Gelly Asovski, LCSW-R

Gelly Asovski has practiced as a social worker for twenty years and is currently in private practice in Monsey, New York. Her population is 100% orthodox and Hasidic Jewish families, and she speaks fluent Yiddish with many of her clients. Most of the children in the community grow up with Yiddish as their first language. Her practice is children and their families, focused mostly on younger children two years and up through adolescence. She created a local Trauma Recovery Network through HAP after a major hate crime traumatized hundreds of children and adults in the Hasidic community. She treated large numbers through R-TEP and G-TEP.

Gelly went to NYU for her master’s in Social Work and started out doing regular CBT and DBT, working in a local clinic. She states, “Then the children found me.” She started working on becoming a Registered Play Therapist until she had a head-on collision with a truck. EMDR therapy was the only therapy she found helpful for her trauma. After that she was determined to get trained in EMDR therapy. She did consultation hours with Frankie Kluft and now is an EMDR consultant, certified in the IATP-C model. Gelly states that the IATP-C model aligned with her values as a child and family therapist, especially regarding helping parents become part of the process. She states, “The healing between the parents and child is so powerful.” She refers parents to the Integrative Parenting classes as well and states, “When they learn what they can do at home, it makes such a big difference.”

Her work now is consistently with trauma using EMDR therapy and Play Therapy. Her goal is to bring the best of everything in the therapeutic world to her community. She takes her role very seriously because her community is an underserved population.

Gelly is active on social media as @parentingwithgelly sharing how parents can connect with their children through nurture and play, the non tech way. During Covid, Gelly took her offline parenting program online and continues her work teaching moms all about how to be a playful parent to create happy, healthy, resilient families.

Kathleen Bush’s ambition while pursuing a bachelor’s degree in psychology at the University of Madison in Wisconsin was to work with kids with attachment issues. Today, Bush is fulfilling her dream, serving as clinical services manager at The Baby Fold in Normal, Ill.

Bush oversees the “Keeping the Promise” adoption preservation program at the not-for-profit child welfare agency, which is seeing success in reducing the disruption of adoptions where a child is turned back to the state to less than 3 percent. “That is really a good result for what we do,” she says, noting that her agency deals with the tough cases.

“I see so much healing,” Bush says. “Families are functioning better, children are happier, getting on the right meds, not going to a residential placement.”

Bush credits use of the Integrative Attachment Trauma Protocol with helping her agency better reach parents. About five years ago, she attended a two-day training that included an introduction to the Attachment Trauma Center Institute’s (ATCI’s) team approach. “It really helped me rethink how we were doing things,” she recalls. At that time, therapists working with families were pretty much on their own, which was stressful. “It was a good design, but it wasn’t enough,” Bush says.

“We started increasing the number of therapists involved with the families,” she said. “They really needed to hear from other adults and hear a similar message.”

When Bush began working with the adoption presentation program, five staff members covered 10 counties. Since then, it’s grown to 17 staff members covering 22 counties. Most of the agency’s work is through state contracts. While the team approach can’t be used for all clients because of distance, the agency tries to present all of them with the same information and apply the underlying concepts. This includes focusing on the effects of trauma on the brain and helping parents listen to the message in different ways. Parent support groups also are beneficial.

Therapists working with Keeping the Promise have a small caseload of about 10 families, which enables them to do this intensive work and communicate with parents outside of sessions.

Success, she said, is “getting kids to use their voice and words and parents to listen to them, hold those words in their head and connect. The parents really appreciate this approach. When we get to the point where the child is really processing the trauma with the parent in the room, it is very impactful on the parent and child and developing their relationship.”

A couple of years ago when Bush was looking to become certified in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), she requested to work with Debra Wesselmann, LIMHP at ATCI, a co-developer the model, along with colleagues Cathy Schweitzer, LMHP, and Stefanie Armstrong, LIMHP. Since becoming certified, Bush has been able to train other therapists on her staff in this technique. Wesselmann also has traveled to Illinois to present an intensive training therapy workshop.

“Deb has really given us a lot of tools to make sure children are really ready for the trauma processing,” Bush says. “It has increased our effectiveness.”

Bush has been a part of The Baby Fold for more than 21 years, beginning her career in the residential treatment center following college graduation. After earning her master’s degree in human development counseling at Bradley University, Bush moved to the adoption preservation program. She left the program after a couple of years to work with homeless families, then returned to clinical work, supporting the foster care program before taking her current position at The Baby Fold.

