ABOUT US

Laurie Rokutani

I have been a counselor for over thirty years, serving a wide variety of clientele (from indigent substance abusers to the very affluent) in a wide variety of settings (private practice to community agencies) in various geographical locations (coast to coast and in between). From general counseling to substance abuse counseling, I shifted gears into substance abuse prevention (K-12), then into Student Assistance Program counseling and coordination. From there I made the transition out of direct services and into academia, where I taught prevention and counseling courses in the Counselor Education program at The College of William and Mary. It was there (as I taught the Multicultural Counseling course) that I also began to develop my interest in cultural diversity issues. I have designed two online courses in this area and conduct workshops and trainings in cultural competency. I also received special training from the Harvard Mind/Body Institute in stress management and have been providing workshops in this area ever since. I also managed a prevention outreach program and provided prevention consultation to schools and community agencies as a part of the counseling program’s emphasis in addictions counseling and prevention.

I have been interested in body/mind/spirit integration throughout my life. I currently teach an online course in spirituality and addictions. A life-changing experience for me was The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity and I love providing workshops on recovering creativity!

Most recently, my position was Training Coordinator in a collaborative position funded by the Mid-Atlantic Addiction Technology Transfer Center and the Virginia Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services. I provided training, administered programs, designed curricula for training substance abuse counselors, and coordinated the Virginia Summer Institute for Addiction Studies and other conferences. Recently launching MoonShadow has been an exciting venture!!

I am certified by the National Board for Certified Counselors as a National Certified Counselor and as a Master Addictions Counselor. I am also a Certified Prevention Professional. Education includes an Ed.S. in Professional Counseling from The College of William and Mary and an M.Ed. in Student Personnel Services with an emphasis in Agency Counseling from Trenton State College.

Charles F. (Rick) Gressard

Charles F. Gressard is an Associate Professor in the Counseling Program at the College of Williams and Mary. He has 36 years experience in the field of addictions counseling and addictions counselor education. Before returning to school for his Ph.D. in Rehabilitation Counseling at the University or Iowa, Dr. Gressard worked as a substance abuse counselor for five years after receiving his Master's degree from Kent State University. His work during this time included a one-year NIMH traineeship at Harvard and the Washingtonian Center for Addictions in Boston.

After receiving his Ph.D., Dr. Gressard taught for one year in the Rehabilitation Counseling program at SUNY-Buffalo and for seven years in the counseling program at the University of Virginia. For five years he was an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia and was the Counseling Director of the Addiction Sciences Center. After teaching one year in the counseling program at James Madison University, Dr. Gressard came to William and Mary. In 2007, he taught ethics courses in St. Lucia and Romania. In addition to his counseling, teaching, and research, Dr. Gressard has served on the Virginia Board of Professional Counselors, the ACA Ethics Committee, the NBCC Addictions Academy, and on the Virginia Department of Health Professions' Impaired Professionals Program Committee.

More recently he served as Board Member and Chair of NBCC and he is currently serving on the 2009 CACREP Standards Revision Committee. In 1998 he received the Virginia Counselors Association's William Van Hoose Career Service Award and in 2001 he received the Virginia School Counselors Association Post-Secondary Counselor of the Year award. In 2004, he received the University of Iowa Rehabilitation Program's Alumni of the Year Award and in 2007 he received the Virginia Summer Institute for Addiction Studies' Visionary Leadership Award. His licenses and certifications include the LPC, the LMFT, the LSATP, the NCC, and the MAC.