“Dedicated to de-colonizing psychotherapy and supporting your continuous healing”

Thank you for your interest in Continuing Healing Consultants. We are Registered Psychotherapists dedicated to supporting individuals, groups, families, and organizations to embrace their continuous healing journeys of growth, resilience, and resistance through Anti-Oppression Psychotherapy.

Roberta K. Timothy, Ph.D., RP

Roberta K. Timothy, Ph.D., RP is a Registered Psychotherapist and Co-Founder of Continuing Healing Consultants. She has worked in the fields of mental health, adult education, community development, anti-oppression and intersectionality.
Roberta has extensive experience working with diverse communities, including children, youth, women, men, and seniors from under-housed, LGBTQI, disabled, religious/spiritually diverse, newcomer and refugee, ethno-racially diverse communities from rural and urban populations in Ontario and abroad.
For over 20 years Roberta has worked in the design, implementation, management, and evaluation of mental health and health promotion programs covering a broad range of specialized services such as victims of crimes support services, anti-violence/trauma clinical work, anti-oppression training, and train the trainee program development using face-to-face and web-based methods of instruction and service delivery. Roberta has expertise in organizational development consulting, including planning, supervision, conflict resolution, debriefing and evaluation. Roberta worked for over 20 years with children impacted by various forms of violence and trauma within diverse organizations. Her areas of expertise include Anti-Oppression Psychotherapy.

Roberta has extensive experience as a university-level appointed instructor for courses related to Human Rights, Political Sciences, Counselling Psychology, Community Development, and Health Promotion. In all her work, Roberta integrates innovative epistemologies with research, education and psychotherapeutic approaches that look at how the interplay of factors such as race, socio-economic status, (dis)ability, immigration status, sexual orientation, age, and spirituality manifest in historic and contemporary systemic social exclusion and violence. Additionally, Roberta’s work has been characterized by a commitment to facilitating social change through knowledge exchange and transfer among diverse communities.

Roberta’s qualifications are the following:

  • Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and Sociology, specializing in International Justice and Human Rights (McMaster University, 1992-1996).
  • Master of Arts degree in Political Science, focusing on feminist perspectives and cross-cultural perspectives to community, international development, anti-racism praxis, and political social action (University of Guelph, 1997-1998).
  • Master of Education in Counselling Psychology for community and educational settings(Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto,2007-2009)
  • Doctor of Philosophy degree in Adult Education, Community Development, and the collaborative program in Women and Gender Studies (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto, 2000-2007)
  • Postdoctoral fellowship by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Research conducted focused on the criminalization of non-disclosure of HIV positive status on racialized communities in Ontario (Counselling Psychology Department at University of Toronto, 2011-2013).

Mercedes Umaña, Ph.D., RP

Mercedes Umaña, Ph.D. (ABD), RP

Mercedes is a Registered Psychotherapist and co-founder of Continuing Healing Consultants. For over 20 years Mercedes has provided psychotherapy services in private practice and in multidisciplinary primary health teams, to individuals dealing with complex mental health needs such as acute and chronic PTSD, bipolar disorder, depression, psychosis, dementia, bereavement, and mental distress as a result of health concerns such as HIV/AIDS, cancer, fibromyalgia, diabetes and heart disease, among others. Additionally, for the past 10 years Mercedes has been a provider of emergency counselling/psychotherapy for victims/witnesses of crimes through the Ontario Attorney General Victim Quick Response Program (VQRP).
Mercedes areas of expertise include Anti-Oppression Psychotherapy, community mental health, health psychology, trauma, post-traumatic growth, bereavement, HIV, and intersectional research methodologies and knowledge translation.
Mercedes has over 20 years of experience in design and delivery of training on anti-oppression and intersectionality, particularly in relation to mental health service provision with emphasis on inclusive and culturally competent service provision to diverse communities, specifically looking at the impact of factors such as race, indigeneity, gender, gender identities, socio-economic status, age, sexual orientation, (dis)ability, and spirituality.
Mercedes has extensive experience in program coordination, monitoring and evaluation locally and transnationally. She has expertise in knowledge transfer within multidisciplinary environments, and in group facilitation in clinical, educational, and organizational settings dealing with conflict resolution, community mediation, and debriefing.
Mercedes qualifications are the following:

  • Bachelor of Science in Psychology (Central American University Jose Simeon Cañas, El Salvador, 1999)
  • Master of Education in Counselling Psychology for Community Settings (OISE University of Toronto, 2006)
  • Doctor of Philosophy (ABD) in Clinical and Counselling Psychology (OISE University of Toronto, in progress)