In addition to her clinical work, Debbie has extensive experience developing and delivering education for therapists, agency staff, educators, school leaders, caregivers, parents, faith communities, and adoption professionals.
Professional and Agency Training
Debbie provided training through Lilliput Children’s Services (now Wayfinder) for agency staff, clinicians, resource parents, and prospective foster and adoptive parents.
Her training topics included:
- Training for Adoption Competency
- Attachment and developmental trauma
- Adoption-related grief and loss
- Trauma-informed care for children and families
- Cultural competency
- Kinship and foster care
- Preparation for prospective foster and adoptive parents
She also delivered the required 10-hour preparation program for resource parents and parents moving through the foster and adoption process.
Gifted Education and School Consultation
Debbie developed and delivered gifted-parent education programs for families in three local school districts.
She also provided professional development for school staff on topics including:
- The social and emotional needs of gifted students
- Asynchronous development
- Overexcitabilities and intensity
- Twice exceptionality
- Sensory and learning differences
- School belonging and educational fit
- Emotional, behavioral, and relationship challenges affecting gifted students
- Supporting gifted and neurodivergent children at home and at school
For one district, Debbie also developed and presented an educational series for the district’s governing board, helping its leadership better understand giftedness and the needs of gifted learners.
Her gifted education work was informed by training with James T. Webb, the SENG model, and extensive professional study of gifted children, gifted adults, twice exceptionality, parenting, and educational advocacy.
Conference Presentations and Community Education
Debbie has presented at the Alliance’s annual conference for the past 6 years and has served as a guest speaker for a range of professional, parenting, adoption, educational, and community groups, including:
- Sacramento Adoptive Dads
- Mothers of Preschoolers groups at several churches
- The Nest
- Centerpoint Church Health Ministry
- Centerpoint Church Women’s Ministry
Her presentations have addressed adoption, attachment, trauma, grief and loss, parenting, giftedness, child development, family relationships, and mental health.
Curriculum Development
Debbie has developed and taught educational material related to:
- Adoption competency
- Foster, kinship, and adoptive family life
- Attachment and developmental trauma
- Grief and ambiguous loss
- Cultural competency
- Preparation for prospective parents
- Giftedness and twice exceptionality
- Parenting gifted and neurodivergent children
- Child and adolescent development
- Mental health within faith communities
Professional Leadership, Consultation & Community Building
Debbie has long invested in the professional development and sustainability of other therapists. She has facilitated practice-building and therapist-support groups focused on creating viable clinical practices, reducing isolation, navigating the emotional demands of the profession, and helping clinicians build work that reflects their values, strengths, and desired lives.
For more than ten years, she has also led an active peer clinical consultation group. The group provides an ongoing space for thoughtful case discussion, ethical reflection, professional growth, shared problem-solving, and the kind of collegial support that helps clinicians remain grounded in complex work.
As her work has expanded into psychedelic preparation, integration, and altered-state care, Debbie has developed three additional peer-support and consultation groups serving therapists, sitters, guides, and other professionals working in or alongside the psychedelic space. These groups support ethical practice, case reflection, harm reduction, role clarity, collaboration, and the continuing development of a responsible professional community.
Publication and Clinical Consultation
Debbie provided trauma-informed clinical consultation throughout the development of Joanna Rowland’s children’s book Big Bear Was Not the Same and wrote its educational backmatter. The book helps children and caregivers understand trauma responses, PTSD, and the importance of patient, supportive relationships following frightening experiences.