Mental Health Educator, Speaker, Coach & Changemaker

Turning lived experience, education, and courage into meaningful change.

I believe mental health education should do more than give people information.

It should change how we see ourselves, how we understand one another, and how we create environments where

people can heal, belong, and thrive.

For more than two decades, I have worked at the intersection of mental health education, prevention, equity, recovery, and social change

helping workplaces, schools, families, and communities build the knowledge and confidence to respond to

mental health challenges with greater compassion and skill.

But this work is also deeply personal.

I am a woman in long-term recovery from an eating disorder. I know what it means to navigate a culture that equates worth with weight, wellness with appearance, and health with behaviors that may actually cause harm.

I have experienced weight-based bullying and discrimination, as well as thin privilege.

I have been both the person struggling and the person learning how to support others.

Those experiences fundamentally shape how I teach, coach, and lead.

They have taught me that:

recovery is not simply about changing an individual.

It is also about changing the environments, messages, systems, and expectations that shape our relationship

with ourselves and one another.

As a mother, educator, lifelong learner, and steadfast advocate for change, I bring both professional expertise and lived experience to this work. I believe deeply in the power of education.

It’s not a prescription, but as a pathway to greater understanding, agency, connection, and choice.

Working for Social Impact at Every Level

I work across the individual, interpersonal, organizational, and community levels to challenge stigma, build mental health literacy,

strengthen cultures of care, and create more equitable approaches to wellbeing.

My work includes:

  • Mental health literacy and education

  • Eating disorder and disordered eating education, prevention, and recovery support

  • Weight-based discrimination and anti-fat bias

  • Suicide prevention and Mental Health First Aid

  • Healing-informed and equity-centered approaches to care

  • Workplace and educator wellbeing

  • De-escalation and compassionate response

  • Coaching and practical support for individuals and families

  • Building cultures of belonging, dignity, and care

I don't believe there is one pathway to wellbeing. I don't believe we can coach, educate, or care our way out of systems that create harm.

I do believe we can do incredibly hard and great things.

Individual healing matters. So does collective change.

That is why my work moves between the personal and the systemic:

helping people find their own anchors while also asking what needs to change around them.

A Different Kind of Expertise

I bring together professional training, more than 20 years of experience in mental health education and prevention, and the perspective that can only come from lived experience.

I know the importance of evidence and expertise.

I also know that a textbook cannot fully explain what it feels like to live inside a body that has been judged, to recover from an eating disorder, to parent in a culture saturated with diet messaging, or to sit beside someone you love who is struggling.

Both kinds of knowledge matter.

My approach is grounded in compassion, curiosity, equity, dignity, and the belief that people are more than their diagnoses, behaviors, bodies, productivity, or perceived worth.

I don't come to this work believing I have all the answers.

I come prepared to ask questions, create brave spaces to challenge our assumptions, share what I know,

and help people move from awareness to action.

Because Change Starts Somewhere

We don't have to change everything at once.

We can start with a conversation. A question. A different way of responding. A workplace policy. A classroom. A family dinner.

This is the work I believe in: education that creates understanding,

support that builds capacity, and change that makes room for everyone.

Every person deserves dignity. Every body deserves respect. Every story deserves to be heard.

And every community can become a place where healing is possible.

An Approach Rooted in Lived Experience and Shared Humanity

My work is anchored in the belief that:

  • Empathy & Compassion can coexist with boundaries.

  • Crisis response should be calm, steady, and informed.

  • Mental health literacy is a leadership skill.

  • Early recognition can change and save lives.

  • All BODIES BELONG in all spaces.

  • Burnout, compassion fatigue, and decision fatigue is real and takes self care and structural care to prevent it.

  • We all have bias and have a responsibility to understand how they show up.

  • Radical change is possible and creates possibility.

I’m known for my warmth, passion, authentic, grounded presence, and ability to make difficult topics feel manageable. My work supports teams who want to be proactive, prepared, and deeply human and real in how they address mental health.

Partners include:

  • Mid-size and large businesses

  • Nonprofits and community organizations

  • Municipalities and government agencies

  • Schools and education providers

  • Parent and caregiver groups

  • Professional associations

    • Please note there is an option to apply for professional CEU’s for various industries.