Bio

Renee is a mom of a successful 27-year-old young woman who is living the life in sunny California and recently married her high school sweetheart. Renee and her husband, Rob, have been married for 34 years and are navigating new territory as empty nesters and rediscovering life with their passion for travel and the great outdoors.  They are avid travelers, campers, and hikers and have an extensive bucket list of National and State Parks to explore.  Renee also enjoys spending time with her family, reading, and gardening, with a love for succulents.

Renee attended Saint Xavier University and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders and continued her education to obtain a Master of Science degree in Speech-Language Pathology.  Renee began her career working in schools, primarily with programs to support children and young adults, aged 3-22, with severe to profound disabilities. This experience sparked her passion for ensuring every child has a way to communicate, despite verbal obstacles.  She began working in Early Intervention after seeing school aged children who were involved in the program making extensive progress.  Early Intervention was eye-opening and allowed Renee to directly connect with families and gain a deeper understanding of the family and their children’s needs for communication and feeding support.  This experience created a new passion for helping children with feeding difficulties, and Renee immersed herself into advanced continuing education courses to learn as much as possible about feeding disorders.

In 2013, she opened a private clinic where, today, she works with the pediatric population, aged birth to 17, while continuing to specialize in feeding and communication disorders. This includes articulation, phonological disorders, social language, executive functioning, auditory processing disorders, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), and expressive and receptive language disorders.  Through Early Intervention, Renee learned that parents know their children best and that children make more progress when providing families with practical, functional strategies and information alongside therapeutic intervention, which maximizes the benefit of therapy for the entire family.

When Renee discovered Forest School and their philosophy on educating children, it was as if her personal life and therapy life collided and suddenly, she found her purpose in life! Combining the ability to teach therapeutic strategies within the peaceful setting of nature is literally a dream come true for Renee. To foster her dream, she recently became a Certified Forest School teacher to extend her speech-language services to include the Forest School philosophy so that children can benefit from therapy by gaining confidence and independence in their communication skills, increasing their problem-solving skills, and learning about and exploring nature. Evolve Nature Therapy has given Renee the opportunity to help children and their families in nature with two other seasoned therapists. It is truly the best of both worlds. She can’t wait to see where life takes her from here!