​The following counselling practicum students are currently providing sliding scale counselling:
Hours: See individual bios for working hours
Location: By phone, video or in person at the Collaborative Space at 207 West Hastings Street, Vancouver
Please email samkaplan@expressivewellness.ca to inquire about connecting with one of these practicum students

All practicum students are provided with clinical supervision by Luisa Ospina  and Sam Kaplan, as well as engage in peer and school based supervision, while completing their counselling education.

Rates for student counsellor services:
50 minute individual session: $25-75
75 minute individual session: $35-100
50 minute relationship or family session: $50-125
75 minute relationship or family session: $60-150

Kaitlin (she/her)
Kaitlins's practicum ends August 2022.  

Days and Hours
Tuesdays 1:45-8:00 pm (in-person)
Fridays 12:00 pm-7:00 pm (online)
*Kaitlin is double-vaccinated against COVID-19.  In-Person services with Kaitlin are only available for clients who have received more than one vaccine against COVID-19.

​Kaitlin Wu (she/her) is a cisgender, able-bodied, second generation Chinese Canadian immigrant, living and working on the stolen lands of the səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm (Musqueam) Nations.Kaitlin specializes in working with marginalized communities and neurodivergent individuals who may be struggling with experiences of invalidation, life transitions, family conflict, relationship challenges, anxiety, and low self-worth. Kaitlin approaches each session with compassion and curiosity as she supports clients in processing and unpacking their lived experiences towards healing. She is firmly committed to creating a safe, nonjudgmental, healing space where clients feel valued, heard, and empowered to step into their transformative self-worth.

Kaitlin graduated with a bachelor’s in Sociology and is currently pursuing her passion in a Master of Arts Counselling at Yorkville University. Kaitlin holds a person-centered, intesectionalist, social justice framed approach that believes in helping clients unlearn biases, prejudice, and oppressive narratives to reclaim their truth.

Kaitlin currently supports neurodiverse youth, including youth with developmental and learning differences, reach their socioemotional and learning goals. She has spent the last 7 years in both educational and community environments working with diverse communicative behaviours as she attunes to the nonverbal messages, emotions, and patterns that often go unnoticed. She strongly believes in fostering an inclusive and safe environment where youth of all abilities feel empowered and supported in their development.

She strongly affirms that every client is to be met with understanding, integrity, and support, regardless of where they are on their journey. Kaitlin wants her clients to know that every version of themselves is deserving of love and acceptance.

Through empathic listening, Kaitlin holds space for her clients to feel safe and seen as they collaboratively navigate the journey of self-healing, self-forgiveness, and self-compassion. Kaitlin would be honoured to walk alongside with her clients as they learn how to regain self-trust and build a peaceful home in themselves.
​

Hiu (she/they)
Practicum ends August 2022
​
​Days and Hours
Mondays 1:00pm-6:00 pm (online)
Wednesdays 9:00 am-1:30 pm (online)
Thursdays 6:00 pm-7:00 pm (online)
*Potential in person counselling in the future, depending upon covid variants/numbers.

Hiu (she/they) is a non-disabled immigrant settler on the traditional, unceded, and occupied lands of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Watuth and Squamish peoples from Hong Kong with non-binary, anti-racist and anti-capitalist values. Proud to be a person of colour who defies the idea of normativity and an advocate for understanding our emotions, Hiu privileges the intersectionality in people. 

Hiu translates emotions into articulated experience with deconstructive conversations, appreciative inquiry, creative concept & visualization. Experienced in interdisciplinary expressions and critical thinking, her therapeutic style incorporates Motivational Interviewing with Intersectional Feminist-Narrative x Somatic techniques, led with a trauma- and systems-informed approach, social justice and radical acceptance values.

She is a graduate of the Feminist Narrative Immersion program at ProChoices Community Therapy Clinic and is currently pursuing a Master of Counselling degree at City University of Seattle in "Canada". She has completed Clinical Hypnosis Skills for Health Professionals, level 1 with the Canadian Society of Clinical Hypnosis (BC Division) and the course Dying and Death: Conversations and Reflections at Simon Fraser University.
​

​Bréa (she/her)
*Currently full and accepting folks on to her waitlist. 
Bréa's practicum ends August 2022. 

Days and Hours
Mondays and Tuesdays 9:00am-1:30 pm (in-person and online)
Thursdays 4:00 pm-7:00 pm (online)
*Bréa is double-vaccinated against COVID-19.  In-Person services with Bréa are only available for clients who have received more than one vaccine against COVID-19.
​
​Bréa (she/her) is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology at Yorkville University. She is an able-bodied, cisgender, and biracial woman of mixed ancestry born and raised on the unceded and stolen territories of the səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm (Musqueam) Nations. As a certified trauma-informed yoga teacher, prenatal yoga teacher, and full-spectrum doula, Bréa is passionate about supporting marginalized folks experiencing trauma, grief, anxiety, depression, and life transitions.  

