About Regina (Gina) Markle

Gina is a Registered Social Worker with a Master of Social Work degree from Wilfrid Laurier University.  Over the past 8 years, she’s gained a wide range of experience helping children and adults across both community and hospital settings.  

Gina loves supporting youth 11 and up, and currently works with children and adolescents experiencing acute mental health concerns at Grand River Hospital. She’s able to connect with younger clients and understand their struggles from their own unique points of view whether it’s anxiety, depression, or behavioural issues. Gina appreciates that when a child is suffering, the entire family can be impacted. When working with younger clients, she strives to support parents and caregivers via education, support, and consultation. Thanks to her experience working at Grand River Hospital in the Preschool Diagnostic & Treatment Services, Gina understands when to refer children and youth for further assessment should more serious mental health concerns arise.  

Gina is also experienced working with post-secondary students and a wide range of adult clients. She understands that seeking counselling can sometimes feel intimidating and difficult to know where, or how to begin. She makes that first step easier thanks to her extremely warm and welcoming personality. She listens carefully to each of her clients to understand what they uniquely need to feel safe and supported. Her training in CBT and solution focused therapies also helps her create achievable goals with her clients to help them get where they want to be. Gina’s clients walk away not only feeling truly heard but also empowered with new coping skills that they can apply long after therapy ends. 

In addition, Gina has specialized experience supporting people who have lost loved ones. Her experience as a bereavement group facilitator at Bereaved Families of Ontario has helped her understand the many ways people experience and work through grief and loss. Gina provides her clients with a safe place to explore the meaning and feelings related to their loss which, in some cases, can include anger, guilt, and despair. Gina helps her clients work through these many layers of grief to eventually arrive at a sense of hope and enduring connection with their lost loved ones. 

Gina is also passionate about supporting individuals who have experienced violence. At the Nova Vita Domestic Violence Prevention Services, she helped countless individuals work through the anxiety, self-doubt, and shame that results from physical and emotional abuse. She also appreciates that leaving such relationships often isn’t easy. Gina helps her clients develop the self-awareness, resources, and skills necessary to begin setting healthy boundaries in all relationships, learn how to recognize and respond to mistreatment, and to identify what truly caring and loving relationships can look like.  

In her leisure time, Gina is a jazz and blues singer, and loves to explore and appreciate music of all kinds! She is a nature enthusiast, and can be found hiking, exploring new places, swimming, cooking, doing yoga, catching up on her favourite Netflix shows, and spending time adventuring and connecting with her loved ones.

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