For over 30 years, Cynthia has had the privilege of serving clients from diverse
backgrounds, families, genders, ethnicities, ages and stages, religious and
spiritual backgrounds. She comes to this work with lived experience, expertise
and training in the study and treatment of trauma, especially trauma related to
involvement in the foster, adoptive and relative caregiver community. Cynthia’s
membership in the LGBTQI+ community has driven her activism and her practice.
She is trained and certified to conduct assessments and provide compassionate,
inclusive therapy for members of the gender non-conforming community. Cynthia
has trained members of the community, staff and administration of non-profit
organizations, volunteers and adoption and foster care professionals in the
United States and Canada.
Cynthia and her wife live in Orange County, California and are the proud adoptive
parents of two amazing men, and the Nannie of an equally amazing grandson.
Cynthia and her sister grew up in the foster care system in suburban Denver,
where they were separated from one other. Cynthia’s mother placed her brother
for adoption and kept the secret of his existence to her death. She and her brother
are in a complicated reunion. The one career she thought she would never follow
as a child is the path she chose as an adult: Social Work! It is her hope that the
lessons she has learned in her life and through her work will help the next
generation of child welfare professionals to minimize trauma and losses
(especially sibling loss), to maximize love and connection, and to do whatever it
takes to keep children safely with their families in their communities.