About
For much of my career, I have been interested in the same underlying question:
What helps people learn, grow and do meaningful work, and what needs to change around them to make that possible?
That question has followed me through work in education, career development, employment services, workforce development, organizational growth and psychologically safe leadership.
It is also what led me to create Acorn Avenue.
Today, I am building Acorn Avenue as an applied research and implementation practice focused on the future of healthy work, particularly within small organizations where leaders care deeply about their people but may not have a large HR department, organizational-development team or dedicated workplace specialist to help turn those intentions into everyday practice.
My work explores how small organizations can create healthier, more sustainable and neuro-inclusive ways of working so that people, careers and organizational purpose can grow together.
My Career Journey So Far...
My career has never followed one perfectly straight path. I began in education and educational psychology, deeply interested in how people learn and how relationships, environments and systems shape their development.
Early in my career, I had the opportunity to be part of an action-research team exploring professional learning and change in early-childhood education. That work contributed to two publications:
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Play in Early Learning Programs: Beliefs, Practices and Professional Development; and
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From Child-Minders to Professionals: Insights From an Action Research Project on Prince Edward Island.
I loved the process of listening closely to people’s experiences, examining the systems surrounding their work and using what we learned to support meaningful change. I hoped research would remain part of my career.
Over the years, I worked as an educator, workforce-development coordinator, career strategist and organizational-development leader. I supported individuals navigating career decisions and workplace barriers. I also worked inside organizations, helping to develop programs, policies, processes, communications and systems while balancing the practical realities of day-to-day operations.
Again and again, I saw the same challenge:
People were often being asked to solve individually what was partly an organizational or systemic problem.
A person could improve their résumé, build confidence, develop new skills or learn to advocate for themselves, but the workplace they entered still played an enormous role in whether they could contribute, grow and sustain their career.
That realization gradually shifted my work upstream. I became increasingly interested not only in helping people navigate workplaces, but in helping workplaces become environments where more people can succeed.
The work I am buildling now:
Acorn Avenue is evolving into an applied research and implementation practice dedicated to healthier work.
The work sits at the intersection of:
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career development;
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organizational design;
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psychologically safe leadership;
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neuroinclusive practice;
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adult learning;
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workforce development;
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employee growth;
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and practical organizational change.
I am particularly interested in the realities of small workplaces. In many small businesses, clinics, non-profits, professional practices and community organizations, the person responsible for employees may also be responsible for operations, client service, scheduling, finances, hiring and organizational growth.
Workplace development happens in the small spaces around the primary work. Policies are created when a new situation arises. Career conversations happen informally. Leaders are learning as they go. Employees may have few traditional opportunities for advancement, even when they are capable of growing in meaningful ways.
These organizations are not smaller versions of large corporations. They need approaches that recognize their relationships, limitations, strengths and operational realities.
My goal is to help develop those approaches through a process of: listening, understanding, co-designing, piloting, evaluating and translating. In other words, let's figure out what actually works for smaller organizations and then help them do more of what works for their needs, their workplaces, and their employees.
The Future of Healthy Work
I am currently developing an Acorn Avenue research and implementation program called The Future of Healthy Work. Its guiding question is:
What does it take to create ways of working in which people, careers and organizational purpose can develop sustainably together?
The first proposed area of research examines the small workplace itself as career-development infrastructure.
Career development does not happen only when someone is choosing an occupation, searching for work or making a career transition.
It happens through everyday experiences such as: understanding a role, receiving feedback, learning new responsibilities, asking questions, navigating mistakes, requesting support or accommodations, contributing ideas, accessing opportunities, and imagining a sustainable future within an organization.
Every workplace shapes careers, whether it does so intentionally or not.
The proposed project will explore how small New Brunswick organizations can become more supportive environments for sustainable, psychologically healthy and neuro-inclusive career development, particularly when they do not have dedicated HR or career-development capacity. The intention is to create practical, evidence-informed approaches that small organizations and career-development professionals can realistically use.
Why This Work Matters to Me
I believe that healthy work should not depend on having the right personality, understanding unwritten expectations or being endlessly capable of adapting to unclear and unsustainable systems.
I believe people should be able to:
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understand what is expected of them;
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contribute their strengths;
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ask questions without fear;
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receive useful feedback;
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access meaningful learning;
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request support without sacrificing opportunity;
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and build careers that do not require them to continually trade their health for success.
I also believe small-organization leaders need support. Many leaders genuinely want to build respectful and inclusive workplaces. They may understand the importance of employee wellbeing, psychological safety and professional growth while still struggling to implement these ideas alongside the immediate demands of running an organization.
Healthy work has to be good for people. It also has to be practical enough for organizations to maintain. That is the space I want Acorn Avenue to help explore.
My Approach
Human-centred: I begin by listening to the people closest to the work and recognizing that employees and leaders may experience the same system differently.
Evidence-informed: I draw from research in career development, organizational psychology, learning, psychological safety, neuro-inclusion and workplace design.
Practical: A good recommendation must be possible to understand, implement and sustain within the realities of the organization.
Collaborative: The people affected by workplace systems should have opportunities to help shape them.
Curious: I do not assume that one framework or best practice will work everywhere. I want to understand what works, for whom, in which settings and under what conditions.
Systems-oriented: Individual experiences matter, but they do not happen in isolation. I look at the expectations, relationships, routines and structures surrounding them.
Experience and Education
My professional background includes work in:
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career development and career strategy;
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employment counselling;
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workforce-development programming;
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adult and post-secondary education;
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organizational development;
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project management and implementation;
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learning and client success;
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policy and process development;
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psychologically safe leadership;
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neuro-inclusive practice;
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and small, community-based and mission-driven organizations.
My education and professional preparation include:
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a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology;
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a Bachelor of Education;
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a Master of Education in Educational Psychology and Human Relations;
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Certifications as a Career and Work-Life Strategist and Psychologically Safe Leadership
Working Together
I welcome conversations with:
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small-business and organizational leaders;
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career-development professionals;
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workforce and economic-development organizations;
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non-profits and community organizations;
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women-led and mission-driven workplaces;
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disability, accessibility and neurodiversity organizations;
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researchers and evaluators;
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potential pilot organizations;
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funders and knowledge-sharing partners;
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and people with lived experience of navigating barriers within workplace systems.
You do not need to arrive with a fully formed project or partnership idea. Sometimes the most valuable starting point is a conversation about what you are noticing, what your organization is struggling to implement or what questions you believe the future of healthy work needs to answer.
I am based in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and I care deeply about the strength and sustainability of the organizations that serve our communities.
I am a researcher at heart, an educator by training and a practical problem-solver in how I approach my work. I am happiest when I am listening carefully, noticing connections, making sense of a complex situation and helping turn big ideas into something people can genuinely use. Acorn Avenue is the place where those parts of my work finally come together. It is an opportunity to keep asking the questions I have carried throughout my career, and to build a body of work dedicated to helping people and systems work better together.