Raised on the ancestral homeland of the Mi’kmaq and Beothuk, Amy (pronouns: she/her) calls the province of Newfoundland and Labrador home. Now living in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Amy resides on Treaty 8 Territory, the traditional meeting grounds, gathering place, and travelling route to the Cree, Dene, Dane-zaa (Beaver), and Metis.

Amy received her Certificate in Criminology (2012), Bachelor of Arts (2012), Bachelor of Social Work (2012), and Master of Social Work (2017) from Memorial University. In 2017, Amy was named a Fellow of the School of Graduate Studies at Memorial University.

Amy has spent the entirety of her career serving children and youth. For five years, Amy coordinated and directed programming to support children and youth exposed to family violence. Over the following five years, Amy provided therapeutic support to children and youth accessing mental health care in inpatient and community settings. In February 2022, Amy launched a private practice, Boreal Therapy Collective. Amy actively challenges the neoliberal structures that produce and perpetuate harm and advocates for systemic change within mental health care.

As a proud former unionist, Amy recognizes the power of collective action as a vehicle for social change. She acknowledges and values the labour movement, what it has done to advance working conditions and its tireless efforts toward achieving social and economic justice.

Merging her passion for mental health care and union activism, Amy is endeavouring to explore experiences of psychiatric weaponization among frontline healthcare workers who have disclosed a psychiatric diagnosis in the workplace. Underpinned by Foucault’s theory of disciplinary power and interpretative phenomenological analysis, her research aims to introduce a new – and well-hidden – area of inquiry within Canadian healthcare and labour relations.

In pursuit of her research aims, Amy has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Doctoral Fellowship - 2023-2026) and Memorial University of Newfoundland (Dean’s Excellence Award - 2023-2026).