural and bilingual services in English and in Spanish.

As a clinical supervisor and consultant, I’ve supported graduate interns and mental health professionals in the non-profit and private sectors to develop their clinical skills as trauma recovery therapists. Rooted in my belief that our wellness is necessary to show up well in this work, I’ve developed and provided trainings, process and support groups for mental health professionals focusing on preventing and healing from burnout, compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma.  

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Additionally, I’ve served as adjunct faculty at the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work; I’ve volunteered internationally providing services to humanitarian workers, and helping to promote trauma-informed practices; and I’ve consulted with various non-profit organizations across the U.S. assisting them in the development of trauma-informed programming.

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My work is embedded in transformational anti-oppression, anti-racism, and de-colonizing work.

And it’s partly informed by the work of the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond and Dr. Kenneth Hardy, PhD, among others.  I am committed to ongoing learning and owning my responsibility to heal and transform the internalized oppression and dehumanizing narratives I’ve inherited and been condition to in my society.

Through my commitment to decolonizing mental health practices, I’ve reconnected with the wisdom of my ancestral lineage and the healing traditions of my abueles.   I’ve become a learner and a practitioner of ancestral, earth-medicine and rituals. I’ve had the honor to learn from my Chamama – Susana Tapia Leon and my mentors, Claudia Barfoot, Aarinade Williams, Andrea Arare, Jacqueline Rolandelli, and Kristen Roderick (to name a few).  Today, I integrate traditional western psychology with the wisdom of the earth and spirit medicine of my people.

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