My Story

I grew up in Northeastern Ohio.  Throughout my childhood I focused on the pursuit of education because I wanted my life to be different.  The sensible choice was business school, but that was not the right choice for me.  I saw mental illness at home as a Black child and later as a Black woman.  I felt the injustice of misdiagnosing and overmedicating.  That spurred my decision to become a Social Worker.

In my career, I have worked with children and teens in secured residential facilities, previously incarcerated women and community development organizations; but most of my career has been in Palliative Care helping folks to live well.

I started seeing a pattern in my Palliative Care patients, medication did not always relieve the pain and rarely did it relieve their suffering.  I became curious, then obsessed.  I learned that unresolved trauma can lead to intense physical and mental suffering.  If I could be the vessel by which another's suffering is relieved then there was no other choice for my career.