Allison was recruited to join The Supported Living Group in late 2024, and she brings with her a wide range of clinical experiences and therapeutic applications.  She comes to us from a blended background that is strongly rooted in psycho-social and pediatric practice, emphasizing treatment of complex trauma; family- and person-centered care; administrative and program development lenses; and integrated community health.

A mental health professional at her core, Allison’s decision to pursue occupational therapy came about after discovering the field by coincidence, having been recently researching the applications of expressive arts therapy as a young art student and musician in her early years of college.  After conducting further research on the field she had simply stumbled across, Allison recognized it as an opportunity to pursue an intersection of multiple strengths she possessed, and she made the life-changing decision to leave art school to pursue a master’s degree in occupational therapy.  Since then, she has launched a colorful and layered career that has touched a variety of practice areas and populations, all the while keeping her passion for quality mental healthcare at the forefront of her mission.  Of all of the populations that she has worked with, Allison connects most powerfully with under-served communities, being especially passionate about serving at-risk youth.  However, regardless of the setting or position, she has always considered her primary area of specialization to be her original passion: person-centered mental healthcare, made complete with occupational therapy’s twist on meaningful functional engagement.

With a long history of working with neurodivergent individuals with co-occurring mental health diagnoses, Allison possesses a deep, niche knowledge of the body and brain’s sensory systems and their varying abilities to process them effectively.  She is especially passionate about educating families, other professionals, and clients themselves regarding the deep impact of sensory processing differences on individuals’ everyday lives, with particular emphasis on how they present alongside mental health challenges.  Her career began in the state of Colorado, where she provided person-centered, community-based care to families with a focus on parents’ mental health; early intervention; positive family connections; and evidence-based, child-led care all along the Front Range.  She has worked in conjunction with nonprofit organizations and the Connecticut State Department of Children and Families to facilitate positive, person-centered, trauma-informed care for displaced and at-risk youth, and has spearheaded educational programs regarding the intersectional relationship between complex trauma and sensory processing for emerging professionals.  She has extensive experience with program development, administration, and supervision, having created and launched a collaborative, trauma-informed consultative program for nonprofit agencies in order to better serve some of the state of Connecticut’s most vulnerable populations.  Allison is also extremely passionate about mentoring young and emerging occupational therapists and other clinicians, emphasizing the importance of trauma-informed, person-centered care with an ever-standing consideration of mental health, regardless of the practice area one finds themselves in.  She previously supervised a young team of 3 emerging clinicians, guiding them through providing school-based intervention services to youths with significant behavioral challenges.

In addition to a passionate, lifelong commitment to psycho-social practice, Allison has also provided medical-based treatment to United States Veterans in skilled nursing facilities.  She has comprehensively treated a variety of complex neurological conditions, swallowing difficulties, and orthopedic conditions, making her a highly flexible professional with in-depth knowledge of various tenets of practice. 

Additionally, Allison prides herself on her extensive knowledge of LGBTQIA2S+ issues, having mentored and treated many LGBTQIA2S+ individuals in clinical congregate care programs in the state of Connecticut.

Despite having left art school, Allison remains an active and very passionate artist, musician and avid traveler in addition to her role as an occupational therapist.  She aims to capture the many timeless and personal experiences she has had through artistic expression and to share them with others.  Much like her approach to occupational therapy practice, Allison is artistically motivated primarily by the many separate facets of human life and its challenges, and our unique relationship with the world around us.  Her work can be found across New England and Colorado, where she has previously partnered with community initiatives to support people of all ages and abilities in tapping into their unique creative reserves.

Since joining SLG, Allison has applied a synthesis of each dimension of her clinical knowledge to treatment, and she continues to create customized, client-centered approaches that are individually tailored to each unique individual.  Like art and music, she considers therapy to be a deeply complex, ever-evolving artistic process that is intrinsically unique to each person experiencing it.  As a neurodivergent trauma survivor with a history of chronic illness herself, Allison also ensures to provide a personal touch to treatment for all clients, striving to always foster a healthy therapeutic connection in which all individuals can safely grow and heal.