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 training in Positive Discipline, Promoting First Relationships, Bringing Baby Home, mindfulness and self-compassion, as well as having completed a program in Infant Observation through COR Northwest Family Development Center. She 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.
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. Erin is the mom of a teen and a tween and lives with her family in Seattle.