Choose Your Path

3-Day Becoming Method® Intensive Training

🕒 3 Days

Live | In-Person Delivery

Anyone Interested in Psychotherapy

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RN-Psychotherapist Program

🕒 6–8 Months

On-line + Live 3-Day Intensive

For Registered Nurses including NPs, CNSs & PSWs

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Trauma Recovery Certificate Program

🕒 12 Months

On-line + Live 3-Day Intensive

For Nurses & Allied Health Professionals

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Faculty · Training · Research · Education

A faculty of experts who teach trauma recovery as a human practice — Ubuntu-rooted, decolonial, and clinically rigorous.

At Becoming Institute, our faculty bring decades of clinical, academic, and community leadership to the work of trauma recovery education. What unites them is a shared philosophy: that healing is relational, that knowledge belongs to many traditions, and that good practice begins with cultural humility before it begins with technique.

This is the faculty that will hold the room — for you, for your colleagues, and for the people you serve.

A Different Philosophy of Teaching

Ubuntu at the centre. Decolonial in practice.


Most trauma curricula are built within a single Western clinical tradition. Ours is not. The faculty at Becoming Institute teach within an Ubuntu framework — I am because we are — that holds healing as a relational and communal practice, not an isolated transaction between expert and patient.

In practice, this means our faculty actively decolonize how trauma is taught. They centre the wisdom of African, Indigenous, diasporic, and feminist healing traditions alongside contemporary clinical evidence. They name the histories that shape suffering — colonization, displacement, intergenerational harm — and they teach trauma recovery as work that must answer to those histories, not bypass them.

This is not an add-on module. It is the lens through which every faculty member teaches.

What Sets This Faculty Apart

Expertise, held differently.

Faculty at Becoming Institute are not commentators on trauma recovery. They are practitioners, scholars, and community leaders who teach the work from inside it — and who refuse to teach it without naming the histories and worldviews from which suffering and healing emerge.

The faculty position

Clinical expertise across disciplines

Psychology, psychotherapy, social work, nursing, and systems leadership — every faculty member is credentialed, regulated, and actively practicing in their field.

Cultural humility as a clinical skill

Faculty teach humility not as a value statement but as a discipline: how to recognize the limits of one's worldview, how to make room for another's, and how to let that change the work in the room.

Decolonial scholarship integrated into practice

Our faculty draw from Black, Indigenous, African, feminist, and diasporic scholarship — not as background reading, but as core clinical reasoning that shapes what they teach and how.

Our Faculty

Meet the experts who teach here.

The faculty below come from psychology, psychotherapy, social work, nursing, and systems leadership. They lead clinics, direct programs, sit on regulatory bodies, and publish in their fields. Each brings a distinct specialization — somatic, faith-integrated, anti-oppressive, expressive arts, intergenerational, leadership.

What unites them is the philosophy they teach within: Ubuntu-rooted, decolonial, clinically rigorous, and humble about the limits of any single tradition. They teach trauma recovery as work that belongs to many wisdoms — and that demands cultural humility before it demands technique.

Read their profiles below. The work they will hold with you is the work they hold every day.

Sophia Ali, MBA, BSW, RSW

Sophia Ali

MBA · BSW · RSW

Focus: Leadership & Trauma-Informed Systems Design

Trauma recovery does not hold without the systems that surround it. My responsibility as faculty is to help practitioners see how policy, governance, and culture either protect the work or quietly undo it.
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Sophia Ali is a systems leader and social work educator whose work sits at the intersection of community health, psychotherapy, and regulatory leadership. She brings deep experience in advancing interprofessional collaboration, culturally responsive governance, and equity-centred policy within complex health systems.

Currently Executive Director of the Manitoba Alliance of Health Regulatory Colleges, Sophia has held senior roles across community health, clinical practice, and systems leadership. Her teaching and consulting integrate trauma-informed care, ethical decision-making, and organizational design grounded in lived realities.

