"You are something the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is something that the whole ocean is doing.”

- Alan Watts

I come from a lineage of Italian-Mexican healers, hard workers, and creative types. My ancestors embodied courage, adored the land, and healed musically and artistically. They revered the Blessed Mother, drank ceremonial cacao, and were nourished by hope. They made sacrifices, left their land behind, and started everyday anew. I am here committed to healing, wholeness, and connection in their honor.

My name, Francesca Svelta, refers to cunning and justice, brightness and freedom.

I have the great privilege to serve as a Licensed Professional Counselor, a Licensed and Board Certified Creative Arts Therapist and certified Yoga Instructor. My approach combines art therapy, nature engagement, spiritual connection, self compassion, cultural and ancestral awareness, mindfulness, and movement practices for embodied care. I have experience supporting people as they move through grief and loss, gender & sexuality transitions and explorations, migration and acculturation, disordered eating, codependency and family dysfunction, life transitions, systemic oppression, addiction recovery, complex trauma, self worth and belonging, and the varying pulses of anxiety, depression, and dis-ease.

I received my bachelors in Art History from Gettysburg College and my masters in Art Therapy from School of Visual Arts in New York. I have provided services in residential treatment centers, medical offices, academic settings, lockup facilities, and community spaces which focus on returning to the mind-body connection and creative expression.

I currently work as a Clinical Team Leader for Windhorse Integrative Mental Health in Portland, Oregon. Since relocating to Oregon from NYC, I have worked as an Art Therapist at The Center at Heron Hill and a Mental Health Therapist for the Native American Rehabilitation Association of the Northwest.

Prior to that, I worked at MercyFirst in New York for an unaccompanied minors program, contracted through the Office of Refugee Resettlement. There I served as a member of the Racial Equity and Sanctuary Ambassadors committees and provided frequent in-services for colleagues focused on recovering from burnout and compassion fatigue. I worked as a program director and clinician for Artistic Noise, an arts education and entrepreneurship program for juvenile justice system involved youth. I have also had the experience of supervising graduate level art therapy students in their clinical fieldwork.

I have a 200 hour yoga teacher certification and have attended trauma-informed yoga training through United We OM and the Trauma Center.