Hello, I am Mary Toon a Licensed Specialist Clinical Social Worker (LSCSW). I received my Bachelor’s in Social Work from Wichita State University in 2014, and my Master’s in Social Work in 2018. I obtained my clinical license in 2024 and am working towards becoming certified in Play Therapy.
I have had the opportunity to serve the local Community for the last nine years as a social worker, with the last five focused on providing individual therapy and mental health support in schools. I have experience working with children and families from all walks of life facing a variety of … Read more
We hope you’ve had a great summer. It hasn’t been as hot as past Kansas summers (fingers crossed!), so hopefully you and your kids have been able to enjoy the outdoors and the swimming pool or whatever you like to do! Now it’s time for kids to go back to school. This is one of the biggest transitions in the year for families with kids of all ages, and it is important to keep in mind stress is higher around this time. To help with the back to school stress, our Real Life Counseling clinicians have compiled a list of … Read more
Joel Ybarra, LCMFT, originally published April 28, 2017 on joelybarra.com.
We tend to think of problems with focus and attention as impairments in brain functioning. Forgetting things, losing things and not being able to focus on the task at hand are all problematic, but it is important to understand what is actually going on in our ADHD brains and how we can use them optimally. It is not that we are incapable of focus; we may just need to put in a little extra effort to be able to harness all our brains are capable of doing. The … Read more
A lot of children have trouble paying attention and staying on task in school. ADHD is often the first explanation given for academic problems, whether the problems are listening to directions, organizing tasks or hyper or disruptive behavior. These are all characteristics of ADHD, but they are also signs of other problems at times. For example, if a child has stress in their school or home life, the trouble focusing may be better explained as a reaction to those problems than ADHD. Many times, the distractibility and disorganization go away if the stress is removed, or if the child learns … Read more
