Mara is a registered social worker with experience working with clients from a variety of backgrounds (minority and at-risk children, youth, and families) and settings (child-welfare, residential treatment, substance abuse treatment, youth criminal justice, and international adoption).

Mara has a passion for supporting youth and families working on issues such as attachment, trans-racial adoption, identity formation, family trauma, and trauma processing.

Mara has a special interest in supporting youth involved with adoption, as well as adoptive parents pre, inter, and post-adoption. Mara has a demonstrated commitment to supporting adoptees as they develop their cultural identities and sense of self, process their feelings and reactions associated with trauma, and their unique adoption stories.

Additional training: Applied Suicide Skills Intervention Training (ASIST), Collaborative Problem Solving™ (CPS, Tier II Certified), Circle of Security (COS-P), EMDR (Basic Training), Sensory Motor Arousal Regulation Treatment (SMART), Trauma-Informed Expressive Arts Therapy (Level One), and Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP).