Pre-2012Clinical Social WorkLMSW · Maryland, USA
2012-2017International TeachingMadrid, Spain
2017-2025International TeachingShenzhen, China
2025-NowEF TakeOff CoachingShenzhen, China
About Courtney
15 years. Two careers. One thread.
I spent years watching the same pattern play out in two very different settings. As a clinical social worker in the US, I worked with adults who had brilliant insights but couldn't keep a medication schedule. Not because they lacked intelligence, but because no one had ever taught them how to organise their lives.
Then I moved into international education, starting in Madrid and then Shenzhen. I saw the same thing wearing a different uniform. Students who could debate climate change but lost every planner we gave them. Teenagers written off as lazy who were actually missing the executive function tools school never directly teaches.
It took me 15 years across both fields to name what I was seeing. The gap wasn't motivation. It wasn't character. It was executive function. And it was fixable.
I founded EF TakeOff Coaching to bridge what I kept watching fall through the cracks. I bring a clinical lens to every session, which means we work with the whole picture: anxiety, ADHD, environment, and real life. Not just a to-do list.
I'm an American living in Shenzhen. I understand expat life from the inside. That matters in this work.
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