Melissa

she/her/hers

Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW), Integrated Nutrition Health Coach (INHC)

I am a licensed clinical social worker in the state of Washington (#LW00004211). I received my Bachelor’s degree in sociology at Kenyon College in Ohio and my Master’s degree in social work at Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research in Pennsylvania. After graduate school, I worked in community mental health specializing in working with children and adults, who are Deaf and hard of hearing. Since I have been in private practice, I have contracted with various agencies that serve this population including Abused Deaf Women’s Advocacy Services (ADWAS) and Hearing Speech and Deafness Center, Parent Infant Program (HSDC, PIP).

My additional trainings and experience have involved Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention, Interpersonal Neurobiology and attachment theory, working with adult children and other loved ones of addicted people and working with parents of multiples. I have experience facilitating therapeutic groups in the outdoors, parenting groups and recovery groups as well as leading mentorship and supervision groups for new Social Workers in the field. Finally, I also support others in caring for their overall health and wellbeing by leading health coaching groups.

I come to this work with a passion for supporting others in their personal journeys and with the space and bandwidth to help hold others’ life struggles. My life experiences in a long-term marriage and parenting along with my love for the outdoors, physical activity, and culinary and creative outlets, inform and support my work greatly.

My work with the Deaf community and living abroad has given me tastes of what it can be like to not be a member of the majority. I appreciate the learning these experiences have offered me, and I am committed to my ongoing work of understanding my whiteness and my role in the dominant culture, and to providing a space for others to process racial or cultural trauma.