LIA Counselling

Welcome. I  created LIA to provide a safe, warm, compassionate and non-judgmental space to support women and folks who've experienced abuse and violence in their lifetime. 

When we are able to share our stories in safe places, we can gain clarity, dissolve shame, increase connection, and feel empowered. 

Dominant discourses and the impacts of violence can make it challenging to share our stories and get the support we deserve. When our experiences are also influenced by other experiences of oppression, we can face even greater challenges in feeling understood, heard, and supported.

Having a safe, warm, compassionate and non-judgmental space to get support has and does make a difference. LIA exists to provide one more space where women and folks can lay their stories down and feel supported in their journeys of healing.

Safe & Compassionate Support:

I will walk with you, and together, in ways that centre your choice and at a pace that works for you, we will help you to lay your story down and connect with your experience and yourself in ways that foster clarity, honour your voice, restore connection and trust, support empowerment, and honour the wholeness that already exists within you.

Practices To Support Your Journey:
The practices I use are the approaches that women and folks have identified with me and with others in the anti-violence field have found helpful in laying down their stories and feeling understood and supported. Some of the practices I bring to our work together may include:

• Response based practice (based on the knowing that when there is violence, there is resistance)
• When Love Hurts Model (based on honouring women's voice, resistance, and understanding of how abuse operates and impacts women)
• Compassion practice (based on relating to our experiences and ourselves with kindness, understanding, and caring) 
• Feminist anti-oppressive practice (based on relating our own experiences to larger social contexts and social issues of oppression).
• San'yas Indegenous Cultural Safety (based on uprooting anti-Indigenous racism and fostering cultural safety)

Fees:

• Counselling session fees are $120/50 minute session (online, phone, in person)
• Some of the costs of counselling may be covered through your extended health benefits. Please check directly with your insurance provider for your specific coverage.
• I accept CVAP (Crime Victim Assistance Program) coverage as well as First Nations Health Benefits Coverage.
• Receipts are provided and many folks are able to use these receipts for their individual taxes.
• I have a certain number of sliding scale spots to support the affordability of counselling. Please contact me directly to see if a spot is available. 

Meeting Options:

In-person sessions in Burnaby: #501 3292 Production Way, Burnaby BC.
Video sessions through Zoom Healthcare.
Confidential phone sessions.

My Experience & Training:

In our journey together I will use my training and my years of experience working with women and folks to come alongside you and support you in your path forward.

I'm passionate about anti-violence work and have worked in the field since 2012 as a counsellor. Before 2012, I worked in anti-violence and with folks experiencing intersectional oppression as a social worker.

My education includes a Masters in Counselling Psychology from City University of Seattle and Bachelors of Social Work from the University of Victoria.

During my time in the field I've completed multiple trainings for working with survivors of violence and trauma including Narrative Therapy With Indigenous Communities and When Love Hurts Model training, trauma-informed best practices, and EMDR.

LIA provides counselling services from an anti-oppressive, anti-violence framework. While LIA works with women and folks in multiple places in their journey of healing, LIA is not currently set up to be able to offer crisis support services with folks concerned about their immediate safety and needing support with protection and accessing resources to increase safety. For crisis support and to learn about some of the available resources contact Victim Link 1-800-563-0808,  local women's centre, gender-based violence crisis support line.