The Baby Fold serves more than 1,000 children and families every year with professional services in the areas of adoption support, foster care, specialized education, residential treatment and family services that prevent child abuse, neglect and strengthen relationships. For more information, visit the website at www.thebabyfold.org.

Peter Capper, LCSW, is in full-time private practice in the north-western suburbs of Philadelphia. His work focuses on children, teens, families, parents, and individual adults, with a special focus on teenagers and young adults.

Peter trained in EMDR in the early 1990s and immediately started incorporating EMDR with simple trauma. However, after getting trained in the EMDR and family therapy integrative model, he felt he was utilizing EMDR much more effectively with the traumatized adolescents
and kids he works with in his practice, and he, therefore, decided to continue with consultation and certification in the model. Peter stated, “I was trained in John Bowlby’s attachment theory in England early in my career. It was the basis of my training as a psychiatric social
worker. I found the attachment resource methods involved with the integrative model fit in perfectly with my early theoretical training and the entire model really made so much sense for working with these very challenging kids.”

Peter has been a social worker since 1974. He completed family therapy training in 1978 and 1979 through the well-known Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic; home of Salvador Minuchin and Structural Family therapy. Peter had a very long involvement as Director of Emotional Support for a private high school called the Crefeld School in Philadelphia, which has a population of 100 adolescents. He had a part-time private practice as well, and upon retirement from the school, he expanded his practice to full-time. Peter enjoyed the work
with the school because he got to know the students, their friends, and their teachers so well and was able to work within the student’s entire support system.

Peter’s first degree was in history from Cambridge University. An interesting fact is that Peter attended Cambridge at the same time as Prince Charles, who was also a history student there. Peter received his master’s degree in social work from the University of Suffix and then moved to the U.S. on a 2-year educational exchange program through the Fulbright Foundation. He met his wife-to-be while in the U.S., and so to extend his time here, he found the internship at the Child Guidance Clinic, stumbling into what Peter refers to as
“family therapy heaven.”

Peter and his wife lived in London for 3 years and then settled back in the states. Peter’s interest in working with adopted children grew when he and his wife adopted their two daughters from China, now ages 25 and 20. He and his wife became very involved in the
Chinese adoption community and even attempted to learn Mandarin. Peter loves to travel, read novels, play the piano and sing, and he also gardens in his free time.

Wendy Copeland, MA, LPC is a relational therapist who provides counseling and trauma-resolution therapy services for individuals and couples in North Texas. Wendy is an EMDRIA Certified EMDR therapist, a Certified Imago Relationships Therapist (CIRT), a Trust-Based Relational Intervention Practitioner (TBRI), a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional, and is certified in the Integrative Attachment Protocol for Children (IATP-C). 

Wendy specializes in helping adults with a history of childhood trauma heal and step into joyful growth in adult life. This healing translates into more power and presence in their parenting, marriage, or other key relationships.  

Wendy is trained to treat acute trauma, PTSD, childhood and developmental trauma, and intimate partner trauma.  She also has a skill set specializing in helping people with a variety of mental and emotional challenges.  This includes anxiety, OCD, depression, mood disorder, grief and traumatic grief, adoption/foster/kinship foster, attachment wounds, co-dependency, and relationship issues.  Wendy also provides support for individuals and families who desire to integrate their personal faith in their healing process. 

Wendy’s professional background includes clinical skills from serving in acute pediatric/adolescent inpatient hospital programs, intensive adult outpatient mental health and substance recovery, hospice and bereavement, community mental health, and traumatic brain injury rehabilitation.  Prior to starting her own private practice, Wendy was the Senior Staff Therapist at Stonebriar Psychiatric Services, where she served for almost 13 years.

In her work, Wendy helps caregivers to also attend to their own personal work, as well as their role in parenting the children and teens in their charge.    Wendy holds to a wise saying from Dr.  Karyn Purvis from TCU, “You cannot lead a child to a place of healing if you do not know the way yourself.”   

As a relationship therapist, she holds to the tenet that the wounds that happen in relationship will also need to heal in the context of a safe relationship.   She explained that, “A trust-based nurturing relationship is a sacred space by which people are empowered to heal.”  She finds joy in helping people find meaningful healing. 

Robyn Gobbel knew at an early age that she wanted a career focused around children. Today, the licensed clinical social worker operates Gobbel Counseling in Austin, Texas, where she specializes in working with kids who have been abused, neglected or traumatized.

