Brianna Urquhart (She/Her), BSW MSW RSW
brianna@simplysocialwork.ca
Brianna is a registered social worker who combines her lived experience as a ADHDer with chronic illnesses with professional knowledge and training in evidence-based methods to provide a safe and supportive therapy space that serves and empowers you. She specializes in providing accessible, neurodiversity-affirming, trauma-informed mental health services to people with disabilities and disabled folks, chronic illness, and neurodivergence (with a primary focus in ADHD and Autism).
As a family caregiver for over 20 years, Brianna understands the unique challenges of supporting someone you love through physical illness. Despite the intensity of the role, caregivers continue to have other roles and responsibilities - all alongside needing to meet your own needs. Many of us also have our own health concerns, whether that is the toll caregiving can take on your wellbeing or your own chronic illness. Her passion for supporting others who have been through similar challenges led to pursuing a career in mental health and the creation of this practice.
Brianna is currently the Project Coordinator for the Learning Access research project at the University of Waterloo, which is an investigation into female students' experiences of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)-related accommodations. She has also been a research assistant (RA) on several projects, including:
Before creating Simply Social Work, Brianna spent several years working alongside multidisciplinary teams of healthcare professionals in a variety of medical and community settings. She currently volunteers on the Board of Directors for the Brain Injury Association of Niagara (BIAN) and provides Accessibility Consulting to other non-profits and businesses in Hamilton and across Ontario. Brianna has experience in rehabilitation from traumatic and acquired brain injuries (TBIs/ ABIs), empowering adults with intellectual disabilities through meaningful community inclusion, and supporting parents at the Ron Joyce Children’s Health Centre.
Education & Certifications
Brianna completed a health-focused Master’s of Social Work (MSW) from the University of Waterloo, and an Hon. Bachelor’s Social Work & Disability Studies (BSW) with a focus in psychology from the University of Windsor. She also participated in a summer exchange learning program for European social work at the École Pratique de Service Social (EPSS) in France. She is in good standing with the Ontario College of Social Work and Social Service Work (OCSWSSW) and is a member of the Ontario Association of Social Workers (OASW), where she attends ongoing continuing education and trainings.
Brianna has completed additional certifications in Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT), including ACT for ADHD, Trauma-Focused ACT, and ACT for Perfectionism and People Pleasing by Dr. Russ Harris. Brianna has experience as a Certified Sex Therapy Informed Professional (CSTIP) with intensive training in inclusive sex therapy from Guelph University and the Integrated Sex Therapy Training Institute (ISTI). Brianna also has certificates from Harvard Medical School and Yale University, as well as introductory ASL from Fanshawe College.
What You Can Expect
As a therapist, Brianna has been described as warm, understanding, and supportive. She takes an empowering, strengths-based stance, which means she helps you identify and build on the strengths you already have. Sessions are a space for you to talk as long and as often as you need in order to help you process what you’ve been through, with your therapist asking some questions or offering some insights along the way to help you better understand. Brianna will also teach you strategies that will help you cope with the challenges you are experiencing and their impacts, so that you are supported as you work together to figure out ways to change or improve the situation.
As someone with ADHD and chronic illnesses who is dedicated to disability justice, she also isn’t afraid to call out ableism or neurotypical normativity when she sees it, and to help you recognize how these harmful ideas might be impacting how you think and feel.
Methods
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to life. Everyone’s mental health, supports, strengths, and challenges are all different. Your therapy should reflect that. Some strategies and even entire methods do not work for every neurotype or every situation. That’s why Brianna integrates and incorporates a variety of techniques, strategies, and tools from different therapeutic approaches based on your brain, body, and needs. These methods include:
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Dialectical-Behavioural Therapy (DBT)
Mindfulness
Adapted Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT)*
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