Anti-Racism & Anti-Oppression Statement

Pathways Play Therapy Services is committed to building an equitable, anti-racist and anti-oppressive practice. This means that I am consistently working to speak and act in ways that advance racial, gender, and neurodivergent equity in society, and interrupt racism, queer- and trans-phobia, and ableism.

As a white, cisgender, able-bodied, university-educated settler, I have a lot of unearned privilege. I am on a path of trying to own my privilege, and change my thinking, my language, and my automatic responses.

I continue to make mistakes and grow.

I am committed to cultivating safer and inclusive spaces and relationships in my personal and professional lives, and to putting in the emotional labour to create repair when I cause harm.

I strive to have an inclusive and responsive practice that focuses on individual strengths and promotes choice and collaboration. It is important to me that my practice not only acknowledge the systemic and societal norms and expectations that create challenges for children and families, but that it also works to effect lasting change.

I understand that commitments in themselves are insufficient without real action. Some of the ways that I have been actively engaged in anti-racist and anti-oppressive work include:

Volunteer committee member with the BC Play Therapy Association’s Anti-Racism Committee 

(September 2022 – present)

Resilient Racial Justice Leadership Certificate Program 

with The Center for Justice + Renewal (January-May 2024)

Paying a Voluntary Land Tax ($5 of every session fee) to the kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem First Nation), 

whose traditional, ancestral and unceded territory I live and work on (2022 & 2023 tax year).

TRANS ACTIVISM & YOU: A Review of & Response to Anti-Trans Rhetoric workshop 

with Schuyler Bailar (May 2023)

TRANS ACTION: A Step by Step Workshop for Allyship in Action workshop 

with Schuyler Bailar (April 2023)

Raising Anti-Racist White Children 

led by The Center for The Study of White American Culture. (March 2023)

Decolonize Your Practice! 

An 8-week program for mental health clinicians created and led by Silvana Espinoza Lau of Seventh Self Counseling (January – March 2023)

Volunteer committee member with the Synergetic Play Therapy Institute’s Anti-Oppression, Anti-Racism Working Group (January-June 2021)

Last updated May 1, 2024

(updated quarterly)