Bréa commits to an anti-oppressive, collaborative, and intersectional approach grounded in critical race theory and social justice. She draws from Person-Centered Therapy, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, Compassion-Focused Therapy, Attachment-Based Therapy, Existential Therapy, and Narrative Therapy. You can expect Bréa to offer a non-judgmental and empathic space to safely navigate the totality of your humanness and reclaim your right to be holistically supported.
​

Lina (she/her)  
*Currently full and accepting folks on to her waitlist. 
Lina's practicum ends August 2022. 

Days and Hours
Tuesdays 4:00pm-8:00 pm (online)
Thursdays 12:30 pm-4:00 pm (online)
Fridays 9:00 am-1:45 pm (online)
*Potential in person counselling in the future, depending upon covid variants/numbers.
​
​My name is Lina (she/her) and I am a neurodivergent, queer, disabled, and bicultural individual living and working on the stolen lands of the səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm (Musqueam) Nations. Intersectional inclusivity is an important part of my practice and I aim to co-create with you a comfortable therapeutic space that prioritizes authenticity, empowerment, and curiosity.

My practice is focused on anti-oppressive and trauma-informed care for marginalized individuals including, but not limited to, BIPOC, neurodivergent, 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, immigrants, and poly communities. My values best align with person-centred and humanistic approaches as I believe clients are the experts of their own life. It is my honour to take the role of a supportive co-collaborator alongside my clients on their healing journey.

As a certified yoga and movement teacher, I seek to integrate mindfulness and somatic techniques to deepen the mind-body connection. I believe understanding how we hold emotions and trauma in the body is an important part of the therapeutic process.

Additionally, I have a strong dedication to supporting the neurodivergent community, as I have a first-hand understanding of the inaccessibility of the society we live in. I continually work to dismantle my own internalized ableism and address dominant narratives around disability. I aim to help neurodivergent clients identify and work with their individual needs surrounding sensory overstimulation or understimulation, executive functioning, emotional regulation, meltdowns, and shutdowns.

In my personal life, I enjoy gardening, playing with my 2 cats and 1 dog, doing yoga, and consuming any and all sci-fi media! I look forward to connecting with you.
​

Nicole (They/them)
*Currently full and accepting folks on to her waitlist.
​Available for online counselling Tuesday-Thursday  9:45 am-2:15 pm.
Nicoles's practicum is from January 4, 2022-August 2022.  
​
Days and Hours
Tuesdays-Thursdays 9:45 am-2:15 pm (online)

Hi! I’m Nicole (they/them), and I’m a student working towards a Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology through Yorkville university. I’m a white, non-binary, queer, neurodivergent settler of Finnish and Polish decent living on the unceded terriroties of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. I have spent the last decade working with neurodivergent and disabled youth in the education system, providing academic, social, emotional, and behavioural supports.

I believe in offering an ongoing collaborative process that seeks to meet clients where they are at with validation and support, guided by harm-reduction, trauma-informed, and neurodivergent-affirmative principles. My combination of professional and lived experience in areas such as sexual identity, gender, disability, neurodivergence, anxiety, depression, trauma, addiction, and parenting has shaped the intersectional social justice lens through which I view my work. I am particularly interested in working with fellow LGBTQ2SIA+ individuals, neurodivergent and/or disabled individuals, and parents of neurodivergent or LGBTQ2SIA+ children. I am also available to work with youth ages 10 and up.
​
I spend most of my free time with my partner and our two young children. I also like to make time to dance, craft, chat with friends, engage in my current special interests, and even try to squeeze in the ever-illusive nap every once and awhile. I look forward to meeting you.
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Beth D’Aoust (she/her/hers) 
​* Currently Full contact to be added to her waitlist for online apts. 
​Practicum ends August 2022

Days and Hours
Sundays 1:45 pm-6:30 pm (in-person)
Tuesdays 4:00 pm-6:15 pm (online)
*Beth is double-vaccinated against COVID-19.  In-Person services with Beth are only available for clients who have received more than one vaccine against COVID-19.
​
Beth is a white, queer, disabled, straight-sized, cisgender settler living and working on traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), and səlil̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) nations. Beth spent the past six years teaching high school English, and after feeling her priorities shift away from academia and toward her students’ mental health, self-regulation abilities, and general wellbeing, she was drawn toward the more intimate 1:1 setting of the counselling space.  
 
Beth offers an accessible, collaborative, client-centred, anti-oppressive, and trauma-informed approach to counselling for individuals (adults and youth), families, and those seeking relationship counselling. Beth is firmly committed to the ongoing process of unlearning involved in decolonization and her practice is heavily informed by systems thinking, intersectional feminism, harm reduction, non-binary values, queer theory, attachment theory, and somatics. Beth has lived experience in and near chronic illness and disability, traumatic brain injury, anxiety and depression, addictions, religious trauma, intergenerational trauma, self-esteem, burnout, sexualized violence, grief and loss, non-monogamy and alternative relationship structures, and relationship endings.  
 
Beth has been studying nervous system regulation, interpersonal neurobiology, polyvagal theory, and epigenetics in her free time for the past five years. Throughout this time, she has also trained extensively in Conscious Connected Breathwork facilitation, Hakomi Therapy, and Bioenergetics with Numa Somatics. In January, 2021, Beth handed over her English classroom, and dove into a full-time Master of Counselling degree at City University of Seattle’s “Vancouver” campus, in the interest of blending her passions and expanding her offerings.  
 
