Amy Paulson, MS

"Ames" is a founder, facilitator, writer, speaker, survivor, and mental health and healing advocate and practitioner working at the intersections of social justice, Healing Justice, and Transformative Justice, to disrupt cycles of violence, heal generational trauma, and democratize access to peer-based healing resources in the Bay Area and around the world.

A survivor of orphan trafficking, child sexual abuse, and transracial, transnational adoption, Ames has been navigating medicalized, traditional, and alternative systems for mental and emotional health for decades - and, as a result, is passionate about de-stigmatizing and de-pathologizing trauma and broadening access to ancestral, contemplative, and culturally rooted healing resources.

After a career in corporate finance working for over a decade in the U.S. and Europe for Deloitte, SAP, and eBay, Ames co-founded Healing Together in 2011 while serving the non-profit sector as a volunteer, program manager, and board member focusing on projects supporting orphaned and vulnerable youth and survivors of sexual and gender based violence.

 

Ames holds a Master of Science in Nonprofit Management with a concentration in Global Studies from Northeastern University, and certifications in Trauma-Informed Interventions (UC Berkeley), and Global Mental Health and Refugee Trauma (Harvard Medical School). They are also a facilitator of Interpersonal Dynamics, aka "T-Groups", at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In 2024, Ames was awarded a fellowship at the Culture of Health Leadership Institute for Racial Healing, supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
​
Ames has published essays on sexual violence, grief, mindfulness and social change, and healing. She recently discovered her love of growing food and has launched Resilient Together Farms, a collective growing and healing space, stewarded on Miwok lands, in the northern Central Valley of California. For more, see: Amy's Story or visit amyepaulson.com