Angela Herd
Angela Herd is a therapist, coach and educator. She has enjoyed over 20 years of partnerships, with children, youth, adult/seniors & their families seeking increased mental health & wellness.
She has experience in a variety of settings that include schools, hospitals and community agencies attending to issues such as depression, anxiety, anger management, suicidal ideation, grief and loss, marital discord/separation & divorce, family violence, parenting, teen-parent mediation and self-care strategies for professional helpers.
Angela has a passion for community capacity building. She is active in volunteer leadership roles in both Surrey and Langley. Angela is committed to building healthy communities by fostering quality education and best practice services related to Mental Health.
Education & Specialized Training
Angela is a Registered Art Therapist and a member of the Canadian Art Therapy Association. She completed her Graduate level art therapy training program at the Vancouver Art Therapy Institute. She authored a heuristic-phenomenological thesis that explored the value of art therapy as a method of self-care for professional helpers within the workplace. Through the process of writing the thesis, Angela completed extensive research related to burnout, distress and impairment among professionals such as therapists, physicians, nurses, counsellors, social workers etc. Her motivation to explore this area of research stemmed from her belief that professional helper’s personal awareness and tool-box of personal strategies to cope with stress, enhances the quality of service delivery to clients; as well as, provides professionals with resiliency needed to decrease the prevalence of burnout, distress or impairment.
Angela has an undergraduate degree in the area of Child and Youth Care. Her degree in Child & Youth Care supports a strong developmental and family systems lens helping her to better understand individuals (all ages) and their family’s needs and responses to the world around them.
Angela obtained a diploma in Community Support Work from Douglas College enabling her to specialize in working with individuals and their families, who are coping with a wide range of disabilities. Angela brings her training and experience of environmental inventories to many situations requiring detailed examinations of factors influencing problematic behaviour and response. This has been particularly helpful in supporting people coping with severe and persistent mental illness, seniors with Alzheimer’s disease or related dementia disorders, people with a range of disabilities and sensitivities including giftedness, autistic spectrum disorders, anxiety & adjustment disorders and those experiencing significant stressors that chronically overwhelm adequate coping strategies. Angela has obtained specialized training to provide assessment & treatment of children and youth coping with complex trauma and who exhibit dissociative disordered behaviour. She has completed Level I & II Trainings in Gottman Method Couples therapy and a variety of other trainings related to individual, child and family safety and wellness.