“Every day I marvel at how lucky I am to spend my working days with children and families, helping them discover within themselves what they already possess,” Gobbel says.

Early on, Gobbel’s focus was collaborating with parents and using an attachment emphasis when counseling children.   After completing Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) training in 2011, Gobbel was eager to learn how to integrate the treatment with her primary population.

She first heard about the Attachment Trauma Center Institute (ATCI) and its Integrative Attachment Trauma Protocol for Children through an online group for parents. After learning more about the research behind the protocol and how it was being used, Gobbel attended a three-day training program in Denver.

“They took this really amazing tool (EMDR) and adapted it not only for children but for kids with really complex trauma,” Gobbel says.  “The training provided me with tools I didn’t have access to, and I could go home and start using them immediately.”

The training helped crystallize Gobbel’s game plan, and it provided a framework for parents to understand their kids and their behaviors, which is critical. “It didn’t really shift my lens, but it gave me much better tools to bring parents along,” she says.

It’s rewarding for Gobbel to accompany a family on this journey and to share in their success when a child comes to the end of treatment and is discharged. “In children with really challenging behaviors, we see a decrease in those behaviors because of having truly integrated the trauma as opposed to modifying the behavior,” she says. “EMDR helps integrate the traumatic memories and link those traumatic experiences to the challenging behaviors. That is a huge game changer for parents.”

Gobbel continues to access ATCI resources and schedule consultations with the team as needed. “Their access and commitment to working with clinicians after the training have been very important to my success,” she says. “This is the foundation for what I do.”

Gobbel opened her own practice in 2009. Two years ago she founded the Central Texas Attachment and Trauma Center, which is a group of independently practicing therapists who specialize in guiding their clients toward connection and healing.

After receiving her undergraduate degree in psychology from Miami University in Ohio, Gobbel earned a graduate degree in clinical social work from the University of Utah. She began her career doing traditional social work in Texas. While her son, who is now nine, was younger, Gobbel worked part time doing adoption work, which helped her realize her passion is working with kids who had been abused and neglected. Gobbel also has a post graduate certificate in therapy with foster and adoptive children and families.

For more information, visit Gobbel’s website at www.gobbelcounseling.com or check out the Central Texas Attachment and Trauma Center’s website at centraltexasattachmenttrauma.com.

Bonnie Haack MS, LPC, is an adoption therapist with The Children’s Home Society in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  She has been with the society for 15 years.  Previous positions included work with middle schoolers and work with the developmentally disabled population in various roles.  However, Bonnie was drawn to working with children and trauma and wanted to do more intensive counseling work.  The Children’s Home Society is an agency that partners with Children’s Inn, the domestic violence shelter, as well as Bright Star, a nurse and family partnership program.  The three agencies all have different roles in the communities.  The Children’s Home Society has 4 residential units for children with emotional issues.  Most have experienced trauma, including abuse and neglect.  Many of the residential children still have birth parents in their lives.  The Children’s Home Society also has a community-based department designed to assist children whose families are unstable or who are placed or adopted outside of the biological home.  Bonnie works with the community-placed program, typically with children adopted through foster care.  Bonnie provides the Integrative Attachment Trauma Protocol (IATP) as a solo therapist, providing both the family therapy and EMDR therapy components of the protocol.  She has also been working more and more with children in the residential program who have been traumatized.  Within the residential program, the residential therapists are providing the family therapy while Bonnie provides the trauma work.

Bonnie received her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of South Dakota in 1992 and her Master’s in Counseling from Iowa State University in 1997.  Bonnie became interested in EMDR therapy after a colleague presented what she had learned at a staff meeting.  She was intrigued that clinicians were applying EMDR therapy to the treatment of traumatized children.  Their supervisor was very supportive, and so they attended weekend I EMDR Basic Training in Omaha in December of 2012.  While there, they also learned about the specialty training in the IATP model.  Bonnie attended an IATP training in Omaha shortly after her basic training, consulted with the team there, and then read the Integrative Team Treatment manual and the accompanying parent guide.  Bonnie states, “I love all of the strategies. They work so well–they just get to the heart of things with these kids. I feel very fortunate to know these methods.”

In her free time, Bonnie is very devoted to the rescue of stray cats.  She nurses them to health and then finds placements for them.  She is always happy to help anyone in her area looking for a good home for a stray cat.

