After graduating with a BA in Psychology, I worked with hard-to-serve youth in the group home setting. This was a valuable experience, helping me to understand the dynamics at play within family units, as well as how the context of culture and society interplay in the problem. It was a time when the youth gave me the opportunity to enter into their lives when they were at their lowest, helping to facilitate a change of behaviour so that they could return to their family units. Although this was often challenging, it was rewarding to see lives changed through hard work in a safe environment.
Later I decided to return to school to pursue counselling as a career. I was often encouraged by friends and family as they saw my gift of compassion and openness to the struggles of others without judging their situation or choices. With the support of family, especially my loving wife, I was able to finish that schooling and begin my journey into therapy. I continued to work with children and adolescents along with their families. This brought my attention to the importance of our most important relationships, whether they are friends, siblings, parents, or other communities of which we are a part.
I’ve been able to help create a safe environment for clients to help them articulate and work towards their set goals. Many clients have found help that are suffering through anxiety, stress, burnout, depression, addictive behaviours, life changes, communication difficulties, parenting challenges, grief, abuse, and infidelity. My current counselling roles challenge me with a wide variety of issues and I have discovered that each person, in their own context, and has to find their own unique solutions and changes to that problem. There are no two problems that are the same.