Licensed Social Worker
Bilingual and Bicultural Spanish/English
Trauma Therapist for Children, Teens, and Families
Trauma Therapist for Adults
Hi, I’m Paula. I work with people who are carrying pain they haven’t been able to put into words yet and I believe that real healing begins when we take the time to truly understand your story.
Whether I’m working with a child who has stopped feeling safe at school, a teen struggling with emotions that feel impossible to manage, a family trying to find their footing again, or an adult whose nervous system has been in survival mode for as long as they can remember, my approach is the same. I take the time to understand your unique story, and together we build a treatment plan designed not just to manage symptoms, but to help you genuinely heal.
I offer therapy in English and Spanish, and I bring both cultural awareness and personal understanding to my work with bilingual and bicultural clients.
You may have tried to push through on your own. Maybe you’ve told yourself things weren’t that bad, or that you should be over it by now. Perhaps the anxiety or the heaviness has become so familiar it feels like just who you are.
You are not alone.
When children and teens are struggling, their pain often shows up in behavior before it shows up in words. Meltdowns, withdrawal, school refusal, shutting down or lashing out. These are signs that the nervous system needs support, not a sign that something is permanently wrong.
I work with school-age children, teens, and families using the SAFE approach, a Somatic, Attachment, Family-focused, and Experiential framework that meets young people where they are. Rather than expecting them to talk through their experiences in a traditional way, we work through the body, through relationship, and through carefully chosen activities that help them build regulation, safety, and resilience from the inside out.
Every child and family brings a unique story, and that story shapes everything about how we work together. Treatment is not something I hand to you. It is something we build together, grounded in what matters most to your family and designed to help your child truly heal.
Parents and caregivers are essential partners in this work. I’ll help you understand what’s happening beneath the surface of your child’s behavior so you can respond with confidence, reconnect with your child, and create more calm and safety at home.
Trauma has a way of living in the body long after the events themselves have passed. You might notice it in the way you brace for things to go wrong, in the exhaustion of always being on guard, or in the disconnect from your own feelings.
I work with adults using trauma-informed, polyvagal-informed approaches within a personalized treatment framework. There is no one-size-fits-all path to healing. Together, we’ll take time to understand your unique story, and from there, we’ll co-create a treatment plan designed to help you move out of survival mode and toward genuine healing, not just symptom management.
Master of Social Work
Acute Trauma, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder & Complex PTSD
Polyvagal Theory
Screening Youth for Symptoms of Trauma and Suicidal Ideation
TF-CBT Web 2.0
Psychological First Aid
Trauma doesn’t just live in memory. It lives in the body, in the tightening of your chest before a difficult conversation, in the way your mind races at night, in the exhaustion of moving through a world that never quite feels safe. If you’ve tried talking about your experiences and still feel stuck, that’s not a failure. It may simply mean that healing needs to happen at a deeper level than words alone can reach.
My work with adults begins with your story. Not a checklist of symptoms, not a predetermined treatment protocol. Your story.. I take time to understand what you’ve been through, what you’ve tried, what has helped and what hasn’t, and what healing actually looks like for you. From there, we co-create a treatment plan that draws on trauma-informed, polyvagal-informed approaches to help you move out of survival mode and into a life that feels more fully yours.
I also bring a bicultural and bilingual lens to this work. For clients who carry the weight of navigating between cultures, holding family legacies alongside personal identity, or processing trauma shaped by immigration, displacement, or cultural loss, I offer a space where all of that is welcome. You do not have to translate yourself here, in any sense of the word.
Sessions are paced with your nervous system in mind. We don’t push past what feels safe, because real healing doesn’t happen in overwhelm. Instead, we build capacity gradually, widening your window of tolerance, deepening your relationship with your own experience, and helping you move through life with more groundedness and ease.
The goal isn’t just symptom relief. It’s a life where you feel present, connected, and genuinely at home in yourself. That kind of healing is possible, and I’m here to walk that path with you.
When your child is struggling, it can feel like the ground has shifted beneath your whole family. You may be exhausted from the meltdowns, the school calls, the nights spent worrying. You might feel helpless, or unsure whether what you’re doing is helping or making things worse. That kind of uncertainty is one of the heaviest parts of parenting a child in pain, and it deserves just as much care as the child in my office.
I include parents and caregivers as active partners in the therapeutic process. You don’t need to know everything that happens in your child’s sessions, but you do deserve to understand what’s driving their behavior and how to respond in ways that build safety rather than inadvertently trigger more distress. I’ll help you see beneath the surface, to recognize when your child is dysregulated rather than defiant, overwhelmed rather than oppositional, reaching out rather than acting out.
Together we’ll work on the moments that feel hardest at home. I’ll share practical, grounded tools that fit real family life, not strategies that that require a perfect environment or endless patience. And I’ll help you strengthen the attachment relationship with your child, because that connection is one of the most powerful forces in their healing.
For bilingual and bicultural families, I understand the additional layers that can shape a child’s experience, including the navigation of cultural identity, the influence of intergenerational stories, the way trauma can move through families across generations. I offer a space where your family’s full context is honored, not set aside.
You are not an afterthought in this work. Your wellbeing matters here too, and the more supported you feel, the more you’re able to offer your child. We’ll figure this out together.
