Big news: I’m crossing the river and expanding my practice to Washington state families.
I’m a Portlander, and for the last few years as I developed my advocacy and consulting practice, I’ve also maintained a role working in schools as a school psychologist across the Columbia in Washington. I’ve been in Washington schools for the last eight years of my career.
Creating my practice took a while. For several years I daydreamed about my “exit plan” from public service while still working full time. I thought about additional training and degree programs, getting licensed for private practice as a psychologist, or moving into for-profit education companies or tech.
Once I realized I could and should be a parent advocate, the next phase was behind-the-scenes work of launching a business - making a website for the first time ever, figuring out accounting, and networking to get my name out there to Oregon families and clinicians.
Since taking my first client I’ve shrunk my school psych role each year and expanded my advocate role. I was able to do both because I had a hard boundary line - I was a school psychologist in Washington, and worked only with Oregon families as an independent advocate. I’m super lucky to have this natural division, as it would be ethically problematic to have even the possibility of a dual role with a family, for example if they moved or transferred to the district where I was employed.
So for the last few years I’ve lived with half of me being a school-based worker, and half of me working with families to deal with their school-based teams. It’s been super interesting to work with teams that I am not leading, and to see how other folks talk to parents (never call them “Mom” and “Dad,” they did not raise you) and run their meetings (please stick to the agenda). My 16 years of school experience in Illinois, Oregon, and Washington prepared me extremely well to help parents understand what’s going on with school teams and services.
As we come to the close of the 2022-23 school year, it’s clear to me that now is the time. For the last two years I’ve been at full capacity for the number of families I can take while still working part-time in schools. Now I’m saying goodbye to school employment and dedicating myself 100% to working with families. I’ll miss my school teammates but I’m thrilled to give more hours to this work and collaborate with more families in Washington AND Oregon.*
Need help? Ask me :)
*I consult with families all over the country through an employee benefits program, doing advice calls and reviewing documents. Call me no matter where you are!