MSocSc (Counselling), BEd, BA (Psychology & Spanish)

Paula is a Canadian Certified Counsellor. She holds a Master of Social Science in Counselling from the University of South Australia, a Bachelor of Education from Queen’s University in Canada and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Spanish from Trent University, Canada. In addition, she is a Break The Worry Trance trained coach for living free from anxiety, a Positive Discipline parent workshop leader and holds a Workplace Coaching certificate from ILM(UK). She is currently completing training as a culturally competent disaster mental health counsellor.

Paula has worked internationally with people from diverse cultural backgrounds for more than 25 years, initially as a teacher and since 2001 as a certified counsellor. Her previous counselling experience includes being the youth specialist in a clinic serving Singapore’s American community, and a school counsellor in Doha, Qatar and Shenzhen, China spanning all grade levels.

As a mother of five, Paula has a special interest in parenting, cross-cultural identity, mobility and mental health advocacy. She is experienced and trained to support adults, teens and children. With children and teens, Paula is able to work with a variety of issues including learning and behavioural challenges, ADHD, special needs, emotional regulation, eating disorders, anxiety and depression. Her counselling experience with adults extends to working with adjustment challenges, relationship issues, at-risk behaviors, grief, child protection, anxiety, depression and a variety of life transitional issues. Paula practices from a humanistic, solution focused, strengths-based perspective, is trauma-aware and incorporates a range of techniques to assist clients in addressing their concerns and achieving their goals. She believes that counselling is an opportunity for healing and empowerment.