Meet the BPAR Team

BPAR has built a team of mental health professionals who are passionate about our mission. As specially trained adoption-informed therapists, we have a unique understanding of how challenges or behaviors may be connected to the adoption experience. We believe the relationship between client and therapist is the most important piece of our therapy, and we will work at your pace, meeting you or your family wherever you are on your adoption journey.

Now Hiring!

Click here to read about our wonderful opportunity!

"At BPAR, my children do not need to justify their life. The therapists and staff welcome the complexity of adoption, identity, and loss and walk with my children on their journey to learn, explore, and heal."

—LORI, ADOPTIVE PARENT

"I think it’s about the really thoughtful approach that you take. And I think that this is the first time I’ve ever gone to a place where listening seems to be the first objective. What is really steadfast, honest, clear-sighted, intentional, thoughtful advice and just love towards me sort of rubs off and helps my own development."

—DAN, FOSTER PARENT

KC Craig, LICSW
Executive Director, Clinical Director

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I am a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker. I am passionate about working with children and families, and most of my career I have focused on helping individuals and complex-blended families who are adopted, divorced, experiencing major life changes or have a history of trauma. My work often centers on depression or anxiety related to relationships. Since 2011, I have specialized in working with adopted individuals and families, including identity work around loss and parent consultations. I focus on empowering the family system by incorporating cognitive-behavioral, narrative and solution-based techniques as well as some art and play interventions. I value self-care and meditation. I am EMDR trained, Reiki Level I trained, and completed an MBSR course. I love the way BPAR encourages wellness both for our families and for our staff!

Madison Janke, LMHC, R-DMT
Licensed Clinical Supervisor, Clinician

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I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Registered Dance/Movement Therapist. I have worked in outpatient, therapeutic day schools, milieu and residential settings, utilizing trauma-informed therapy, relational-cultural therapy, cognitive behavior therapy, play therapy, mindfulness, developmental theories, dialectical behavior therapy, group therapy, dance/movement therapy and expressive therapies. I specialize in working with children and teens who are addressing adoption trauma, identity and attachment, emotional regulation, complicated family dynamics, anxiety, loss, depression, and behavioral diagnoses. I am interested in how the body holds memory, history, sensations and experiences and how past and current relationships can shape an individual's identity and contribute towards healing. I use a creative, holistic, and relational approach with my clients to encourage self-discovery and growth. I believe that the clients with whom I work have unique qualities and strengths that they can further develop, refine, and utilize through the therapeutic relationship. I am very excited to join the BPAR team and work with everyone touched by adoption.

Lillian Jiwoo Hexter, LMHC
Licensed Clinician

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I’m a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) and transracial Korean adoptee. I earned a Master’s in Mental Health Counseling from Boston College and I’m passionate about working with adolescent and adult adoptees as they navigate identity, belonging, and loss. I specialize in supporting clients with racial, ethnic, and cultural identity development; birth family search and reunion; and expanding one’s family as an adoptee.

My counseling style is collaborative, trauma and attachment-informed, and centered on meeting clients where they are in their journey. I draw from feminist and relational-cultural therapy, liberatory and decolonizing frameworks, play therapy techniques, and internal family systems (IFS). I’m very excited to be starting IFS level one training in February 2026!

Outside of clinical work, I’m part of an adoption counseling psychology research lab and have presented at conferences such as the International Symposium on Korean Adoption Studies (ISKAS), the International Conference on Adoption Research (ICAR), and the UMass Amherst Rudd Summer Adoption Research Institute (SARI). I integrate my experience as a clinician, researcher, and adoptee to support clients in their exploration and healing.

Mirela Caron, LMHC
Licensed Clinician

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Mirela Caron, LMHC
Licensed Clinician

I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor with an MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling
from Lesley University. Before joining BPAR in 2023, I provided trauma-informed clinical care
for youth in DCF group homes and spent several years supporting K–12 students in both public
and private school settings. I also previously volunteered with a Boston Children’s
Hospital–affiliated group that offers clinical consultation to a nonprofit serving at-risk and
abandoned youth, as well as Ukrainian refugees, in Romania.
My commitment to supporting individuals connected to adoption is deeply informed by my lived
experience as an international adoptee from Romania. Through a compassionate and informed
approach, I strive to honor each client’s unique story and help them navigate their adoption
experience with clarity, resilience, and connection.
I draw upon the Attachment, Regulation, and Competency (ARC) Model, a developmentally
based framework for addressing complex trauma, to guide and enhance my clinical work. My
holistic treatment style incorporates a range of therapeutic modalities, including Play Therapy,
Art Therapy, Sensory Motor Arousal Regulation Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and
Animal-Assisted Therapy. At BPAR, I support clients with diverse backgrounds in foster care,
kinship placements, and domestic and international adoption through individual, family, parent,
and group therapy.

