Karene Martin-Russell

Karene Martin-Russell works from a straightforward conviction: no problem is too tangled to navigate, provided someone stays willing to do the work alongside you. Based in Oakville, Ontario, she has spent a decade as a Registered Social Worker helping children, teenagers, young adults, and families through anxiety, depression, trauma, self-harm, grief, family conflict, and the particular exhaustion of parenting through hard seasons. Her sessions are available online, meeting clients wherever they are.

Her primary tool is cognitive-behavioural therapy, woven together with mindfulness, distress tolerance, play therapy, and narrative techniques — chosen and adjusted for each person rather than applied by formula. She sees individuals not in isolation but in full context: family, culture, support networks, faith, and the texture of daily life. For a teenager who comes home to a phone full of messages yet feels completely unseen, that fuller picture matters as much as any clinical framework. Christian faith is available as part of that context for clients who want it.

Karene describes the work as genuinely collaborative: her expertise maps the terrain, but the client’s own effort is what creates movement. She is known for patience, for meeting people without judgment, and for refusing to give up — qualities her clients have named directly in thanking her. The moment she finds most meaningful is watching someone recognize, often for the first time, that change is actually within their reach.