Diana Hubberts, MS, LCPC is a certified IATP-C and EMDR clinician in private practice in Long Grove, a northwest Chicago suburb. Diana works primarily with children and teens, with a special focus on attachment, trauma, and gifted children. Diana was born and raised in the diverse inner city of Chicago in the 1960s. She received her Master of Science Degree in Biology along with a teaching certificate at Northern Illinois University. Diana expanded the environmental science program at Stevenson High School in Chicago during her thirteen years there as a biology teacher. Diana states, “My life after teaching was like another degree program. I lived in Europe, had children (one of whom joined our family from Russia) and then, along with my family, made an emotional and rewarding journey to Russia for a successful reunion between our daughter and her biological family.” Diana then went back to school, attending National Lewis University and receiving her Master of Science degree in Counseling. Because she was a busy mother, she started out volunteering as a counselor at a nonprofit agency that served young parents and children, many of whom were immigrants, for eleven years. The families came out of traumatic settings due to immigration and poverty. Diana states, “I loved my work with the parents, and I was the only one doing EMDR therapy at the agency. I felt like I was giving the best possible counseling to the people for whom it was least available. However, in the back of my mind, I always thought I wanted to work with children. I started taking every training regarding work with children that I could find, and I also trained in more useful methods I could use to help parents. Besides learning what I could to help my clients, I was always seeking greater understanding of issues related to attachment and trauma so that I could better understand my child. I took Joan Lovett’s child presentation at EMDRIA Montreal, and Joan recommended that I speak with Debra Wesselmann. I decided to bring Debra to Chicago and sponsored the IATP-C training here 7 years ago. It was perfect timing for me because I was starting my private practice and felt called to treat attachment trauma in children. I started getting calls for those children right away and continue with the work to this day. I still love this work.” “I have really been driven by my own experiences as a mother, as I didn’t have this kind of guidance or help when my own child was young. I tried therapist after therapist back then, and no one worked with children like mine. I hoped to find more answers when I began graduate school, but I learned nothing there that was helpful to me with my child. I saw the need, and I was inspired to help other families. If I can help any number of these children and families, I feel it has all been worthwhile.”

Lynne Lyon, MSW, LCSW worked as a graphic designer for 25 years before embarking on the journey of becoming an adoptive mother. Through the discovery that her daughter had been acutely traumatized from a medical accident, Lynne became involved in learning about attachment and trauma. Unfortunately, she discovered that no one in her city of Philadelphia seemed to understand or know how to effectively treat this kind of trauma. Lynne set out to do something to help other children and families affected by trauma related to orphanage care. Lynne started the Attach-China/International Parent’s Network, a website and on-line support group for parents whose internationally and domestically adopted children suffer from attachment impairment, trauma, and the effects of institutionalization. Lynne moderated the group from 2000 until 2007. The support group was in existence from 2000 until 2019. Lynne started Widener University’s Master of Social Work program, using her time to research RAD and PTSD (now known as attachment-trauma). Since graduating in 2004, 95% of her clients have been adoptive families and adopted children and adults. Lynne maintains a private practice at the Center for Attachment & Trauma Therapy in the Lawrenceville/Princeton, NJ area, specializing in working with adoptive families whose children are struggling with symptoms and behaviors related to their history of attachment trauma. Lynne’s work has focused on building a better attachment between family members and helping children and adults recover from complicated attachment trauma experiences. Lynne is fully EMDR trained and has trained extensively with The Attachment Trauma Center Institute, including their trainings for children and families as well as for adults. She also completed Laura Parnell’s series on Attachment Focused EMDR and the Certification Program in Adoption at Rutgers University School of Social Work. She is a member of the New Jersey Society for Clinical Social Workers (NJSCSW) and EMDRIA.

Chris Perlmutter, LCSW  has been a Colorado licensed therapist for more than twenty years. She completed a Psychology, BA, degree at Metropolitan State College, and a Masters in Social Work at Denver
University. Working for a local community
Mental Health Center was an intensive orientation in treating children, adolescents, adults, and families struggling with trauma challenges. Chris
completed certifications in EMDR and
the [Attachment Trauma Center Institute]
Integrative Attachment Trauma Protocol for Children (IATP-C) and a training by Deb Wesselmann and Ann Potter, Strengthening the Adult Authentic Self: EMDR Therapy for Healing Adult Attachment /Developmental Trauma; all
have developed her therapy skills for people of all ages. Chris maintains a private practice since 2017 in Centennial, Co.
In her free time, she enjoys family
time and hobby knitting enhanced by hand
spinning sheep fleece into custom wool yarns.

