Sam Savage, MSW, SEP

Sam has over 15 years social work experience, varying from non-profit management, state government, workforce training, research, program development, and health education/sexuality. This allows her to not just provide clinical interventions, but deeply understand how structures from the physical-such as how our nervous system responds to stress-to the social/systemic-such as how healthcare systems are financed-impact issues of social justice, and support clients in navigating those systems. ​Sam has a strengths-based and humanistic approach to supporting growth, balancing playfulness and accountability. She focuses first on building safety and connection, and then expands into curiosity, helping clients identify the narratives that support them or hold them back, and gently encourages and witnesses the risks necessary for growth. While she has capacity to work in individual sessions with clients from early to older adult, she’s particularly interested in working with the themes and challenges of early adulthood, whether college stressors, career exploration, and identity. Specific areas of concern she focuses on include anxiety and various forms of trauma, whether accidents/falls or traumatic loss, as well as chronic health conditions, sexual assault, and developmental trauma. She’s comfortable working with people of all identities, and attunes to the way that identity impacts all areas of life. In work with communities, Sam utilizes deep understanding of hierarchies of power & oppression, participatory action research, and gentle relational approaches to build teams based on trust to create radically hopeful visions of interconnectedness. Sam earned her Master’s in Social Work from Rutgers University in 2007, and has continued to pursue post-degree specialty training with a focus on trauma interventions for diverse populations. She is currently a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and approved Assistant for the Somatic Experiencing Training Institute.