Clinical Mental Health Counseling Intern & Grad Student

Piper D.

I am a third-year graduate student obtaining my Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from the University of Northern Iowa. I have finished the majority of my academic coursework and am now completing an internship as a Psychotherapist Intern, providing counseling services to my local community in private practice. I received my Bachelor of Arts in Forensic Psychology from St. Ambrose University, alongside minors in Criminal Justice and Sociology. I completed an experiential internship at my undergraduate institution as a Juvenile Court School Liaison, working with high school students on probation through the criminal courts to develop coping skills and navigate life challenges to improve their performance at school and decrease their likelihood of returning to court and juvenile detention centers.

I held the position of Writing Tutor at my undergraduate institution in the student center for one semester. I focused on assisting other college students, both undergraduate and graduate, in developing and polishing their writing for a variety of academic courses and to address multiple areas of concern, such as content, paragraph and sentence structure, grammar, and adherence to formatting. My area of expertise is writing in the social sciences, particularly APA format. In addition to my previous tutoring, I have also worked with children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). My roles focused heavily on providing coaching and scaffolding to help my clients learn new skills.

I work with both high school and college students, as well as any other adult learners. I take a collaborative approach to teaching and aim to focus on what you need in sessions. I consider myself to be filling in a block while you learn. I encourage being open to learning and growing, and want each person to feel comfortable making mistakes and improving going forward.