Melissa recently joined the Small and Gutsy Board, and also serves as a Psychotherapist where her areas of focus are trauma, anxiety, depression, gender, sexuality, grief/ loss, parenting, and life transitions. She is also a Professor in the areas of Human Services and Early Education and is a 35- year veteran of the Human Services field where she has supported children and families, honed her skills in grant writing, and engaged in more than seven years formal research in the areas of:

- Mitigating Vicarious Trauma in child/caregiver dyads through radical self care.
-Using the Family Child Care Rating Scales to assess the impact of quality improvement grants, site visits, business supports, training and education in a network setting.
- Using the Child Care Business Administration Scales to illustrate the impact of business grants, work plans, mentoring, site visits, education and networking on child care businesses.
- Using the QUEST tool to determine the impact of training, education, mentoring, networking, site visits, parent subsidies, program grants and work plans on quality of care among child care center staff and family child care providers.

Melissa is honored to hold a Graduate Certificate in Infant/Toddler Mental Health and a Masters in Curriculum and Instruction from Portland State University as well as a Masters in Social Work from the University of Southern California. Melissa believes that our experiences, life connections, and environments, often impact how we move through the world in both challenging and supportive ways, and that we can learn more about ourselves through them.