(Professional) Letters, Receipts, & Bio

What qualifies me to do this work on a personal level:

I’m qualified to do this work because I live the things I teach.

I love and embody who I am and who I’m becoming. Not who I should be according to my oppressors (colonialism, patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy).

I reclaim the beauty of my soul within systems that seek to erase me.

Rooted in my humanity and dignity, I practice liberation daily to shed away layers and labels of gender binary, immigration status, race, and class…

With each movement, divination, and meditation practice, I come back home to all that’s sacred: my body and my lineage.

In the light of my own truth, I honor my audacity to struggle, dream, and hope to re-imagine family building to be deeply decolonized and intentionally intergenerational.

It’s not oppression that qualifies me to do liberation work.

Rather, it’s my vow, as a Bodhisattva, to see the divinity in you, to see beauty in wounds, and to see wholeness in what’s fractured.

It’s also because I’m human, a work-in-progress, a side-eye afficionado, a Mortal Kombat pro, and a singer to plants and animals.

I wish I could end the page here. But I know I have to play the capitalism game of “proving my worth” to you and listing all of my training and accomplishments. So here we go:

What qualifies me to do this work on a professional level:

I’m a dot connector, norm agitator, and lover of liberation who supports social justice curious families in their efforts to practice social justice in their parenting while re-parenting their inner child.

I work as a nationally award-winning decolonized therapist and facilitator, a trans rights activist, and a host of the Come Back to Care Podcast. I founded Come Back to Care for anyone who loves and raises children to heal as we get free.

I believe that when parents heal their inner child and internalized oppression wounds in a community, they put fragmented pieces of themselves together to show up to both parenting and community organizing with their whole selves. Then, parents and providers alike can dismantle systemic oppression and rebuild a culture that's rooted in liberation for their future generations.

I was honored to be the keynote speaker at the 2024 Oregon Parenting Educator Conference, Oregon State University and a featured facilitator at the Pre-Conference Forum, 2024 Zero to Three LEARN Conference. In 2023, I also spoke about decolonized mental health and healing justice-based care at the 18th World Association for Infant Mental Health Congress in Dublin, Ireland.

Come Back to Care’s decolonized pediatric, family, and community mental health approach received a Congressional Commendation read into the Congressional Record by Rep. Delia Ramirez, was featured in Chicago’s WGN9, and was awarded  the Zero to Three Award for Emerging Leadership.

My most recent publications include an academic article in the June 2022 Zero to Three Journal and an op-ed piece in Condé Nast’s Them.  

I’m a graduate of the Erikson Institute’s Social Work Program. I also holds another master’s degree in Infancy & Early Childhood Special Education from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

Outside of my clinical and psychoeducation work at Come Back to Care, I provide political education and healing support to QTBIPOC youth organizers around the stolen land of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations (Chicago). To embody joy in radical art making, I have performed and headlined premier burlesque shows across the USA and in New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, and Canada.

Regardless of the letters following my name, working with parents, caregivers, and young children is my highest honor.

My education, training, and professional qualifications are listed below:

HONORS & AWARDS

2024 A Congressional Commendation read into the Congressional Record by Rep. Delia Ramirez

2024-2026 The Zero to Three Fellowship Program

2023 The Equity Champion Award from the National Training & Technical Assistance Center for Child, Youth, & Family Mental Health

2022 The Together We Heal Creative Place Program (CCP) Grant by the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE), in partnership with the Chicago Therapy Collective

2021 Zero to Three’s Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health (IECMH) Emerging Leadership Award (Category: Practice)

2020 The Office of Special Education (OSEP) Grant

EDUCATION

Somatic Abolitionism Level II, Education For Racial Equity

Postgraduate Certificate in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Level 1, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute

Postgraduate Certificate in Dynamic Attachment Re-patterning experience (DARe), Trauma Solutions

M.S.W. in Social Work, Erikson Institute

Mentorship Completion in Sensory Processing Disorders, STAR Institute for Sensory Processing Disorder

Postgraduate Certificate in Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders, Postpartum Support International

Postgraduate Certificate in Infant-Parent Mental Health, University of Massachusetts Boston

Ed.M. in Infancy and Early Childhood Special Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

B.A. in Business Administration- Marketing, Thammasat University

PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

Licensed Clinical Social Worker, the Illinois Department of Human Services

Facilitating Attuned Interactions (FAN) Training Level II Certified Home Visitor, Fussy Baby Network, Erikson Institute

Developmental Therapist, the Illinois Department of Human Services

DIR/Floortime Advanced Provider, the Interdisciplinary Council on Developmental and Learning Disorder

Certified NCAST Feeding Scale Examiner, University of Washington, School of Nursing

Certified Newborn Behavioral Observations Provider, the Brazelton Institute, Harvard Medical School

Certified Infant Massage Instructor, the International Association of Infant Massage

Registered Circle of Security Parenting Educator

Registered Gottman Bringing Baby Home Educator