Sophia teaches across post-secondary institutions and serves on national and regional boards focused on equity, mental health, and governance. Her work reflects a steady commitment to systems change that strengthens practitioner capacity while safeguarding human dignity.

Dr. Afsheen Anwar, Ph.D., C.Psych

Dr. Afsheen Anwar

Ph.D. · C.Psych

Focus: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

Evidence-based practice is only as sound as the worldview within which it is applied. My responsibility as faculty is to support practitioners in holding clinical rigor and cultural attunement as a single act of care.
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Dr. Afsheen Anwar is a Clinical and Counselling Psychologist whose work integrates evidence-based practice with cultural, relational, and faith-informed understanding. With over two decades of clinical experience, she brings a steady, attuned presence to both therapeutic work and teaching.

Her practice spans individual, couple, family, and group contexts, drawing on cognitive behavioural, emotion-focused, mindfulness-based, and systemic approaches. Dr. Anwar's work is grounded in a deep respect for worldview, culture, and meaning-making, including the thoughtful integration of spiritual and faith perspectives when clinically appropriate.

In addition to clinical practice, Dr. Anwar teaches and consults across academic and professional settings. Her work reflects a commitment to helping practitioners hold complexity with clarity, compassion, and ethical responsibility.

Jenn Cardoso, M.A., RP

Jenn Cardoso

M.A. · RP

Focus: Somatic Psychotherapy & Relational Healing

The body knows what cognition cannot reach in time. My responsibility as faculty is to help practitioners develop the nervous-system literacy that allows safety, attunement, and meaning to become possible in the room.
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Jenn Cardoso is a Registered Psychotherapist and somatic practitioner whose work centers on embodiment, relational awareness, and trauma-responsive healing. Her teaching is grounded in the understanding that the body holds essential knowledge — and that learning must attend to both physiological and relational experience.

With training in counselling psychology, somatic approaches, and trauma-informed movement, Jenn supports practitioners in developing presence, attunement, and nervous-system literacy. Her work emphasizes how safety, connection, and meaning are cultivated through embodied practice rather than technique alone.

As faculty, Jenn brings a steady, grounded presence to learning spaces, modeling how somatic awareness and relational integrity inform ethical trauma recovery practice. Her teaching reflects a commitment to holding complexity with care, clarity, and respect for lived experience.

Jacklyn Chung, M.Ed., RP, CCC

Jacklyn Chung

M.Ed. · RP · CCC

Focus: Culturally Sensitive & Feminist Therapy

Identity, power, and context are not background to clinical work — they are the conditions under which healing becomes possible. My responsibility as faculty is to support practitioners in holding these conditions with discernment rather than assumption.
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Jacklyn Chung is a Registered Psychotherapist and educator whose work is grounded in culturally responsive, feminist, and relational approaches to trauma-informed care. She brings experience across clinical, educational, and organizational contexts, with a consistent focus on how identity, power, and lived experience shape healing.

With advanced training in education and counselling psychology, Jacklyn's practice integrates trauma-informed, culturally sensitive, and relational frameworks. Her work attends to anxiety, depression, trauma, identity, grief, and relational distress, with particular attention to how individuals locate meaning, agency, and values within their lived realities.

As faculty, Jacklyn supports emerging practitioners in developing ethical awareness, relational discernment, and cultural humility. Her teaching emphasizes accountability to context, respect for complexity, and the responsibility inherent in holding others' stories within therapeutic and learning spaces.

Jamieson Eakin, MACP, BFA, RP

Jamieson Eakin

MACP · BFA · RP

Focus: LGBTQ+ Mental Health, Expressive Arts Therapy

Story, image, and embodiment carry what speech alone cannot. My responsibility as faculty is to help practitioners hold difference with care, so that trauma recovery remains both a personal and collective movement toward coherence.
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Jamieson Eakin is a Registered Psychotherapist and educator whose work integrates narrative, somatic, and creative approaches to trauma-informed care. Their practice is grounded in an understanding of identity, meaning-making, and the role of creativity in psychological healing.