Mary C Pratt, LCSW has been working with children and families for 20 years. She obtained her master’s degree from Long Beach State. She worked with physically and sexually abused children and their families at a non-profit agency for 5 years in California, then moved to Illinois and worked with the same population before returning to the agency in California. Mary has always been drawn to helping children and their parents.
In 2004, Mary became certified in PCIT by UCDavis. Within a year she also became a trainer in PCIT. Mary is currently working with UCDavis to train other therapists in a new modality called PC-Care, which is a brief version of PCIT. Mary started her private practice, Hands On Parenting, in Laguna Hills, California in 2006. Mary trained in EMDR in 2017 and was EMDR-certified in 2019. She was eager to apply EMDR to child trauma. This required more specialized training.
Mary was happy to participate in the IATP-C trainings and went on to achieve certification in IATP-C. She found the trainings and consultations to be invaluable in her work with children and families. In her private practice, she now offers family therapy, PCIT, and EMDR therapy.

Katie Stallman, LICSW was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. Katie knew as early as adolescence she wanted to work in the field of foster care and adoption. While still in high school, she worked with younger children in foster care as a volunteer with Crittenton Children’s Center in Kansas City and went on to do a college internship and was eventually hired to work in their group home for adolescent girls. Inspired by both the challenges and the resiliency of this population she continued her educational journey receiving her Master of Social Work degree from Washington University in St. Louis in 1998.

Upon graduation, she returned to the Kansas City area working again within the child welfare system for Kaw Valley Center in Kansas City, Kansas for two ½ years. Her clients as well as some very experienced mentors schooled her in the impact of intergenerational trauma. After she finished her licensure, she moved across the country to Seattle to be with her husband and transitioned to working for a private adoption agency specializing in open adoptions. Her interest in the long-term well-being of children and the whole adoption constellation deepened. She worked there for 15 years and continues to have a
supervisory role.

Katie opened her private practice in 2014 specializing in attachment and trauma work ever striving to understand and assist in the complex process of healing. She completed Deborah Gray’s ATFT program, became a Certified Bringing Baby Home Educator, a Certified Theraplay Practitioner and more recently took the basic EMDR training. After the initial training in EMDR and eager to learn how to apply this modality to her population, she discovered and then completed the Attachment Trauma Center Institute
IATP-C trainings finishing her certification in the IATP-C model in 2021.

Katie enjoys blending Theraplay and the EMDR and Family IATP-C model. She still specializes in work with parents and children impacted by foster care and adoption as well as working with children with anxiety. She is a part of the Adoption Therapy Associates of West Seattle group, and she participates in regular peer consultation as they apply this model and integrate the IATP-C as a team.

Do you feel like no one believes you when you describe your child’s outbursts and behaviors? Do you feel overwhelmed, numb, disconnected, hopeless, or stuck? Do you feel like happiness is unreachable, experience pain in relationships, and/or a lack of productivity? Do you want to feel “happy” or “okay” — maybe for the first time in years or for the first time?

Families experience stress, pain, worry, embarrassment, and guilt when navigating children’s anxiety, outbursts, and day to day struggles at home and school. Look for therapy that helps your child’s need for connection while maintaining your child’s while maintaining your own sanity!

As a Licensed Professional Counselor and fully certified EMDR therapist, Beckie uses an attachment theoretical orientation to blend the science of connection with the power of healing. She strives to bring compassion, warmth, and a direct yet collaborative approach to working with her clients.  She frequently hears “I feel like I’m going crazy!” or “no one else is seeing this!” when talking to parents who are dealing with intense, attachment seeking behaviors.

When people feel overwhelmed, numb, disconnected, hopeless, or stuck they experience a loss in happiness, pain in relationships, and a lack of productivity. Therapy is helpful with these issues in more ways than teaching coping skills. The science of connection helps people find a way to a sense of feeling “okay” — maybe for the first time in years or for the first time, period. Beckie believes in helping parents understand their child’s need for connection while maintaining their own sanity. For all clients, work together includes strategies from trauma-informed care and neuroscience to help increase calm, reduce negative thinking and anxiety, increase health in relationships, and improve productivity in school, at work, or at home.

Based on her six years of experience doing in-home therapy, plus her years as an outpatient psychotherapist, Beckie has direct insight and personal experience observing children’s anxiety, outbursts, and day to day struggles in both home and school settings. Beckie has worked closely with families to navigate psychiatry appointments and IEP/504 meetings.

