Wendy Wade, PhD, LPCC and CADC 1 has worked with children and families for many years. She began by facilitating educational support groups with children of parents with substance use disorder in the 1980s when the field was first beginning. She taught in elementary school, both public and private, and was principal in a public elementary school. Her next opportunity was as coordinator of Children’s Program at the Betty Ford Center 2000s. She began training and speaking at conferences at that time. She volunteered at Santa Cruz County Children’s Mental Health working up assessments to ascertain if psychological issues may be interfering with meeting educational goals for children with IEPs. She also provided therapeutic support to children in special education, their families, and school staff. She was counselor/case manager with adults in inpatient treatment for substance use disorder and was also coordinator of family program services at Beacon House in Northern California. She volunteered as camp counselor bi-monthly for 4 years at Camp Mariposa for COAs. The children were from ages 9-12 and were referred by Youth Services in San Diego. She has continued providing training for teachers, counselors, therapists, and addiction professionals especially beginning in 2016 to the present and speaks at conferences as often as possible about this marginalized cohort of children who need understanding and information on how to help them. She has been a trainer for the National Association for Children of Addiction (NACoA) for several years, first on the Celebrating Families Curriculum and more recently with the revised Children’s Program Kit She has co-written curricula for online training in both curricula, and is developing a significantly revised in-person training on the CP Kit. She is Assistant Professor at Palo Alto University in the MA in Counseling Program, beginning in 2014. She is lead teacher in the Addiction Counseling Class, and teaches several other classes as well
