
MEET THE TEAM

MIJANE PARKER, RCC
Founder/Clinical Counsellor
Mijane Parker is the founder of Stable Roots Farm & Wellness. She draws on over 15 years of combined experience of working within the social service sector and in private practice as a registered clinical counsellor. Mijane has extensive experience supporting children, youth, adults, caregivers, and those impacted by trauma . After taking time off to expand her family and grow roots on the land that she stewards, Mijane is excited to re-join the Stable Roots team from the expanded perspective of mother and farmer.
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Mijane focused her post-graduate research on alternative approaches in mental health care under the umbrella of trauma-informed social farming and equine facilitated psychotherapy. She is passionate about co-creating therapeutic and educational experiences with those whom she supports, working through an integrative neuro-relational framework in support of healing and in nurturing resilience. She also supports caregivers in gaining a deeper understanding of behaviour, while sharing strategies on how to meet needs through a connection-focused, neuroscience-informed lens.
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Mijane has formal training in trauma-informed Equine Facilitated & Nature-based Counselling, EMDR, Somatic Therapies, Dr. Bruce Perry's Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics, Dr. Gordon Neufeld's Attachment-based Developmental Paradigm, Narrative Therapy and Polyvagal Informed Practice. Mijane is currently in the certification process as a Mental Health Professional with The Professional Association for Equine Facilitated Wellness.

HEIDI MCSWEENEY, RCC
Clinical Counsellor
Heidi is a registered clinical counsellor with over eight years of experience supporting children, youth and adults within a strength-based, trauma-informed therapeutic framework. As a clinician, Heidi is deeply passionate about connecting people to themselves and their community by creating safety within relationships and healing through a holistic wellness approach.
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Much of Heidi’s therapeutic knowledge and philosophy stem from her extensive work with individuals who have experienced relational trauma, including sexualized violence, childhood sexual abuse, and intimate partner violence. In addition, Heidi has training and experience supporting individuals with various forms of trauma and PTSD, eating disorders, sexual difficulties, relationship and parenting challenges, life transitions, anxiety, and depression. Heidi’s goal is to build trust, safety and connection using somatic-oriented and attachment-based approaches by meeting clients where they are.
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Heidi joins Stable Roots as a part-time counsellor, offering in-office, virtual, and walk & talk sessions. She is also excited for the opportunity to partner with the farm program to extend counselling services beyond traditional mental health models by incorporating experiential learning opportunities through nature-based and animal-assisted therapies.

MERLY BOCHINA, BSW
Equine Facilitated Learning Specialist
For over ten years, Merly has professionally supported and coached youth and families as a social worker and facilitator of experiential and skills development workshops. Merly has been a student of the horse all her life and has found joy in sharing her experience with novice equestrians and curious horse owners alike.
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Merly's journey has led her from her roots of classic German Dressage to incorporating a deeper understanding of the equine nature and exploring the wisdom of the Vaqueros after moving to Canada in 2013. Merly’s passion is to facilitate a safe space for horses and humans to meet and explore how to experience and nurture connection. In relationship-centred horsemanship, the goal is to seek ways to help the horse to understand humans better - and usually the humans find that they come to understand themselves better in the process.
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Merly recently began the process to become certified in equine facilitated wellness through Pro-EFW.

CAM ROSKELL
Head Farmer and Handyman
Cam is our farmer/handyman extraordinaire. He brings his knowledge as a journeyman carpenter to the team, which expands the learning opportunities available in our programs and enables us to envision and create functional spaces with ease.
You can usually find Cam behind the wheel of his tractor, tending to the hay fields, or in the side-by-side, motoring around to keep things in good working order for us!