I worked with adults experiencing chronic mental health and intellectual disabilities for a dozen years before graduate school and discovered domestic violence counseling with court-ordered clients. I’ve worked with indivuals whose lives and relationships reached a crisis and typically stayed there. It’s all about relationships. The hurts and pains of childhood become the fears and triggers of adulthood. People learn to identify their baggage and how they arrived at my office. As they heal, they develop healthy methods of living and relating to their families again.
I created STudent Athletes for Healthy RelationshipS - STAHRS- to teach our young men and women about the perils and prevalence of teen dating violence, sexual assaults, bullying and the connections with substance abuse and the perpetuation of interpersonal violence. The STAHRS mission is to lower the trajectory of violence in our schools by targeting student athletes and creating ambassadors of change to developing positive peer cultures. I want them to be conscious and aware as they go into adulthood and avoid becoming my professional clients.
