Dr. Staves is a licensed professional counselor, specializing in children’s social and emotional development, attachment, psychological trauma, family systems, compassion fatigue, and counselor ethics. She is a strong advocate for child abuse prevention and has served on several local and state boards supporting abuse prevention. Dr. Staves is also an advocate for restorative justice and teaches a class on restorative practices. She supervises counselors seeking licensure and has worked in residential treatment, psychiatric hospital, and private practice working with children, adults, couples and families using attachment based interventions, trauma therapies and equine therapy. She has also mentored adults reentering society post incarceration. Dr. Staves currently teaches undergraduate psychology classes and graduate counseling classes.