Elizabeth Straka, Ph.D., is a member of the community who specializes as a loss and grief counselor.  She has been crucial in helping A Place To Start facilitate the caregiver support groups and now once a month, she joins us to host a Loss & Grief Group for our caregivers. In these sessions, she works to help our clients understand and navigate the feeling of losing their loved one with a dementia diagnosis, even though they are still living.....more commonly known as the long goodbye.

Elizabeth is a social-emotional-communication therapist, Center for Compassion, Altruism, Research & Education (CCARES) compassion ambassador, certified grief educator, end-of-life doula, author of Joy at the Edges of Grief, and reiki master who offers compassion events, grief programs, caregiver compassion training, one-on-one grief care, and reiki. She guides others to be fully present, heighten awareness, and cultivate compassion while teaching the importance of facing and caring for loss and grief.

For more on her services: https://www.growloveportalingawareness.com/about-elizabeth.html