My personal and professional ‘missions’ intertwine: to be a force for good in the world; to progress, grow, and evolve through knowledge, through understanding, through possibility.

I think being a force for good includes finding and telling the best truths we have available to us, sharing them with compassion and earnestness, and wanting to be a positive influence – and seeking out positive influences in turn. This is what I love about the collaborative nature of facilitating workshops; it’s a cliché, but I so often learn things from workshop participants – a new way of conveying something, facts, hard-earned wisdom.

I began my career as a drug/alcohol counselor for adolescent males at Manos in Lancaster, PA, and went on to become a Juvenile Probation Officer at Lancaster County Juvenile Probation. I returned to school to obtain a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology at Millersville University and subsequently worked as a psychotherapist at a non-profit. Afterward, I returned to the juvenile probation office to be the on-site family and adolescent therapist. It was then that I began to offer short workshops to the staff, and then branched out to agencies in my community and then across the state of PA. I concurrently taught in the Clinical Psychology graduate program at Millersville University for fifteen years.

I’ve been a staff trainer in the field of social services for twenty years now, and am grateful I get to do work that I love. My volunteer work includes working with the women at Clare House and involvement with the Lancaster Boys and Girls Club. I live in Lancaster, PA and have three adult children, a son-in-law, and two perfect (of course) grandchildren.