Emily Walker

Education

I obtained my Bachelor of Social Work degree from McMaster University and my Master Degree of Social Work from York University. I have also completed my Concurrent Disorders certificate through the Centre of Addiction and Mental Health, University of Toronto.

I have completed a variety of professional development programs, including formalized training in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT + Trauma-Focused CBT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Emotion Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) and Collaborative Problem-Solving (CPS).

I am strongly committed to ongoing learning, and am continuing to expand my clinical repertoire in somatic-based therapies.

Work Experience

I am a Registered Social Worker in good standing with the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers (OCSWSSW) and a member of the Ontario Association of Social Workers (OASW).

My professional journey began in correctional services where I worked as a social worker in a provincial correctional facility for a few years.

This role helped foster my passion for advocacy, restorative justice and rehabilitation and soon led me into community practice where I worked providing mental health counselling in a local youth shelter while also facilitating the provincial men’s and women’s anti-violence programs.

I quickly developed a desire to provide earlier intervention care, recognizing the strong need for family therapy to avoid some of the challenges my street-involved clients were facing, and the prevalence of conflict and struggle families often silently experience.

For the next few years, I focused on providing intensive in-home family therapy and later settled into a child and family therapist role in outpatient children’s mental health services.

In addition to my work in the public sector, I began practicing privately in 2022.

My practice focuses on understanding the unique experiences we have as individuals, and I enjoy work that explores our core values, re-authoring our life stories, and moves us forward in this wild journey that is life.

I particularly enjoy exploring the concept of mental wellness and building a strong foundation for wellness across a lifetime through learning to understand and regulate our nervous systems.

I have a particular passion for supporting 2SLGBTQ+ and neurodiverse individuals.

Personal

In my personal life, I enjoy a mixture of adventuring with my family, and staying close to home. I appreciate novelty and am always looking to explore new places, new foods and new experiences. I cherish the comfort of home and the peace being in my safe place brings me.

You can often find me chasing my daughter around the house, curled up with a good book, or with a cat in my lap. My wife and I are avid movie lovers and video game fanatics after everyone else has gone to bed, and in my own personal time, I love to bake, knit, and am hoping to soon master crocheting.

I have strong values around family and community, and love being in the company of the people I love. I cherish family holidays, and being present at all the meaningful moments in the lives of my friends and their families.