Erin B. Bernau, MSW, LICSW, is a licensed clinical social worker with more than twenty years of experience working with children and families. She works as a psychotherapist and parent coach in private practice and as a parent educator through North Seattle College’s cooperative preschools. In 2022, she received the Val Donato Award for Parent Education. In recent years, she worked as a parent educator at Seattle Central College’s Parent/Child Center and as a facilitator for Listening Mothers groups.
Erin is an active volunteer speaker for PEPS groups and has been a volunteer group facilitator for The Healing Center. She earned her B.A. from Yale University and her Master’s in Social Work from the University of Washington. Erin has worked as a resident teacher at University Child Development School, as a Child Placement Specialist at Amara Parenting and Adoption Services, and has done extensive work in the field of children’s grief and loss through Hospice of Seattle and Evergreen Healthcare’s Bereavement Services.
Erin has extensive post-graduate school training in a variety of areas including:
Positive Discipline
Promoting First Relationships
Bringing Baby Home (work of John and Julie Gottman)
Mindfulness and self-compassion (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and work of Tara Brach and Kristin Nefff, among others)
Infant Observation through COR Northwest Family Development Center
SPACE (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions through the Yale Child Study Center)
ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy)
EFT (both Emotional Freedom Technique and Emotionally Focused Therapy)
After having her own children, Erin became more interested in the adjustment to parenthood and the challenges and triumphs that parenting presents. She enjoys the process of supporting parents so that they can more fully enjoy the wild ride of parenthood. Her private therapy practice is focused on helping adults as they navigate life’s challenges. Erin is the mom of two teenagers and lives with her family in Seattle.
