brianna@simplysocialwork.ca

Qualifications & Experience

Brianna is a social worker who combines her lived experience as a neurodivergent, chronically ill caregiver with professional knowledge and training to provide a safe and supportive therapy space that serves and empowers you.

As a family caregiver for Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and cancer, Brianna understands the unique challenges of supporting someone you love through physical illness. Despite the intensity of the role, caregivers continue to have other roles and responsibilities - all alongside needing to meet your own needs. Many of us also have our own health concerns, whether that is the toll caregiving can take on your health (and overall life) or your own chronic illness. Her passion for supporting others who have been through similar challenges led to pursuing a career in mental health and the creation of this practice.

Before creating Simply Social Work, Brianna spent several years working alongside multidisciplinary teams of healthcare professionals in a variety of settings. Brianna has experience in rehabilitation from traumatic and acquired brain injuries (TBIs/ ABIs), and empowering adults with intellectual disabilities. Brianna completed a health-focused Master’s of Social Work from the University of Waterloo and an Hon. Bachelor’s Social Work & Disability Studies with a minor in psychology from the University of Windsor. Brianna is a registered social worker with the OCSWSSW. She specializes in caregiver support and providing accessible mental health services to people with disabilities and disabled folks, chronic illness, and neurodivergence (with a primary focus in ADHD and Autism). She also has certificates from Harvard Medical School and Yale University, intensive training in inclusive sex therapy from Guelph University, and introductory ASL from Fanshawe College. Brianna is also a designated capacity assessor under the Substitute Decision Act (SDA).

What You Can Expect

Therapy sessions are a safe, confidential, judgement-free space. Individual sessions are typically weekly or biweekly to start, and we take each one at your own pace. You decide what you are comfortable talking about, what you want to focus on, and what is off-limits. Brianna’s role is to listen, support you unconditionally and collaboratively with your current challenges, and work on treatment goals together that help you heal and thrive. Methods backed by science and research will be utilized to develop healthy coping strategies. These include: Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT), Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Dialectical-Behavioural Therapy (DBT), Mindfulness, Out of Control Sexual Behaviour (OCSB), Motivational Interviewing (MI), and the Good Enough Sex Model (GESM).