Release date: March 11, 2024
Healthy relationships are a building block of resilience and, according to the science, a major predictor of happier and healthier lives. My guest today, Kimberly Louvin, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a therapist who has as adopted a “relationship-first” approach. Kim “enjoys helping young people and their families contemplate how to take a closer look at their relationships with one another.” I believe that her insights can help you do the same. This episode was intentionally produced to support the formation and coordination of adolescent-centered care and services, so you also will hear from Vinny Chulani of the Arizona Alliance for Adolescent Health. It was recorded live using a webinar platform to encourage questions from alliance members and other listeners. More information about Kim and about the Arizona Alliance for Adolescent Health is below.
Biography of Kimberly Louvin
Kimberly (Kim) Louvin is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who currently runs an online private practice offering mental health support to teens, families, and organizations. Kim is licensed in Oregon, Washington, Tennessee, and Florida to provide therapy services and offers consultation to professionals across all 50 states and internationally upon request.
Prior to launching her private practice, Kim worked across the K-12 Education System and spent time working with young adults in a University Setting through AmeriCorps developing service learning and student leadership programs. Kim enjoys helping young people and their families contemplate how to take a closer look at their relationship with one another and themselves while unpacking the emotional regulation, communication, and coping patterns we engage in during times of stress, conflict, and trauma.
During the last 5 years, she has also developed and implemented Suicide Prevention curricilum for high school students and helped several school districts create more trauma-informed and neurodivergent-affirming student behavior, discipline, and crisis response systems.
Kim operates from a relationship-first framework and encourages clients and others to consider how each interaction with another person is an opportunity to model and develop healthier relationships. As a survivor of an abusive relationship, Kim is passionate about ensuring teens, educators, and families have access to evidence based, trauma informed, REAL education around how to know the signs of unhealthy relationships, how to communicate ones needs and boundaries clearly, what consent is and is not, and how to see ALL connections to others as relationships worth cultivating as healthy relationships.
Kim brings a unique perspective to the conversation of healthy relationships and healing relational trauma through adolescence and young adulthood.
Kim is an autistic adult who was diagnosed later in life as autistic and having ADHD who is passionate about helping teens and young adults discover themselves in ways that affirm rather than stigmatize their neurodivergence and passions.
Kim grew up outside Nashville, TN and spent much of her formative years without access to high-quality, evidence-based, inclusive sexuality and relationship education.
Biography of Veenod Chulani
Dr. Chulani is Section Chief of Adolescent Medicine at Phoenix Children’s Hospital and Clinical Professor of Pediatrics in the University of Arizona -Phoenix Department of Child Health. He is also a founding member and clinical consultant to the Arizona Alliance for Adolescent Health. He completed his pediatric residency training at Maimonides Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York; his fellowship in Adolescent Medicine at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles; and, his Master’s in Education from the University of Southern California-Keck School of Medicine. His clinical and research interests include adolescent sexual and reproductive health, the care of gay, lesbian, bisexual transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth, health equity promotion and diversity and inclusion. He has lectured nationally and internationally on a host of topics related to Adolescent Medicine. He has delivered lectures and workshops nationally and internationally and is the recipient of numerous awards recognizing his contribution to adolescent health.
Biography of Beheir Thompson
Beheir Thompson (she/her) serves as Adolescent Health Program Coordinator for Affirm. Primarily, she works to include and uplift youth voice to ensure healthcare and social service spaces are welcoming, safe, and informed by the young people they serve. She has a background in Public Health, specifically, human growth and development, healthy weight, and behavioral health initiatives. She believes in the power of lived experiences and storytelling and uses this to inform her work and daily life. Beheir has been dedicated to improving the lives of children and families for over 10 years. She is passionate about creating spaces where folks feel a sense of safety and belonging, to build and sustain healthy relationships.
Links
Kimberly Louvin
The State of Adolescent Health in Arizona: A Status Report
Arizona Alliance for Adolescent Health
