They say it takes a village to raise a child. But finding and cultivating a village that meets the ever shifting needs of your family can be more difficult than it looks!
We’re here to help women and parents navigate the overwhelm, and identify what tools they need to feel more grounded.
Personalized and accessible support
As doctoral level clinical psychologists, Dr. Carpenter and Dr. Legrand are both passionate about and experienced in helping individuals better understand themselves and what tools they may need to improve their overall well-being. We draw from our knowledge of evidence-based assessment approaches and treatment methods while centering the human being in front of us who is ultimately the expert on their own lived experience. We strive to take a client-centered and holistic approach to identifying what may be bringing you in to our office, and whenever we can, are working quickly to develop a plan of action that includes personalized supports and treatment approaches. We look forward to hearing your story and helping you identify a path to feeling more grounded and in control.
Brief and short-term help for parents and women eager for timely support
Our services are created to address a niche in the Vermont community, which is brief and personalized consultation and psychotherapy for parents and women who may need something individualized and confidential, but who do not always have the resources or desire to engage in long-term psychotherapy at this time. Dr. Carpenter and Dr. Legrand have both developed a love for consultation and short-term support through their many years working in outpatient medical and integrated care settings. While healthcare culture in Vermont is often one that supports the role of multidisciplinary teams and more holistic approaches, resource limitations make it is rare to find a medical office with embedded psychologists. As a result, we have chosen to bring our experience to a private practice model that enables us to collaborate virtually and from afar with our medical colleagues from our office in Richmond, VT. We love collaborating with OBGYN/midwifery offices, pediatrician and primary care offices, psychiatrists, naturopaths, registered dietitians, birth workers, yoga teachers, personal trainers, and more.
After spending over a decade providing psychological services to children and families, Dr. Carpenter has noticed that sometimes parents just need someone to help them declutter their overwhelmed mind. Our culture and state of the world has made it easy to feel too preoccupied with work deadlines, sports practices, school registration, financial stress, illness, and difficult news reports (should we go on?) to know where to begin in lightening the load. Dr. Carpenter is also well versed in the parenting demands that come with supporting children and teens with medical and mental health struggles after she spent three years working for UVMMC’s Adolescent Medicine division and advocating at the state level for additional support for the eating disorder population in particular.
Unique support from a trauma specialist and a pediatric psychologist specializing in parent wellness
A typical client at It Takes A Village is often reaching out when they discover that their responsibilities and life stress have activated challenges in other areas of their life, and/or they are finding that their usual coping strategies are no longer available to them for any number of reasons (e.g., new parenthood, an injury, a new move or transitino). Our services may be helpful for parents and women navigating the following areas of stress:
Perinatal or postpartum anxiety and depression, or otherwise struggling with the fourth and fifth trimesters (e.g., returning to work, transitioning to childcare)
Caregiver burnout, stress, and exhaustion (e.g., sleep regressions, feeling the weight of bearing the mental load)
Stress, anxiety, and grief due to disappointments in interpersonal relationships (e.g., partners, caregivers, family, friends)
Body image challenges, disordered eating, struggling to increase exercise or reduce reliance on exercise as a primary coping mechanism
Anxiety and mood concerns as a result of parenting stress (e.g., struggling with managing a sick child’s chronic or acute illness, feeling triggered by child’s behaviors)
Perfectionism that may have been helpful prior to having children but has now become problematic because of the inherent imperfect nature of caregiving
ADHD that was managed well enough prior to having children but has since become more pronounced or in need of an adjusted care plan
Parents navigating general overwhelm related to the process of matrescence and patrescence
Climate change and health anxiety as it pertains to worries about children’s health and long-term safety
Struggling to navigate child’s mental health treatment but not yet ready or otherwise able to participate in family therapy (e.g., overwhelmed by child’s treatment team recommendations or all that is required of the parent in order for the child to have the best prognosis)
We subscribe to various relevant models such as Health At Every Size (HAES) and trauma-informed care, and we have collectively completed training in various approaches and organizations such as with Postpartum Support International, Exposure and Response Prevention for OCD, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Radically Open DBT.
Consultation and psychotherapy focused on optimizing systems of care
Central to our mission is the fact - not belief - that the neverending overwhelm is not your fault. We are passionate about helping parents and female-identifying people identify their sources of overwhelm, reduce any internalized negative beliefs, and help them identify a path to feel more grounded in their values and ability to meet their family’s needs. In your work with Dr. Carpenter, her goal is not to provide yet more parenting tips and recommendations for your child, but rather how to support you in making difficult parenting decisions, identify what is important to you, and create a plan to minimize roadblocks to achieving your parenting wellness goals. In your work with Dr. Legrand, she draws from her trauma background and experience working in many systems of care that can inadvertently contribute to minimization or invalidation of women’s symptoms. Both psychologists take an antiracist and humanist approach to their work, in that consultation may include discussion about systems that may be contributing to stress (e.g., social inequities, barriers to receiving adequate healthcare, lack of paid family leave policies, presence of white supremacy culture and related themes). Our hope is that these discussions will help empower our clients to notice the ways that the systems they are immersed in are supporting them or possibly in need of adjustment.