In her personal life, Beth is a lover of singing, dancing, laughing, reading, painting, cooking for loved ones, taking rainy forest walks, tending to her many plants, and soaking up sunshine whenever possible. She loves connecting with new people, facilitating collaborative and empowering experiences, and providing a tender, validating witness to folks as they process their lived experiences. Beth is so looking forward to working with you! 

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Christie Ma
*Currently full 
Practicum ends January 2022. 
​
​Christie is a student art therapist in training at the Vancouver Art Therapy Institute. They are a non-binary, queer, and multiethnic Hong Kong-Canadian settler living on the unceded and ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish,) and səlil̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) nations. Christie grew up in Hong Kong, and has lived in the UK and US as well. 

Christie’s healing philosophy envisions global and collective liberation from systems of oppression. As a visual and performance artist, they engage the arts as a way to access and tangibly contend with trauma, feelings, and experiences held in our bodies. They seek to integrate somatic movement, expressive arts and body-mind work into their practice to safely explore in taking up space on one’s own terms.

Christie is passionate about anti-oppressive and decolonial care work for neurodivergent QTIBIPoC, diasporic/displaced folx, and survivors of violence. They practice through an intersectional and transnational feminist lens, and incorporate trauma-informed, culturally sensitive, and person-centred approaches. They have experience working with themes of identity, trauma, anxiety, depression, survivors of sexual and intimate partner violence, and suicidal ideation. 

Christie enjoys strength and mobility training, forests by the ocean, cooking without recipes, and dancing to moody music playlists. They seek to connect with you where you are at, and offer a collaborative therapeutic experience that honours your ways of knowing.
​

Maryanne Wong (she/they)  
​​* Currently Full
Maryanne's practicum ends April 2022.

Days and Hours
Tuesdays and Thursdays (online)
Saturdays (in-person)
*Maryanne is double-vaccinated against COVID-19.  In-Person services with Maryanne are only available for clients who have received more than one vaccine against COVID-19.

Maryanne is also a Registered Social Worker and folks whose extended health benefits cover Social Workers can claim appointment costs with Maryanne.

Sometimes we need a place where we can kick off our shoes, speak our minds plainly, and work through difficult situations, thoughts, and feelings. I strive to create a space grounded in respect, empathy, and curiosity; we will work together to co-create a space that works for you.
 
I’m Maryanne (she/they), a student counsellor completing a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Victoria. I’m a queer, second-generation Chinese Canadian, born and raised as an uninvited settler on unceded territories of the səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm (Musqueam) Nations.
​
I’ve been a registered social worker since 2012, providing counselling and social work services for a wide range of folks including members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ communities (with a soft spot in my heart for other QTBIPoC), folks with disabilities, immigrants, and members of kink and poly communities.  
 
I have experience in a number of areas including navigating multiple group memberships (e.g. sexuality and cultural minority; gender and disability); self-esteem, anxiety, depression; adjustment to changes in ability, life transitions, end-of-life planning, and caregiver burnout.

As a queer, bicultural kid with both lived and professional experience, my perspective is informed by an intersectional social justice lens.  I approach my counselling work with a collaborative, inquisitive spirit and trauma-aware, harm-reduction approach. 
 
When I’m not working with clients I enjoy snuggling with my small fluffy dog, choreographing dances, introducing friends to dim sum, and toodling on the seawall with my Beloved. I look forward to connecting with you.
​
I am currently offering in-person services for folks who have been double vaccinated. Virtual and phone services are available for individuals who have not received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. 

​

Lau (she, her, hers) 
* Currently Full​
Lau's practicum ends February 2021.

Days and Hours
Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays (online)

​Hello!
My name is Lau, and I’m a student currently working towards a Masters of Social Work through Wilfrid Laurier University. I’m a white, cisgender queer femme (she/her) of British and Russian Jewish background living on the stolen lands of the səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm (Musqueam) Nations. I grew up between small-town BC and Buenos Aires, Argentina, and I have been a youth worker for the past 12 years.
 
I currently work in the health and education systems to support young people to make choices that are healthy for them, and to feel resourced in building strong relationships and community connections. I have worked with LGBT2SQ+ youth for many years, as well as Indigenous families, folks who use substances, and folks who are experiencing anxiety, depression, relationship violence, and self-harm.
 
My work is relationship focused, and I believe in working collaboratively with you, since you are the expert in your own life! I hope to create a space where I can help you to help yourself, and co-create opportunities for healing, growth, and liberation. I strive to work from a harm-reduction and trauma-informed approach. I’m excited to work with both youth and adults. 
 
My work is deeply informed by intersectional anti-oppression, and I recognize the learning I have done from BIPoC women/trans/nonbinary folks. I strive to center social justice and decolonization in my practices, but I recognize that this is ongoing work of unlearning and listening. Hopefully this is something we can work on together.
 
In my personal life I love to sing in choirs, garden, cook, ride my bike, and laugh with my most loved folks. I’m excited to meet you!