THRIVE

My Story

I was born and raised in the Northwest. I moved to the Maple Valley area where I attended school in the Tahoma School district and quickly recognized that I could not ignore the growing need for support for the adolescents in the community.  Additionally, I knew very early on that I loved helping people and spent my early adolescence involved in homeless outreaches, community outreaches locally and even branched out to serve the adolescent community in Belize for a summer.  

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While helping others in our community I recognized that addiction is prevalent especially among youth. This led me to begin a pursuit of counseling for substance use disorders in my junior year of high school. I graduated from Highline College with an AAS in Human Services with a focus on Chemical Dependency in June 2020 at the same time that I graduated Highschool . 

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I became licensed in Washington State as a licensed substance use counselor before the age of 18 and began my counseling career at a community mental health clinic in Tacoma that served youth of that area. I quickly recognized that I was exactly where I belonged. I took the opportunity to begin to serve my own community when Thrive began to offer substance use services in Maple Valley.  I receive supervision from Karis Bjerke who is the Clinical Supervisor at Thrive and whom I am honored to learn from.