Drawing on narrative therapy, internal family systems–informed thinking, and somatic strategies, Jamieson supports practitioners in working thoughtfully with trauma, identity, and relational complexity. Their approach attends to how stories are shaped by culture, power, and lived experience, and how therapeutic work can support agency, coherence, and self-efficacy.

As faculty, Jamieson brings an interdisciplinary lens to teaching, emphasizing cultural humility, accessibility, and ethical presence. Their work reflects a commitment to holding difference with care and to supporting trauma recovery as both a personal and collective process.

Cassandra Francis, MCP, RP

Cassandra Francis

MCP · RP

Focus: Embodiment, Relational Process, and Applied Care

Trauma is held in the body long before it is named. My responsibility as faculty is to help practitioners develop the relational presence and clinical judgment to work with emotion, regulation, and lived context as a single field of care.
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Cassandra Francis is a Registered Psychotherapist whose clinical work integrates mental health, physical well-being, and relational healing. Her entry into psychotherapy emerged through her early work as a Physiotherapist Assistant at Sunnybrook Hospital, where she developed a grounded understanding of how trauma, stress, and emotional suffering are held in the body. She brings over a decade of experience supporting individuals, couples, and groups navigating trauma, grief and loss, identity exploration, mood concerns, and life transitions.

Cassandra's practice is informed by Emotion-Focused Therapy, Attachment Theory, and Narrative approaches, applied within a trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and anti-oppressive framework. As Clinical Director of One Peace Therapy, she contributes to the development of interdisciplinary care models that integrate psychotherapy with broader wellness supports. Her work attends carefully to how emotional regulation, cultural context, and lived experience shape both suffering and recovery.

As faculty, Cassandra supports practitioners in developing clinical presence, ethical judgment, and responsiveness to complexity. Her teaching emphasizes discernment — knowing how to work relationally and responsibly across diverse client contexts — while maintaining respect for scope, limits, and professional accountability. She brings a steady, systems-aware perspective to trauma recovery education, grounded in practice that is both humane and clinically sound.

Chantal Gray, MSW, RSW

Chantal Gray

MSW · RSW

Focus: Intergenerational Trauma, Anti-Oppressive Practice

Trauma rarely begins with the person sitting in front of us. My responsibility as faculty is to support practitioners in working across generations with steadiness, cultural humility, and the discipline that complex family systems require.
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Chantal Gray is a Registered Social Worker and clinical leader whose work centers on trauma-informed, culturally responsive care across the lifespan. She brings extensive experience supporting children, families, and communities through intergenerational trauma, life transitions, and systemic stressors.

As Co-Founder and Clinical Director of Winrose Oasis Counselling Services, Chantal has led the development of holistic, community-anchored clinical programs grounded in safety, cultural humility, and relational care. Her practice integrates evidence-based approaches — including trauma counselling, play-based interventions, and EMDR — within a framework that honours family systems and cultural context.

As faculty, Chantal supports emerging practitioners in developing clinical discernment, ethical responsibility, and relational steadiness when working with complex family and community dynamics. Her teaching reflects a commitment to mentoring practitioners who can hold trauma with gentleness, clarity, and accountability across generations.

Ruth Bingham, MSW, RSW

Ruth Bingham

MSW · RSW

Focus: Spiritually Integrated Practice, Intergenerational Healing

Faith, meaning, and emotional suffering travel together for many of those we serve. My responsibility as faculty is to help practitioners hold spiritually integrated care with respect, clarity, and professional accountability.
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Ruth Bingham is a Registered Social Worker whose work integrates intergenerational trauma recovery with faith-informed and culturally responsive practice. She brings extensive experience supporting individuals, families, and communities in navigating trauma, life transitions, and questions of meaning and identity.

As Co-Founder of Winrose Oasis Counselling Services, Ruth has helped develop clinical services grounded in dignity, relational care, and ethical integration of spirituality within mental health practice. Her work draws on established clinical approaches alongside faith-integrated frameworks, attending carefully to how belief, culture, and personal values shape healing.