Beckie works with children 4+, adolescents, parents and families, and one on one with adults. Her clients often experience pre- and post- adoption struggles, anxiety, chronic stress, PTSD and complex trauma, school stress, attachment issues and reactive attachment, dysregulation, suicidal ideation, dissociation, sensory issues, depression, and mood disorders. Beckie provides parenting and cross household parenting consultation, and often works one on one with parents and caregivers for their own anxieties, chronic stress, and caregiver fatigue.

Beckie also works with first responders. Her background as a “police wife” of 13 years brings an understanding of the struggles of wellness versus cashing out comp time, shift work, work stigma, and feelings of being broken.

Beckie’s office space includes access to the Sensory Motor Arousal Regulation Treatment (SMART) area, including a trampoline and exercise balls. Her office also has giant bean bags, weighted blankets, Legos, and toys for therapeutic play!

Beckie is certified in the Integrative Attachment Treatment Protocol for Children (IATP-C) with the Attachment Trauma Center Institute, and is a fully trained TF-CBT therapist. Her interventions also include CBT, DBT, attachment narratives, and parts work.

Beckie is a consultant-in-training (CIT) through EMDRIA for other EMDR and IATP-C clinicians. She provides one on one supervision for fully licensed and training licensed staff interested in working with children and adolescents.

M.A. in Clinical Psychology, Cardinal Stritch University
Certificate in Traumatic Stress Studies, The Trauma Center at JRI
B.A. in Psychology and minor in Criminal Justice, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
Member of EMDRIA, the American Counseling Association, the American Psychology Association, and Psi Chi

In her free time, Beckie can be found drinking coffee, snuggling her German Shepherds, cats, and rabbits, snowboarding, gardening, reading, and tabletop gaming.

Gwen Marlatt Vela, LCSW, specializes in working with traumatized children, adults, and families in her private practice, Back to Center Counseling, LLC.  Gwen provides pre and post adoptive services to children and their families as part of her private practice. EMDR therapy became a passion after her EMDR basic training three years ago when she was surprised by the personal growth she achieved during her practicum experience.  She has trained and consulted with the clinicians at The Attachment and Trauma Center of Nebraska regarding application of the IATP with children and families as well as application of EMDR with dissociative adults.

Gwen also works as a School Family Liaison Counselor at a High School near her home, where she continues her work with children and their families.  Prior to accepting this position, she served as the program administrator and supervisor for the clinical/behavioral health program and pre and post adoption program for The Children’s Home Society of New Jersey.  The program there provides clinical in-home services to families planning to adopt and to families who have adopted and are struggling to maintain their families and employs seven clinicians to work with the families involved in those programs.  Prior to becoming a clinical supervisor, Gwen was a clinician with the program. Gwen participated in the Integrative Attachment Trauma Protocol training with The Attachment Trauma Institute (Attachment Trauma Center of Nebraska) due to her work with the program.  She stated, “I felt lost about how to help these families 2 ½ years ago, and after completing the training in the Integrative Attachment Trauma Protocol (IATP), I found out that it was just what these children and families needed. Also, I discovered that it could be adapted to in-home work. The IATP training changed how I provided services and how I practiced. This is a difficult population to work with because the parents have a pre-conceived notion of how people respond to things and they need the information about how trauma affects the brain.  It takes away the shame piece. I find it so rewarding, watching the relationship shift and change.” Gwen went on to explain, “Having everything together in a clear outline and having the support of the consults was so helpful in moving forward and gaining confidence in working with severely traumatized children and their families.  Learning this modality has removed burnout because even though the work is still challenging, I feel really effective.  It is like a light that keeps growing brighter.”

As clinical director, Gwen started the process of getting all clinical staff at The Children’s Home Society of New Jersey training in EMDR and in the IATP model.  Although Gwen is now working full-time in her own private practice, the staff at the agency are continuing to complete their training in both components of the model and are excited about the process.

Gwen attended Rutgers University as an undergraduate completed her master’s at Monmouth University.  However, Gwen believes that she gained the majority of her expertise in the area of trauma through her later training and experiences at The Children’s Home Society of New Jersey. “I am still on this journey. I believe that to become skilled in this work requires a certain amount of vulnerability and willingness to say ‘I’ll give it my best shot’.”

Gwen feels fortunate to have wonderful eight-year-old twins, a boy and a girl, and a very supportive wife.  Her family lives in the beautiful little town of Wanamassa, near the beach, where they enjoy surfing and time in the water.