Donna (she/her) is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor who specializes in working with children, adolescents, and young adults who are experiencing difficulties managing their emotions, navigating relationships, and life’s challenges. She provides a safe and empathic environment to help clients express themselves and identify areas in their life where they feel stuck or are experiencing distress.

Donna continually strives to make all individuals feel welcome in the therapeutic space by being gender-affirming and culturally responsive. She feels the connection between one’s identity, cultural experience, and mental health is crucial. As a clinician, she works to tailor each session to the individual client’s needs in that given moment, and whole-heartedly believes all clients are innately resilient. By focusing on resiliency, she takes a strength-based approach to empower and help the individual identify strengths and positive qualities they already possess and to develop more effective coping skills to ultimately live a happier and healthier life.

Her background enables her to incorporate play, mindfulness, and creative arts whenever appropriate. She is currently completing and deeply studying nerorelationtional child-centered play therapy training through “The Center For Connection Play Strong Institute” to become a registered play therapist.

As a clinician, she approaches the therapeutic process through a person-centered and cognitive-behavioral framework with a trauma-focused and strength-based approach. She received her master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling from Marist College and began her clinical training working with young children and adolescents in a Group Emergency Foster Care Program through trauma-centered play therapy. She also has several years of experience working in a middle school as a school-based prevention counselor working with adolescents to help manage and combat symptoms of anxiety, depression, substance use/abuse, and trauma. In this role, she also assisted not only the adolescents but families as a whole who had been impacted by trauma and addiction.

Donna understands the unique challenges of development and has experience providing individual and group therapy on a wide variety of mental health struggles including trauma, grief, self-esteem, interpersonal relationships, challenges in school (peer conflict), motivation, anger management, depression, self-harm, and anxiety.