About
Committed to creating effective, positive and lasting changes.
Monica brings with her, 26 years experience working in the community-based social services field with children, youth, adults and families as a therapist and community educator. She has worked both in clinical settings for various programs and served in a leadership role as Director of Clinical Practice, providing her expertise to clinical and non-clinical programs that focus on family preservation and re-unification, complex intergenerational trauma, trauma-informed practice and clinical supervision. She started her counselling practice in New Westminster, BC in 2008 and moved it to Chilliwack, BC in 2020. In addition to her counselling practice, she actively provides training that informs and builds the capacity of clinical and non-clinical staff in community, school and therapeutic settings at a national level. She is fluent in Hindi and Punjabi.
Monica is a Registered and Master Therapeutic Counsellor (RTC, MTC) in good standing with the Association of Cooperative Counselling Therapists of Canada (ACCT). In addition to this, she also is a Registered Clinical Supervisor (RCS). She obtained her Master’s degree from Simon Fraser University in 2002. Monica has extensive post-graduate training and experience in:
- Play and Expressive Therapies
- Trauma and Abuse
- Parenting Support and Coaching
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Affect Regulation (aka EMOTIONS)
Monica is certified as a Focusing-Oriented Trainer and Therapist with The Focusing Institute in New York. Focusing-Oriented Therapy is a body-centred and client-centred approach to healing, developed at the University of Chicago by Dr. Eugene Gendlin. Indigenous Focusing-Oriented Therapy (IFOT) with Complex Trauma was developed by Vancouver-based trauma expert Shirley Turcotte. IFOT is a land-based adaptation of Focusing-Oriented Therapy. Grounded in “all my relations” philosophy, IFOT is especially effective for healing complex trauma. Monica had the privilege of being trained by Shirley Turcotte.
Monica brings many years of Play and Expressive Therapy experience to her work in providing therapeutic services to children and families. Monica is a Certified Synergetic Play Therapist and trained directly under Synergetic Play Therapy founder Lisa Dion. She was an active board member with the British Columbia Play Therapy Association from 2005-2014 and served as Board President from 2011-2013. She continues to be a member of BCPTA and actively be of serve to the BC Play Therapy community as a committee member on BCPTA’s Certification Committee.
Monica is committed to her ongoing professional development and training to ensure her practice is effective, current and client-centered. She continues to advance her specialization as a Play Therapist with the Synergetic Play Therapy Institute and continues to be mentored by Shirley Turcotte.