As faculty, Ruth supports practitioners in developing discernment around spiritually integrated care — emphasizing responsibility, cultural humility, and respect for diverse worldviews. Her teaching reflects a commitment to helping practitioners hold faith, meaning, and emotional suffering with integrity, clarity, and professional accountability.

Dr. Joan Samuels-Dennis, Founder of the Becoming Institute

Founder & Method Steward

Dr. Joan Samuels-Dennis

Founder, Becoming Institute

Developer & Steward, The Becoming Method®

Dr. Joan Samuels-Dennis is the founder of the Becoming Institute and the developer of The Becoming Method®, a trauma recovery framework grounded in truth-telling, conscious forgiveness, and relational reconciliation. She holds responsibility for the ethical integrity, clinical coherence, and ongoing evolution of the method across educational, clinical, and systems contexts.

With more than two decades of experience spanning nursing, psychotherapy, public health, and education, Dr. Joan's work focuses on building trauma recovery capacity within individuals, institutions, and communities. Her approach integrates clinical practice, systems thinking, and intergenerational understanding, positioning trauma recovery as both a personal and collective responsibility.

As Method Steward, Dr. Joan provides oversight of curriculum design, faculty formation, and standards of practice, ensuring that the Becoming Method® is taught with rigor, accountability, and respect for the complexity of human healing. Her role is not instructional alone, but custodial — holding the work in alignment with its philosophical foundations, clinical ethics, and public-interest mandate.

Contributions to Canadian Trauma Recovery

Where Canadian education has not gone, we have built.

Curriculum, system readiness, and standards of practice — authored by Dr. Joan and Becoming Institute to fill the gaps the field has left open. Three contributions, each shaping how Canada prepares, supports, and recognizes its next generation of trauma recovery clinicians.

Open clinical journal beside foundational trauma texts, with a Becoming Institute gold bookmark

Curriculum Design

The 12-Month Trauma Recovery Certificate

A year-long, scaffolded curriculum that prepares clinicians to hold trauma work as a human practice — not as a technique. Sequenced through stabilization, processing, and integration, the program builds clinical skill, cultural humility, and the relational capacity to remain present with complex stories of harm.

Designed for nurses, social workers, counsellors, and psychotherapists who want training that meets the depth of the work, the certificate combines live cohort learning, clinical practice, faculty mentorship, and structured reflection. A self-assessment helps you gauge readiness before you begin.

Review the curriculum
Layered vellum frameworks for organizational ecosystem, competency map, and workflow, with a gold compass

System Readiness

Preparing the System for a New Kind of Worker

Trained clinicians need a system that can receive them — employers who understand the role, insurers who recognize the scope, and institutions that can supervise and sustain the work. Dr. Joan authored the system-readiness framework that maps these conditions and names where the current system falls short.

The framework gives healthcare leaders, benefit designers, and policy stakeholders a shared language for what it takes to hire, integrate, and retain trauma recovery clinicians — so the workforce being trained today has a system ready to hold it tomorrow.

Read the framework
Bound Standards of Practice volume with embossed Becoming Institute gold seal

Standards of Practice

The RN-Psychotherapist Standards of Practice

Canadian nursing has long produced exceptional psychotherapists — yet no published standard defined the role. Becoming Institute went where other education bodies have not, authoring Canada's standards of practice for the RN-Psychotherapist: scope, accountabilities, ethical commitments, and the competencies required to hold trauma recovery as advanced nursing practice.

The document gives nurses a professional anchor, employers a hiring reference, and regulators a clearer view of the role. It is, in plain terms, the architecture of a profession being named into existence.

Read the standards

Continuing Engagement

Let's stay connected.

If our approach to teaching, stewardship, and trauma recovery resonates with you, we invite you to stay connected with the Becoming Institute.

We share reflections, educational resources, and program updates that support thoughtful practice, and the continued development of trauma recovery capacity across health, mental health, and community contexts.

Connection at the Becoming Institute is about alignment, discernment, and staying in conversation about what trauma recovery work demands of us.