Who you'll actually meet.

I didn't start out working with teenagers. I got here by noticing where my own energy actually went. The question in my head on the drive in is never a burden. It is "How am I going to get through to him today? What are we going to play?" I decided that a calling that holds up even when you're drowning isn't a preference. It's a direction.

Working with adults is like fixing plumbing someone else already put in the walls. Working with a teenager is laying the pipe for the first time. When a kid names an emotion in my office, there's a real chance it's the first time in their life they've ever done it. I am not patching. I am building the system before it sets.

I didn't learn this from a textbook. I learned it from my own life, including the parts that were hard. I'm not going to spend this page on that story, but it's why I don't flinch when a kid brings me something ugly, and why I don't treat their survival strategies as a character defect. They're information. I decided to become the person who shows up, and keeps coming.

Keeps the schedule running, handles billing, and is usually the first person you'll actually talk to. Before UpLoft, she spent ten years teaching high school in Texas and five teaching 5th grade in Colorado. She knows kids, she knows systems, and she's the reason things around here actually work.

She's also a breast cancer survivor (chemo and radiation completed in 2024) and brings real grit and perspective to the work, not just logistics.

In training to be Lawson's service dog, Deep Pressure Therapy mostly, though she also doubles as an unofficial mood regulator for the room. Usually stationed in the corner. Comes to say hello if you're open to it. She thinks every person she meets is her new best friend, her favorite coping strategy is naps and belly rubs, and she's surprisingly good at reading the room.