Who She is

Tori is a Black woman living in the Seattle area. Tori is a licensed mental health counselor (LMHC) in the state of Washington and a nationally registered art therapist (ATR). She currently works at Lakeside School as the Middle School Counselor. She works with children, teens, and young adults. She is well versed with a variety of diagnoses but her main work is with anxiety, depression, identity, and trauma.

Where She Began

Tori grew up in a small town in southeast Idaho with a community that was full of longevity, support, and that small town charm. Tori was the fourth generation in her family to graduate from her high school and even had the same driver’s education teacher as her mother 20 years prior. The tightness of this community growing up, and being surrounded by extended family, helped her gain confidence and identity. It wasn’t perfect by any means as Tori was raised by a single mother along with her two sisters. This brought along with it the poverty, health challenges, food insecurity and mental health ramifications. She uses a lot of the lessons she gained from this upbringing to relate to and serve others.

Where She is Now

Tori has been in the Seattle area since 2016. In that time, she has worked in a variety of areas. Her clinical mental health internships were at Lydia Place in Bellingham and Sound (formerly Sound Mental Health) in Auburn. She worked with women, children, teens, and young adults. From there, she worked in community mental health and transitioned to group practice at Dayspring Behavioral Health. After some time there, the opportunity to work within schools presented itself and she had to take this leap. She loves working at Lakeside School in the middle school and looks forward to the work she does everyday.

Where She Plans to Go

Tori is a firm believer in putting dreams and goals into the universe and letting them find their way to fruition. She plans to someday write a book or two, work further in the university system, continue workshops, trainings and speaking engagements and continue to integrate herself into the city of Seattle.