Hello there, I'm Bailey Pearson.

Before I was a counsellor, I was a teacher. I worked as a resource teacher, ran a Learning Assistance Centre, managed IEPs, and covered classrooms as a TTOC across three school districts, plus a stretch in special education in Australia. That background is still the lens I work through: I understand how school systems actually function, I know how to talk to a teacher or write something that gets read, and I see a kid's life as one thing that happens across home and school, not two separate files.

I'm neurodiversity-affirming and LGBTQIA+-affirming. Those aren't values statements I add at the bottom of a page — they shape how I actually work with people.

What I'm like to sit with: direct, not clinical. I ask real questions and expect real answers, but I won't fill silence just to fill it. If you need space to think, you'll get it. If you want a plan, we'll build one.

My approach draws on person-centred, trauma-informed, and attachment-focused work, along with CBT where it's useful, always adjusted to how someone actually communicates rather than a script I run regardless of who's in front of me. Most of the real change happens between sessions, in the small things you try when I'm not there, so we build those into the work rather than treating the session itself as the whole thing.

I don't think my job is to fix anyone. People already have what they need — mine is to help find it. For kids especially, that usually looks less like a technique and more like feeling seen, having some real say in what happens to them, and knowing someone is actually paying attention.