We Are a Network of Queer and Trans-identified Mental Health Professionals Who Serve the 2SLGBTQIA Community
If you're looking for LGBTQ Mental Health Counseling Caledon East, you need a therapist who understands your experience without requiring you to educate them about your identity, relationships, or lived reality. Umbrella Mental Health Network brings specialized, culturally competent care directly to you in Caledon East and throughout the Greater Toronto Area, with registered psychotherapists and social workers trained in trauma-informed, anti-oppressive practice. Caledon East is a tight-knit community in Peel Region where many people balance rural and suburban life while staying connected to Toronto's broader queer networks. Whether you're navigating coming out in a smaller town, exploring your gender or sexual identity away from a city center, managing the isolation that can come with being LGBTQ+ in a quieter area, or simply looking for genuine, affirming support closer to home, finding the right therapist matters. You deserve care that meets you where you are, not care that centers cis and heterosexual experience as the default. Culturally competent care means your therapist has done the work to understand queer and trans experience from the inside out-not as pathology, but as a real, valid way of being in the world. At Umbrella Mental Health Network, every clinician approaches your care through a lens shaped by feminism, social justice, decolonization, and genuine respect for sexual and gender diversity. This isn't surface-level allyship; it's a fundamental orientation built into how they listen, ask questions, and help you move forward. When you work with Umbrella, you get: Umbrella Mental Health Network serves people across a full range of concerns that affect 2SLGBTQIA individuals and families. You might come to therapy for one reason and discover that your work touches on others-that's normal, and your therapist will move with you. Common areas where people seek support include: The relationship between you and your therapist is the most important part of therapy-all the training in the world won't help if you don't feel safe and seen. Umbrella Mental Health Network is built on the belief that you deserve a therapist who gets it, and that finding that fit is worth your time. When you're looking for support, think about what matters most to you. Do you want someone with specific expertise in gender identity work, or are you looking primarily for trauma recovery? Are you seeking couples therapy, or individual counselling? Do you want to work with someone who has lived experience in the queer community, or is it more important that they demonstrate deep competence and genuine commitment to your liberation? There's no single right answer-what matters is what resonates with you. Umbrella's clinicians bring expertise across couples therapy, trauma recovery, gender identity exploration, and queer family planning. They're available to serve people in Caledon East and throughout the GTA, and they work with the understanding that therapy itself should be anti-oppressive-meaning you're not paying to be pathologized or to fix yourself to fit into a world that wasn't built for you. If you're searching for mental health support that actually understands your life, values your identity, and greets your whole self with respect, reaching out to Umbrella Mental Health Network is a real option. You can connect with them to explore whether they're the right fit and to find a therapist who meets you where you are. Yes. Umbrella Mental Health Network serves Caledon East with registered psychotherapists and social workers who specialize in LGBTQ+ mental health care. Every clinician is trained in trauma-informed, anti-oppressive practice grounded in values of social justice and genuine affirmation of queer and trans identity. Trauma-informed means your therapist understands how discrimination, marginalization, and unsafe environments affect your nervous system and wellbeing. Anti-oppressive means they actively work against their own biases and the systems that harm LGBTQ+ people, rather than asking you to adapt to those systems. Yes. Umbrella Mental Health Network has specific expertise in gender and sexual identity exploration. Whether you're questioning, coming out, considering transition, or supporting a young person through their own journey, therapists can provide space for that work without pressure or predetermined outcomes. Yes. Umbrella provides couples therapy and ENM (ethical non-monogamy) counselling designed specifically for queer relationships. They support communication, boundary-setting, and building the relationship structures that actually work for you.Lgbtq Mental Health Counseling Caledon East
What Makes Culturally Competent LGBTQ Mental Health Counseling Caledon East Different?
Because you're holding multiple identities-your queerness, your gender, your race, your class, your ability status, your role in your family-good therapy honors all of those at once, not just the parts your therapist happens to be trained in.
What Issues Can You Address in LGBTQ Mental Health Counseling in Caledon East?
How Do You Find the Right Therapist for You in Caledon East?
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there LGBTQ-affirming therapy available in Caledon East?
What does trauma-informed, anti-oppressive therapy actually mean?
Can I access LGBTQ Mental Health Counseling Caledon East if I'm exploring my gender identity?
Does Umbrella offer couples or relationship counselling for queer couples?

