For Professionals Working with Youth and Families
For the teens who know the skills but can't use them.
I offer challenge-based mentorship for young people and parent coaching for the adults around them, and both work alongside what you're already doing. Underneath the practical work is a bigger aim: helping families guide young people into capable adulthood, a passage our culture rarely marks anymore.
Some teens don't engage with traditional interventions, whatever the approach: therapy, coaching, school support, or transition services.
You know the pattern:
• Poor attendance or passive participation
• Insights that never translate to behavioral change
• Plateau after initial progress
• Parents questioning intervention effectiveness
Whether you're a therapist, school counselor, parent coach, educational consultant, or transition specialist, what if these "difficult" cases just need a different approach?
Where this fits your work
Mental health professionals: For teens who aren't engaging in talk-based work, I provide experiential skill practice that supports your therapeutic goals.
School counselors and educational consultants: Students practice executive functioning, social, and regulation skills in real situations outside the classroom.
Parent coaches and family specialists: My youth mentorship speaks the same language as the parenting work, so the teen and the parents build in the same direction.
Transition specialists: Teens returning from residential or wilderness programs keep practicing their skills in everyday life.
Families who need parent support first: When a teen isn't ready to engage, I coach the parents virtually, wherever they live.
What I'm seeing
Across very different kids and presenting concerns, the most common pattern I see is a family that has gradually reorganized around a child's distress. Clinicians will recognize this as family accommodation, and every step made sense at the time. Over months or years, parents shift from leading to managing, support spreads across many helpers who each hold a slice, and exhausted parents lower their expectations. The cost often appears at the transitions into adolescence and young adulthood, when kids have had little practice doing hard things and the supports that carried them through school fall away.
The home has to hold it
Progress in direct work, or in a wilderness or residential program, lasts longest when the home can hold it. Parent coaching helps families build that capacity, and it complements the clinical work you're already doing. For families who need it, I can also coordinate with you and the school, so one person holds the whole picture at home.
On accommodations
Accommodations are often the right support for a season, and they work best with a plan for gradually fading them. Helping parents hold that plan at home is a large part of my work.
When Your Clients Know the Skills But Can't Use Them
I specialize in teens who need something different.
The ADHD teen who can articulate executive functioning strategies perfectly but can't organize their actual backpack. The anxious client who knows every coping skill but has never practiced them under real stress. The teen with autism who spirals in negative anticipation all week, even though you know they'd succeed if they could just show up. The teen returning from residential who processes beautifully but can't transfer insights to daily life. The neurodivergent adolescent who needs concrete challenge, not more abstract discussion. The capable teen who's done years of therapy but still can't take action when it matters.
Your clients can write the book on the skills you've taught them, but they need a reason to actually use those skills. They need real-world practice that an office setting can rarely provide, no matter how skilled you are.
You know what they're capable of. You just can't take them there.
These teens don't need more of the same. They need mentorship through challenge. Some teens need to prove they're stronger than their problems, not just understand them.
This understanding shapes how we can work together.
My Professional Background
Clinical Foundation with Adventure Expertise
Education and certifications:
M.A. in Holistic Counseling Psychology: clinical foundation in developmental psychology, trauma-informed care, and family systems
AMGA Single Pitch Instructor and Climbing Wall Instructor: technical expertise in progressive challenge design, in both indoor gym and outdoor single pitch settings
7 years in mental health settings: a graduate practicum in supervised psychotherapy, 4+ years in a family-based intensive outpatient program, and 2 years in private practice
50+ families across intensive outpatient and private practice settings
Clinical Experience: I've worked extensively with neurodivergent and therapy-resistant young people, in homes, on the climbing wall, and in the backcountry, and I've guided their families alongside them. As the Experiential and Adventure Programming Coordinator at an intensive outpatient counseling center in Denver, I developed challenge-based programming for teens and families who weren't engaging in traditional settings. I'm a coach and mentor, not a licensed clinician, and I stay in my lane alongside the clinical team.
What distinguishes my approach: The combination of clinical training, years inside a family-based program, and genuine adventure expertise. I understand both the therapeutic principles and the technical skills needed to create meaningful challenges that build real capabilities rather than just insights.
Professional Testimonials
Ways to Work Together
Direct referral: for a young person in Marin County who needs an alternative to talk-based support, I work with them directly through real-world capability coaching, climbing, and wilderness experiences, with parent coaching built in.
Collaboration: for teens already in clinical care, you lead the clinical work, and I provide challenge-based mentorship and parent coaching that reinforce your goals at home.
Parent coaching referral: when a teen isn't ready to engage, or the family lives outside Marin County, I coach the parents virtually.
You can share the Parent Overview and the free Parent Leadership Compass with families.
Experiential Program Development & Staff Training
I provide consultation for therapeutic programs and organizations integrating experiential learning into existing services:
Experiential initiative design: challenge-based activities that build group cohesion and individual capabilities
Staff training in facilitation techniques: experiential learning principles and group facilitation methods
Clinical integration: connecting experiential activities to therapeutic goals
Specialized adaptations: modifying approaches for neurodivergent participants
Recent consultations include staff training for intensive outpatient programs, developing initiative-based programming for therapeutic settings, and teaching facilitation techniques to clinical staff.
Ready to Discuss a Specific Case?
Free consultation to explore whether challenge-based mentorship, parent coaching, or collaborative care would serve a particular young person best.
Simple. No pressure. Professional to professional.