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 that were already too heavy for young shoulders to carry. Psychiatric support was scarce, sometimes nonexistent. I saw children in crisis with nowhere to turn. I watched the gap between need and access grow wider, and I couldn't look away.

That experience changed everything for me. I went back to school, transitioned from RN to board-certified psychiatric nurse practitioner, and devoted myself to building the kind of care those kids deserved but couldn't find. That foundation — of showing up for young people and their families, of refusing to let need go unmet — still lives at the center of everything I do.

Since this time, 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 carried out of those school hallways: every person deserves to be met with dignity, real compassion, and genuine choice in their care.

Rooted Minds Psychiatry exists because of those kids I couldn't stop thinking about. It's built to offer trauma-informed, compassionate psychiatric support in Bellingham, WA, and Washington State across the full lifespan — honoring each person's story, their struggles, and the strength they carry, often without knowing it.