About Me

I am an experienced educator, consultant, and national speaker on implementing trauma-informed practices into schools and building holistic trauma-responsive systems. I bring over two decades of experience at the local, state, and national level in areas including community schools, homeless education, and school improvement which informs my work. My wide range of experience from supporting individual teachers in the classroom to designing a trauma-informed schools pilot currently being implemented in 20 schools across the country, I understand the macro and the micro. I have worked both as a teacher and administrator putting the creation of healing-centered spaces into practice.

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As a trauma survivor and 'at-risk' youth myself and then an educator for at-risk youth in Washington State this work is deeply personal. I understand what schools can and should look like to  benefit ALL children. I am a mom to two adopted boys, greatly personalizing my understanding of developmental trauma and what it takes to overcome. Originally hailing from the Midwest, spending over a decade in the Pacific Northwest, now a transplant to sunny Southern California with my husband and two sons. The beach is my happy place.