About Me
My Journey to Stellar Counselling
I was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. After graduating with a Bachelor of Commerce in Finance and Accounting 2006, I moved to the Lower Mainland to start my finance career. Over the next 17 years, I was involved in the commodities industry, including 14 years at a Wall Street bank. However, after a car accident I was forced to shift my priorities. I discovered a love for psychology and pursued a Master’s of Counselling Psychology (MACP) and am now a Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC). It is my desire to provide counselling and mental health services for children and adolescents as they navigate the many difficult challenges our youth confront today.
As a father of twins, I am thoroughly involved in the local community. I am currently the PAC President at their elementary school and was formerly a Big Brothers of Greater Vancouver for 5 years. I am a member of the non-profit Moving Forward Family Services that provides low-cost and no cost short-term counselling services to underserviced communities across British Columbia. I believe strongly in advocating on behalf of those who are least listened to. Often, it is our children.
Specific Areas of Expertise
I grew up as an adolescent in the 1990s during the early days of the internet and online gaming. I experienced high school without social media and university with the early days of MySpace and Facebook. I am a gamer at heart and I have my finger pulse on the latest trends in technology, online gaming, social media, and other digital spaces. As awareness of the negative impacts smartphones and social media can have on our youth continues to grow, I strive to be an expert in gaming and technology and how psychology and counselling can best support and guide our children to help them become educated, cautiously aware, and alert to the dangers as they become independent technology users. I merge psychology and counselling with my parenting and technology knowledge in these core areas among others:
Gaming
Gaming is a broad industry with many nuances, some good and some bad
Screentime
The quality and content is often more important than just the quantity
Smartphones
Parental controls, age appropriateness, and firm boundaries
Social Media
The different types, their purposes, and the likely pitfalls