Lauren Altaweel

Lauren Altaweel is a licensed advanced practice social worker, therapist, and advocate with a deep passion for supporting the holistic wellbeing of children and youth. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Bachelor’s degree in Spanish and certificate in Gender and Women’s Studies, Lauren earned her Master of Social Work from the University of Southern California with a specialization in children, youth, and families. She is passionate about providing accessible, anti-oppressive, trauma-informed, and identity-affirming therapy services to all ages of children, adolescents, young adults, and their caregivers.

Lauren’s work is informed by her identity as a queer, neurodivergent, chronically ill woman, as well as her own lived experiences with trauma and mental illness. She loves working with other neurodivergent, disabled, chronically ill, and LGBTQIA+ folks and strives to create a therapeutic space in which her clients can show up as their most authentic selves. Lauren understands the ways in which systemic oppression can impact mental health and wellbeing, and is dedicated to honoring clients’ dignity, inherent worth, and self-determination. She is experienced in supporting individuals of all ages around the topics of gender, sexuality, trauma, sexual violence, racism, substance use, disability and chronic illness, neurodivergence, political and societal oppression, relationships, life transitions, harm reduction, consent and autonomy, and isolation. Lauren believes that an authentic therapeutic connection based in mutual trust can best facilitate vulnerability and growth. Her approach to therapy is collaborative, compassionate, person-centered, and non-pathologizing. Lauren utilizes a variety of therapy modalities in her practice, including trauma-focused therapies, family-based therapies, and elements of play and art therapies.

While employed as a youth advocate at the RCC Sexual Violence Resource Center, Lauren provided emotional and crisis support as well as medical and legal accompaniment to middle- and high-schoolers in Dane County. Lauren met with youth in schools, libraries, hospital emergency rooms, police stations, and parks to best support their needs and safety. She has volunteered extensively by peer mentoring LGBTQIA+ students through UW-Madison’s Gender and Sexuality Campus Center, providing Spanish language services through the UW-Madison Family Law Clinic, assisting with various community service organizations, and engaging in disability justice work and mutual aid.

Beginning in her own youth, Lauren cultivated an awareness of the unique ways in which children experience marginalization and has been guided by the theories of youth empowerment and liberation. Disability justice is another of Lauren’s core values, and as such, she is committed to providing accessible services. She would appreciate the opportunity to accommodate any access needs her clients might have, which includes the options of virtual sessions or in-home sessions. She is enthusiastic about creating a dynamic in which clients feel free to move their bodies, stim, adjust sensory stimuli, or otherwise feel confident and able to self-advocate and accommodate. In prioritizing the most marginalized, Lauren will attend all in-person therapy sessions wearing an N95 face mask and bring a portable HEPA air purifier.

Lauren hopes to empower her clients to foster sustainable change, healing, connection, resilience, and self-compassion.