Winners will recieve:

Katie received her Master’s in Couple and Family Therapy through Antioch University of Seattle in 2011 and completed her Post Graduate Certificate in Play Therapy in 2016. After receiving her BA degree in Ecopsychology and Diversity Studies through Outdoor Experiential and Environmental Education in 2000, she put all the states she thought she could live in a hat and drew out 3 states which informed her job search. She moved to the east coast to work in a specialized boarding school and residential treatment center for youth.

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She is trained in Child Centered Play therapy, AutPlay Therapy, Sand Tray Play Therapy, Child Parent Relation Therapy, and is Level 1 trained in Emotional Transformative Therapy. Her career in the youth development and mental health field spans over three decades. Her journey began with a focus in early childhood education and expanded into service-learning and the residential camping world. Here she harnessed the therapeutic powers of experiential education and adventure-based learning, teaching youth empowerment through activities such as horseback riding, rock climbing, hiking, disaster relief, and gardening programs.

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For the past 13 years, she takes a week off each summer to serve as mental health support staff at Sibling Strong Summer Camp, to help reunite siblings who are living separated due to the foster care system, adoption, or kinship care.  Additionally, she started the Play, Heal, Grow: Disaster Relief Project in August of 2023 to bring trauma-informed play therapy and creative expressive art supplies, activities and comfort items to front line mental health therapists and youth and families impacted by the devastating Lahaina Fire on Maui. This project has since expanded by responding to Hurricane Helene, especially in the Western NC area, and is actively collecting donations to support youth and families displaced by the CA fires.  ​

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A few word from Katie about winning the award:

It is a gift to be able to organize the Play, Heal, Grow: Disaster Relief Project, and there is no way I would be able to pull off the relief efforts without the help of our play therapy community. I especially appreciate the support and trust it takes these days to receive and send out donations. I may be the drop of water that starts the ripple, but it is each and every person that  donates to the cause, helps spread the word, or delivers the supplies that helps the ripple keep on going. Together we have and continue to bring the therapeutic powers of play, creative arts and community to the youth and families displaced in disasters. Together we have helped play therapists reopen their offices, and have provided therapeutic supplies to frontline mental health workers. 

I am hopeful to get other APT branches involved in spreading the word about the disaster relief projects. We are still in need of supplies or funds to build trauma informed activity/comfort backpacks for displaced youth. We have over 255 youth on our list. And recently got a request to make bags for 40 youth in care that are displaced, living in a hotel, because not only did they lose their homes in the fire, the families that were caring for them decided to give up on being a placement. My hope is that we can raise the funds or get enough donated supplies to be able to make 300 bags.