My journey into psychiatric care began with children.

As a school nurse, I sat with students through their most formative and fragile years — watching isolation, disruption, and uncertainty pile onto struggles already too heavy for young shoulders. Psychiatric support was scarce, sometimes nonexistent. I saw children in crisis with nowhere to turn, and I couldn't look away.

That experience changed everything. I went back to school, became a board-certified psychiatric nurse practitioner, and devoted myself to building the kind of care those kids deserved but couldn't find.

Since then, I've worked alongside people experiencing homelessness, individuals navigating systemic barriers, clients in crisis, and those managing co-occurring mental health and substance use challenges. What has never changed is the belief I carry that every person deserves to be met with dignity, real compassion, and genuine choice in their care.

Rooted Minds Psychiatry exists to offer trauma-informed psychiatric support across the full lifespan in Bellingham and throughout Washington State.