Reflections on trauma, healing, and human connection

My writing draws on over two decades of experience at the intersection of clinical practice, systems change, and lived experience.

Through essays, publications, and training materials, I explore the ways systems live in the body, how healing begins in connection, and how presence and power intersect in daily life.

Essays & Reflections

Select writing from 2024-25

My essays and reflections weave the personal and political, grounded in the belief that structures live not just around us, but within us—and that change begins in the space between people.

I’m drawn to questions without easy answers: How does care become infrastructure? How might justice take root in daily life? And how can presence act as both resistance and repair?

Blog

When Empathy is Not Enough

When empathy is asked to do the work of justice, politics, or systems, it falters—centering the feeler, not the one in need, and mistaking feeling for action.

The Nervous System as a Map of This American Moment

An embodied reflection on collapse, connection, and the pathways that might lead us toward what’s next.

The Fabric of Human Connection: Being and Becoming

Our lives are shaped less by what we accumulate than by how we meet the world and those around us.

The Heart of Parenting

Play, Acceptance, Curiosity, and Empathy create the ground for relationships that deepen trust and mutual understanding.

7 ways to connect with a young person

Seven relational lenses—rooted in the perspectives of young people and informed by decades of practice—offer ways to build trust, resonance, and real connection.

Child Protection & Education

Social Service Workers in Schools: Their Role Addressing Violence Against Children and Other Child Protection Concerns

Developed global guidance for UNICEF on integrating social service workers into school systems to address violence against children and other protection concerns.

This framework supports governments and agencies in strengthening child protection and ensuring schools are not only places of learning, but also safe, supportive spaces for every child.

Well-supported social service workers are essential to creating inclusive, responsive, and protective educational environments.

International Humanitarian Work

Qualitative Assessment Approaches for the Protection of Children with Disabilities Within Humanitarian Contexts, The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action.
Determining the Best Interests of Unaccompanied and Separated Children: Lessons from Guinea, The International Rescue Committee, Co-Author.
Identifying & Prioritizing Protective & Risk Factors to Strengthen Preventive Approaches in Humanitarian Action, The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action.
Kakuma Refugee Camp Kindergarten Health Education Curriculum, The International Rescue Committee, Kenya.

Religion, Rights & Protection

Partnering with Religious Communities for Children, UNICEF, Co-Author (translated into Arabic, French, Portuguese, Spanish).
The Catholic Church and Child Rights Organizations: Finding Common Ground to Avoid Preventable Child-family separation, Global Collaborative on Children’s Issues, Georgetown University.
Child Rights Organizations and Religious Communities: Powerful Partnerships for Children. CrossCurrents, vol. 60 no. 3, 2010, p. 451-461. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/article/782469.
From Commitment to Action: What Religious Communities can do to eliminate violence against children, UNICEF and Religions for Peace, publication supervisor and editor (translated into Spanish and French).
Engaging Muslim Religious Communities to Protect Children against Violence, UNICEF.
Religious Communities Take the Lead for Children, Baylor University School of Social Work, Co-Author.
Engaging Religious Communities to Protect Children From Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation, Child Abuse & Neglect, Volume 38, Issue 4, Pages 600-611, Co-Author, 2014.

Policy & Legislative Engagement

UNICEF Guide to working with Parliaments, UNICEF, Co-Author (translated into Arabic, French, Spanish).
A Handbook on Child Participation in Parliament, Inter-Parliamentary Union and UNICEF, Contributor (translated into French and Spanish).
Authentic Engagement within the Unaccompanied Children Program: Encounter, Connection, and Action, Office of Refugee Resettlement, Administration for Children & Families.

Trauma, Healing & Systems

Empowering Parents so Children Succeed: A Toolkit to Support Parent Involvement in Education when their Children are in Foster Care, Advocates for Children of New York & SCO Family of Services, Contributor.
Learning Through Play: Akanksha Theater Training Manual, The Akanksha Foundation, Mumbai, India.
Mandatory Reporting in Suspected Child Sexual Abuse: A Safeguard or an Inadvertent Harm?, Oak Foundation.
Real Dungeons: Juvenile Detention in the State of Rio de Janeiro, Human Rights Watch, Co-Author.
Restorative Justice and Child Sexual Abuse, Oak Foundation.

Get in touch

Whether you’re seeking therapy, exploring a potential collaboration, or simply resonating with the work—I’d love to hear from you. Reach out to learn more, ask a question, or start a conversation. Because meaningful change begins in relationship.

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