I am a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, a license I have held since 2014. In order to have the honor of that license, I had to complete a Doctorate of Psychology degree. This is the credential that allows me to diagnose and treat mental illness, as well as provide clinical supervision to other therapists.

I have also received certificates in the following training areas:

• Sexual Assault Advocacy

• Domestic Violence

• Autism Assessment and Treatment

As part of maintaining my Psychologist’s license, I am required to participate in Continuing Education. I use this opportunity to receive formal training in many topic areas. Some recent training titles:

• “Understanding Neurodivergence: ADHD + Autism”

• “Masterclass on Health Equity”

• “Supervising via Distance Learning”

• “Being Neurodivergent in a Neurotypical World”

• “Mindfulness and Interconnected Reality”

• “Sensorimotor Interventions to Improve Social, Emotional, and Cognitive Functioning: Neurological Approaches for Children and Adolescents with Autism”

If I listed every leadership opportunity I took, we’d be here all day. So, instead, I’d like to highlight some of my favorite experiences as well as those that help give the best sense of the my range of experience and skills which will be at your disposal:

Behavioral Health

• Co-Executive Director at Eden Counseling: I shared executive responsibilities with a close colleague to help a small and struggling organization stabilize and find a new path forward. I’m proud of the infrastructure I was able to institute, as well as the significant financial growth I helped lead the organization to (>50% increase in less than 2 years).

• Chief Program Officer at La Familia: I served as a member of the executive team at an organization which provides a broad range of social services programming to an extremely diverse community. I had the honor of overseeing all of La Familia’s behavioral health programming, which included the following: child and family outpatient clinic; school-based therapy programs; long-term programs for adults with serious mental illness; substance use programs - both residential for adults and outpatient for adults and youth; specialty programs such as that for adults on CalWORKs, for unaccompanied immigrant youth, and those reintegrating after incarceration. I rose into this role after starting as a practicum trainee and an individual contributor clinician. The pride in being part of an organization’s growth from the stage of around 25 employees to reaching nearly 250 by the time I left cannot be captured here. Some of my favorite contributions included:

  • Led the transition into telehealth services during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, including developing comprehensive training and policies

  • Spearheaded development and implementation of Program Manuals for all agency programming

  • Launching the Trauma Recovery Center in partnership with the Family Justice Center in Oakland

  • Co-developed an internal leadership training program for all agency leaders

  • Collaborated on the expansion of the Multicultural Psychotherapy Training Institute, along with the Training Directors (and supervising those trainees)

  • Implemented use of a real-time communication platform (i.e., Slack)

• Quality Assurance Manager at La Familia: This was my first official leadership position at La Familia. I had the honor, challenge, and pleasure of establishing the QA department. Key achievements:

  • Developed and implemented clinical and quality review processes for all specialty mental health programming

  • Represented La Familia with Alameda County Behavioral Health

  • Created and provided custom HIPAA and confidentiality standards and annual training to all staff

Volunteer Work

• Member, Alameda County Mental Health Advisory Board: I was appointed to this board in December 2023 by Alameda County District 3 Supervisor Elisa Marquez. My responsibility is to connect and collaborate with other members and organizations providing behavioral health services in Alameda County. Make recommendations for improving our public mental health system on behalf of the Board of Supervisors.

• Member, Board of Directors at Community Impact Lab: I served on this working, volunteer board of directors for several years with an emphasis on supporting local parents and families. Some of our projects: a monthly parenting support group (run by me), making dinners for families living in domestic violence shelters, and creating & distributing boxes of newborn supplies for low-income expectant parents.

• Advocate & Board Member, BRAVE (formerly Bay Area Women Against Rape): In addition to answering hotline calls from sexual assault survivors and providing support, I also accompanied survivors to the hospital when receiving medical examinations for use by law enforcement. I also restructured the advocate training manual and introduced new materials.

I’m grateful that my career has given me the opportunity to gain experience in many types of clinical programming and treatment modalities.

One aspect of my work that I’m especially proud of is having provided therapy in Spanish to dozens of individuals and families. I started with my first training placement, taking on family therapy in Spanish for one of my very first therapy cases in my career. The majority of my training years included more Spanish-language therapy than English.

Other ways and groups I’ve worked with:

• Adults and children of all ages.

• Individuals and families.

• In outpatient clinics, schools, and in home-based programs.

• In brief and long-term service models.

• Supporting adults with serious mental illness.

I’m also proud to have had the chance to work with populations with special care considerations such as: unaccompanied immigrant youth, domestic violence survivors, those with dual diagnosis, formerly incarcerated folks, unhoused folks, LGBTQ+ individuals, CPS-involved families, and more.

This wide exposure in my direct service work is part of what grounds my clinical work and supervision, but also my leadership and program development lens. I’ve grappled with the intersection of all these aspects of getting the work done and done right.

I have also had clinical leadership who viewed clinical work from very different perspectives, further broadening my view. I’m grateful for everything I learned from those experiences, as they shaped the professional I am today.

Supervision

I started supervising as soon as I was qualified and the next trainee cohort started at my workplace. Since then, I have supervised 55+ different clinicians over the course of more than a decade.

These clinicians have worked at different organizations and with different populations. These include graduate students who are seeing their very first therapy client ever all the way up to seeing clinicians through their licensing exams (after that we call it consultation).

I’ve also supported clinicians of different backgrounds, from different graduate programs, and with very different philosophies around therapy.