Finding Home, Choosing Courage: An 18-Year Journey in Mental Health
From Personal Trauma to Professional Purpose: A Mental Health Leader's Journey Through Loss and Healing
My work in mental health did not begin in a classroom or a clinic.
It began at home.
More than eighteen years ago, my oldest son, Zachary, needed to know that the word home did not have to be frightening anymore. The last time he had been “at home,” the air was filled with yelling, tears, and fear—his father shouting, me crying, and Zachary wanting nothing more than to run away. My first therapeutic work was helping my child understand that safety could exist again, that home could be a place of steadiness rather than chaos.
I didn’t know then that those early moments of parenting through trauma would shape the rest of my life.
Driven by a desire to help not only my son but other families living in similar pain, I returned to school to pursue my master’s degree in counseling. I graduated in 2007 and began my professional career in community mental health and nonprofit work—spaces where compassion meets complexity every day. I learned quickly that healing is rarely linear and that systems often struggle to meet people where they are. Still, I believed deeply in the work.
In 2011, I experienced a collision no professional training can prepare you for.
I had just delivered three suicide prevention presentations—standing confidently in front of audiences, sharing warning signs, protective factors, and hope.
Five days later, my son Zachary died by suicide.
There is no language that adequately captures the devastation of losing a child, especially when your professional identity is built around prevention. Grief rewrote everything I thought I understood. It stripped away certainty and left me with a deeper, more complicated truth: knowledge does not make us immune to loss, but it can still make us useful in the aftermath.
I chose to continue.
I went on to work in a hospital emergency department as a psychiatric liaison, completing crisis evaluations at moments when people were most vulnerable. That work required decisiveness, ethical clarity, and the willingness to act when harm was imminent.
At one point, I was terminated from that hospital for allegedly violating HIPAA—when, in fact, I had acted under my legal and ethical obligation to fulfill a Duty to Warn. I would make that same decision again.
Every single time.
Following that chapter, I transitioned to inpatient psychiatric work, where I gained invaluable clinical experience. Working with individuals in acute crisis strengthened my assessment skills, deepened my understanding of severe mental illness, and ultimately allowed me to complete my clinical hours and obtain licensure. More importantly, it reinforced what I had come to believe: that people are more than their worst moments, and that dignity must remain central even in the most restrictive settings.
From there, my work increasingly moved toward supporting involuntary populations, first within a jail setting and then in a correctional facility. Working in these environments further shaped my clinical lens—challenging me to balance safety, accountability, and compassion while serving individuals often overlooked or misunderstood.
These experiences reinforced my commitment to ethical care, trauma-informed practice, and the belief that mental health support must exist even within the most rigid systems.
Along the way, I was given the profound honor of serving as a Program Services Director for adults with developmental delays. That role deepened my respect for individualized care, advocacy, and systems navigation. It reminded me that progress is not measured solely by outcomes, but by dignity, consistency, and trust.
Eventually, I returned to community mental health, where I spent nearly four years reconnecting with the heart of this work. I served as Clinical Director of Child and Family Services, as well as Same Day Access.
That chapter proved transformative. It bridged my clinical experience with leadership, moving me from the role of clinical leader into executive leadership.
The relationships, challenges, and opportunities I encountered there prepared me to step into an Interim Executive Director position, where I now work to shape programs, teams, and systems that reflect both clinical integrity and human compassion.
Today, my work is informed not only by education and licensure, but by lived experience. I bring with me the perspective of a mother, a clinician, a leader, and a woman who understands that resilience is often born in unimaginable loss. I believe in harm reduction, trauma-informed care, and systems that prioritize humanity over punishment. I believe in meeting people where they are—and walking alongside them as they find their way forward.
My journey has not been easy. It has been shaped by love, grief, courage, and an unwavering commitment to protect life and restore hope where it has been fractured.
Home is no longer a scary word for me.
