Rise. Lead. Transform.

Nicola is a Registered Psychotherapist, facilitator, and volunteer dedicated to service and community well-being. Her psychotherapy work supports people through life transitions, relationships, and grief.

She was among the first facilitators certified in Dr. Terry Orlick’s Positive Living Skills program, which shaped her approach to resilience, personal development, and leadership.

Her community involvement includes volunteering with Toronto’s University Health Network, supporting Ottawa families as a volunteer birth partner, as a licensed wedding officiant, and as Vice-President and co-founder of the Club Optimiste de la Région de Russell. She has also trained volunteers for a telephone support program for lonely and isolated seniors.

Across these roles, Nicola’s approach is rooted in relationships, community strengthening, and helping people feel connected and supported.

Tina-Marie brings more than 15 years of corporate experience in human resources, leadership, organizational development, and career support. Her clinical work integrates trauma-informed, person-centred, and CBT-informed approaches to help people navigate career change, uncertainty, and transition with greater clarity and self-understanding.

Melissa takes a warm, relational, and down-to-earth approach to therapy. She believes therapy should be a place where clients can better understand themselves and the patterns that may be keeping them stuck, while also developing practical ways to create meaningful change.

She works with teens and adults experiencing anxiety, trauma, eating disorders, body image concerns, low self-worth, perfectionism, people-pleasing, ADHD, emotional regulation difficulties, and relationship challenges. Many of the clients Melissa works with are people who tend to overthink, put a great deal of pressure on themselves, struggle with boundaries, or find themselves repeating patterns they understand intellectually but have difficulty changing.

With a background in psychology, counselling, and holistic nutrition, Melissa brings an integrative perspective to her work. Her nutrition background provides an additional understanding of the complex relationship between food, body image, emotional well-being, and overall health, particularly when working with eating and body-related concerns.

Her work goes beyond simply identifying what is wrong. Melissa helps clients understand where patterns may have developed, recognize what continues to reinforce them, and begin responding to themselves and their relationships differently. Her goal is to help clients build greater self-worth, emotional resilience, healthier relationships, and a stronger sense of trust in themselves.

Bridging mental health and financial wellbeing, he guides individuals in gaining insight into their financial circumstances, understanding financial stressors, and developing greater confidence and awareness on their journey toward financial independence.

Jenny brings a practical and accessible approach to AI education, helping people understand how artificial intelligence is changing everyday life, education and work. Her focus is not only on what AI tools can do, but on how to use them thoughtfully — with attention to critical thinking, accuracy, privacy, bias and responsible decision-making. She aims to help participants build confidence with emerging technology while developing the judgment needed to evaluate AI-generated information and use AI as a tool rather than a substitute for their own thinking.

Nina Sadeghi brings 15 years of medical experience from underserved and war-affected communities in Iran to work alongside highly experienced surgical teams. Those contrasting experiences showed her the powerful connection between physical and mental health, shaping her passion for prevention, early intervention, and ultimately counselling and psychotherapy in Canada.

Linda is a mental health professional with a strong clinical and academic foundation in mental health care. She is a graduate of the Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology (MACP) program and also holds a Bachelor of Psychiatric Nursing and a Bachelor of Arts with a major in Psychology. Linda brings extensive mental health experience to her counselling practice, helping individuals recognize their strengths, overcome barriers, and reach their full potential. Through a compassionate, collaborative, and evidence-based approach, she supports clients in building confidence, developing greater self-awareness, and creating meaningful, lasting change in both their personal and professional lives.

Kathleen brings more than 35 years of experience in health, fitness, rehabilitation, and therapeutic practice to her work as Rising Star’s Physical Fitness Specialist. With a background spanning kinesiology, psychotherapy, aquatic rehabilitation, yoga therapy, and mind-body approaches to wellness, she offers a uniquely integrated perspective on the relationship between physical health, emotional well-being, and overall quality of life.

Kathleen is a Registered Psychotherapist and Registered Kinesiologist with a Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology. Her extensive professional background includes work in fitness and exercise, rehabilitation, chronic pain and injury recovery, neurological and orthopaedic conditions, stress management, trauma-informed care, and therapeutic movement.

Her counselling approach recognizes that mental and physical health are deeply interconnected. Stress, anxiety, trauma, injury, chronic pain, life transitions, and changes in physical function can all affect the way a person feels in their body and engages with everyday life. Kathleen helps clients better understand these connections while developing practical strategies to support emotional regulation, confidence, resilience, movement, and healthy lifestyle habits.

Her clinical training incorporates evidence-informed approaches including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) skills, Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), trauma-informed care, nervous-system regulation, mindfulness, and somatic-informed interventions. She also draws upon her extensive background in kinesiology, therapeutic exercise, aquatic rehabilitation, and yoga-based therapeutic practices when appropriate.

Kathleen particularly enjoys helping people reconnect with their bodies and discover realistic, sustainable ways to support their health. Rather than focusing on perfection or a one-size-fits-all definition of fitness, she encourages clients to explore movement, self-care, and lifestyle practices that fit their individual abilities, circumstances, and goals.

Whether someone is navigating stress, rebuilding after injury, managing chronic pain, struggling with motivation, adjusting to changes in physical ability, or simply wanting to feel healthier and more connected to themselves, Kathleen provides a supportive and practical space to work toward greater physical and emotional well-being.

Areas of Focus: Fitness & healthy lifestyle • Mind-body wellness • Stress and nervous-system regulation • Anxiety and mood • Injury and rehabilitation • Chronic pain • Functional recovery • Therapeutic movement • Mindfulness • Building confidence and resilience

Tara brings a unique perspective to the Legal Health pillar of Rising Star. After practising law, she recognized that many people were not simply looking for legal answers — they were seeking confidence, clarity, and a greater sense of control during life’s most challenging moments. That realization led her to transition into psychotherapy, where she continues to help clients navigate uncertainty with compassion and evidence-based care.

Through Legal Awareness, Tara combines her legal background with psychotherapy to help individuals approach life’s legally significant moments with greater confidence, agency, and resilience.

“People often think they need all the answers. They don’t. They need the confidence to take the next right step and know where to turn when they need help.”