My identity, as is many, is multifaceted—with many experiences that have brought me to the important work that I am doing now. My maternal ancestry is from the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory and my paternal were German Jews largely erased during the Holocaust. The history of Genocide has had a great impact on my identity and the trajectory that my life had taken. I was raised on Anishnawbe territory in the Elliot Lake relocation project. It was from this space that I learnt about the importance of Tradition, community and many teachings. I have more than twenty years working around the sex trade and issues around human trafficking. The majority of my career has been focused on the needs of Indigenous youth within an urban setting; identifying gaps and implementing solutions. I have created numerous of programs that focus on harm reduction, sex trade, street-involvement, trauma and spaces of safety. I have provided these programs to the community with the intention of empowering our community to be leaders and to increase quality of life. I have developed training modules for larger systems such as child welfare, police services, emergency medical staff, clinical service providers and criminal justice workers to work together to attain a positive outcome for the community.
As a previous clinician, and a Senior PhD candidate, it is my passion to bridge Western clinical practices and international Indigenous healing practices to combat intergenerational trauma and produce safe and accessible trauma-informed practices. It is an honour to bring my experiences to this position of Director of Indigenous Knowledge and Curriculum to work together to strengthen our capacity as a community and elevate our youth leaders as experts in their field.