Acknowledgement
Tkaronto and the surrounding areas that we serve are within the Dish With One Spoon Territory. The Dish With One Spoon is a treaty between the Anishinaabe, Mississaugas and Haudenosaunee that bound them to share the territory and protect the land. Subsequent Indigenous Nations and Peoples, Europeans and all newcomers have been invited into this treaty in the spirit of peace, friendship and respect.
We at Umbrella recognize that the professions of psychology, psychotherapy, and social work have roots in colonial violence. As psychotherapists and social workers, we understand that we have a responsibility to continuously work to decolonize the practice of psychotherapy/social work and acknowledge the origins of the various healing practices we utilize.
Our therapists actively engage in regular training that emphasizes professional development, team support, and sharing the current knowledge in 2SLGBTQIA mental health, to ensure the highest level of care for our clients.
Meet Our Team
Christopher Shillington
MA, CCC, RP
(they/them)
Clinic Director/ Registered Psychotherapist
Areas of focus:
- Healthy Relationships
- Intersectional Identities
- Trauma & PTSD

Andrés Gayoso Descalzi
MSW,RSW
(he/him)
Registered Social Worker
Areas of focus:
- Gender Identity & Embodiment
- Life Changes & Transitions
- 2SLGBTQIA+ Youth & Families

Aysha Natsheh
MSW, RSW
Registered Social Worker
Areas of focus:
- Food, Body, Self-Image
- Trauma
- Gender & Sexual Identity
Bushra Ahmed
MSW, RSW
Registered Social Worker
Areas of focus:
- 2SLGBTQIA+ Youth
- Exploring Neurodivergent Identities
- Impact of Oppression & Trauma on Mental Health

Clara Doucette
MA, RP (Qualifying)
(she/her)
Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying)
Areas of focus:
- Relational Styles & Attachment
- Friendships & Kinship
- Stress
Cressida Frey
MSW, RSW (she/her) Registered Social WorkerAreas of focus:
- Children, Adolescents and Adults
- Violence, Trauma and Healing
- Stress and Anxiety
Derek Cassidy
MSW, RSW
(he/him/they/them)
Registered Social Worker
Areas of focus:
- Relationships and Attachment
- Complex, Relational Trauma
- Sexuality and Sexual Health

Jesmen Mendoza
C.Psych. (he/him) Adjunct PsychologistAreas of focus:
- Complex Mental Health
- Consultation

Jett Peters
MSW Candidate
(they/them)
Student Therapist
Areas of focus:
- Gender Identity
- Relationship(s) with Food & Body
- Trauma
Kathryn Bargis
MSc, RP (she/her) Registered PsychotherapistAreas of focus:
- Relationships
- Trauma
- Gender and Sexual Identity
Maxine Bower
MSW, RSW (she/her) Registered Social WorkerAreas of focus:
- Attachment in Individuals and in Relationships
- Complex Trauma
- Deepening Connections
Nicholas Sorg
MSc, RP
(he/him)
Registered Psychotherapist
Areas of focus:
- Stress, Anxiety, and Depression
- Sexual Identity Development
- Alternative Relationships, Relationship and Family Stress
Rae Griffin-Carlson
MSW, RSW
(she/her)
Registered Social Worker
Areas of focus:
- 2SLGBTQIA+ Youth & Adults
- Stress, Anxiety & Depression
- Sexual & Gender-based Violence

Rahim Thawer
MSW, RSW
(he/him)
External Clinical Supervisor
Areas of focus:
- Identity Conflict & Shame
- Dating, Relationships, Single by Chance/Choice
- Sexualized Substance Use

Saadia Khan
BA (they/them) Administrative and Social Media Assistant
Stephanie Wu
RP, Professional Art Therapist
(they/them)
Registered Psychotherapist
Areas of focus:
- Intimate Partner Violence, Sexual Assault & Childhood Abuse
- Impacts of Oppression
- 2SLGBTQIA+ Youth & Adults