Sahita Pierre-Antoine, MA
Clinician

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I am a Registered Dance/Movement Therapist and a Master’s level clinician, working toward Licensure. My previous professional experiences in the nonprofit sector in my home country of Haiti, my clinical experience with survivors of domestic violence, and my personal experiences as a multilingual Black Haitian immigrant woman play a big part in my approach to counseling. Through a trauma-informed, intersectional feminist, relational-cultural, and movement and expressive therapies-based lens, I encourage and accompany the individuals I work with to hold a spirit of curiosity as they explore the different ways in which they exist in the world as adoptees. Together, I am looking forward to co-creating a therapeutic space where they can address their trauma, losses and grief, identities, relationships, and their multicultural and intercultural experiences.

Angela Smith, LICSW
Licensed Clinician

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I am a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker. I started my journey working with families and children after completing my MSW from New York University in 2015. I have welcomed the opportunity to work in multiple settings, with clients from all stages of life, providing individual and group therapy as well as advocacy and support to survivors of abuse within the legal and child welfare systems. I specialize in working with children, teens, and adults to address a wide range of issues such as anxiety, parenting skills, depression, life transitions, foster care, adoption, attachment difficulties, relational issues and trauma. In sessions, I utilize a holistic approach which includes a trauma-informed lens, cognitive behavioral therapy, motivational interviewing, as well as systems and structural approaches. I am deeply interested in amplifying the strengths and creativity of each person, and the most rewarding part of my work is the progress I see in my clients.

Darci Nelsen, PhD, LMHC, BC-DMT
Fee-for-Service Clinician

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I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Dance/Movement Therapist with over a decade of experience providing clinical services to clients across multiple settings including inpatient psychiatry, community based outpatient therapy, and special education. My clinical work has been centered around supporting children, teens, and their families in navigating the complexities that result from developmental trauma, foster care, and adoption. In 2023, I completed my doctoral education, where my research concentrated on amplifying the voices of individuals with lived experience in foster care and adoption, specifically exploring the concept of relational permanence. In my work with clients, I draw on a variety of therapeutic approaches informed by training in expressive arts, as well as attachment, relational-cultural, and family systems theories. I always aim to co-create a supportive space with my clients where curiosity and self-exploration can support movement toward deeper connection to self and others.

Seana Peterson, LICSW
Fee-for-Service Clinician

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I am a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker, and I am thrilled to be joining the BPAR team as a group therapist. I provide therapy that is relational, affirming, and trauma-responsive. My work centers on healing one's relationship with the self, lineage, and community, and is informed by my lived experience as a Black, queer, transracial adoptee. I work intuitively and creatively, weaving together evidence-based approaches (EMDR and IFS), somatic approaches (EFT Tapping), and the cosmic language of astrology and the tarot.

Eli Lauzé-Yesayian
Clinical Intern

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I am a clinical intern in my second year graduate training in UMass Boston’s M.S. in Mental Health Counseling program. Before BPAR, I spent two years working in applied behavior analysis with children and early adolescents in Eastern Massachusetts where I was introduced to the principles of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and practiced child-led, strength-based play therapy. My therapeutic philosophy is rooted in creativity, collaboration, and empowerment. I strive to foster a collaborative relationship where individuals can explore, honor, and make meaning of their stories. My own experience as a domestic adoptee deepens my commitment to holding space for the complex experiences related to adoption, identity, and connection.

Katie Gray
Office Manager

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As someone with a lifelong passion for access to mental healthcare for all, I am thrilled to join BPAR as the Office Manager. I have 7 years of previous experience in nonprofit work, and am delighted to assist our staff Clinicians, as well as to create a welcoming, comfortable, and safe physical space for all of our clients and their families. My understanding of just how important BPAR's services are is shaped by having several close friends and family members touched by both domestic and international adoption. Other passions of mine include all types of healthcare access, animal welfare, and educational and cultural exchange.

Larry Kramer, MBA
Outsourced CFO

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I began my role as BPAR’s outsourced CFO on Day #1 in summer 2012. With over 35 years of finance, accounting, and operations experience, I serve this organization as well as a dozen other for-profit, venture firm, and non-profit clients in my role as a Managing Partner at Foundation Management Associates. My philanthropic interests include fundraising for the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation, the Pediatric IBD Foundation, Walks for Hunger, and various pediatric cancer causes. Since 2009 I have raised over $2 million through my three Boston-area cover bands. I also served on Boston’s Chapter Board of Financial Executives International and ran the organization's Career Services and Career Planning Committee.

"BPAR holds a very special place in my heart because of staff who go above and beyond in making sure that their clients feel comfortable and cared for."

—ADULT ADOPTEE CLIENT

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