I was very drawn to A Home Within. I actually got the email from a therapist listserv that I’m on. I saw the advertisement for it, and I was so excited about the opportunity to contribute my skills to make a difference, given the mission of what A Home Within does, which is provide free therapy for foster care youth. So that’s why I decided to join.

Volunteering with A Home Within is an incredibly rewarding experience. You’ll be part of a dedicated team making a crucial difference in the lives of young people who are currently in foster care or aging out of foster care, and who really need this kind of loving, caring, dedicated support. So I would highly recommend it - it’s very rewarding, there are different roles available for you. It’s worth just going on the website, checking it out, sending an email, and the team is amazing! Really kind, friendly staff. So I highly recommend!

So, I’m in the continuing education role as a CE instructor, and I love teaching and learning. What I enjoy is seeing, witnessing, and receiving comments during the presentation and after about the impact of what we are learning and how that helps the providers within themselves, and also to pass it on to their clients. I love teaching, and I love talking about ACT and healing from abandonment wounds and early childhood trauma, so that was just pure bliss for me!

Wow!

The most special part about A Home Within to me is breaking down those barriers to mental health for foster care youth. Now, the easiest way to do that is to put together a group of special providers who say, “This is free, we’ll make it as simple and accessible as possible,” and knowing that these providers are investing in their own professional development. So the special part is imagining these youth that are going through whatever they’re going through that involves not having a stable home, and not knowing where their caregivers are or will be – obviously it’s not a continuum. But to lower and in fact remove the barriers so they can get help is really powerful. It’s a very worthwhile mission.

Well, I had written and published a book in 2013 called Trauma and Transformation: A Twelve Step Guide. What I did was I took the twelve steps of alcoholics anonymous and I wrote a workbook to help trauma survivors heal from trauma blending a spiritual approach. And I’m most proud of that for a number of reasons. One of those reasons is, when I set out to write that book, I had a goal of just one person coming to me and saying, “Because of your book, my life was transformed.” And over the last eleven years or so, I’ve exceeded that number greatly. I’ve given away an endless amount of free copies. It wasn’t about selling it, it was about putting it in the hands of people that can use it, and writing it in a way that lowers the barriers, where people from different walks of life and education levels could sit with it, read the questions and answers, do the work and really have that spiritual approach. In 2013, the trauma movement wasn’t where we are at now in terms of trauma awareness. There was only one other book written on trauma and the twelve steps at the time, and obviously there are a lot more available. I’m very proud of it, it feels like it was very core to my life purpose and my life mission, which is to broker hope and peace within oneself. So that’s something that I’m still very proud of.

Thank you!