Emma Springford is a registered social worker with extensive experience working with adults, adolescents and children, in a variety of family and school settings. She has been a private practitioner working in the Peterborough and Lakefield communities since 2001.

In the decade prior to beginning private counselling, Emma’s social work experience included children’s mental health (Kinark); social work in health care (Peterborough Regional Health Centre) and child protection, working as a specialized child abuse investigator with the Thunder Bay Children’s Aid Society and a protection worker for the Kawartha Haliburton Children’s Aid Society. Emma then bridged her interest in the health care aspects of the social work field to Hospice Peterborough for five years, developing and leading their Children’s Grief program.

Between 2007 and 2012, Emma worked within the local public school system responding to critical incidents and counselling school aged children (K–grade 12) and their families as a school board social worker for the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board. From 2013 to 2016, a portion of Emma’s practice was committed to her position as the Social Worker for Lakefield College School and in the research and development of an in-house counselling program.

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Emma combines her expertise in health care social work, crisis intervention, trauma, family preservation and child welfare to work with families directly and also within the arenas of educational institutions at elementary, secondary and postsecondary levels.  Within her practice, Emma has spent the past 20 years specializing in the area of grief, loss and change and how it relates to individuals and their day-to-day functioning.  Often, clients have experienced a change in their life structure following a significant life event (trauma, health crisis, a move, relationship change or a change in family composition.)  An ongoing segment of Emma’s caseload is dedicated to working with Children’s Aid Societies, providing counselling and consultation services to families (biological, adoptive and foster) and to the children and adolescents in care.  

With a strength based practice philosophy and a goal oriented, solution focused framework, Emma effectively engages with clients.  She remains focused on developing an understanding of her clients’ needs and counselling goals.  Emma assists clients in navigating challenges by enhancing their coping and adaptability, with an emphasis on connecting to their emotions.