ABOUT OUR FOUNDER

Brighid O'Shaughnessy has been working nationally in mental health for nearly 25 years. She has a Masters in Social Work from the University of Chicago with a focus on Trauma and Neuroscience, a Masters of Arts from DePaul University's School for New Learning and a graduate certificate in Restorative Justice in Education from EMU.

Brighid has a wide and varied set of interests and experiences. She has spent the last 6 years working in Chicago area public schools offering social work support and restorative justice coaching to youth, families, and educational professionals. She has a particular passion for supporting students of color and those with mental health challenges, complex trauma histories, disabilities and neurodivergence. Currently, she is focusing her advocacy efforts on her other passion, disrupting adoption mythology. She is doing that through the book she is writing with Lived Places Press, giving voice to the often hidden stories of adoptive mothers. The book will be placed in University libraries around the globe to better prepare future doctors, clinicians, school professionals, hospital and residential staff, and those who work in juvenile justice to provide nuanced, comprehensive and positively impactful support to adoptees and their families and to reimagine systems of care . She is also using her 20 + year background in documentary theatre to bring these stories to life on the stage and as a tool for professional development. Her upcoming project is through the Fresh Produce Festival at Rivendell Theatre in Chicago highlighting one transracial adoptive families experience. It will highlight the perspective of birth mothers, adoptees and adoptive parents.

Prior to this, she was the Founder and Longtime Executive Artistic Director of Erasing the Distance, a non-profit that uses documentary theatre to shed light on issues of mental health. Her productions at ETD reached over 55,000 people across the country and her novel approach to mental health awareness and stigma reduction led to teaching and collaborative opportunities at both University of Illinois at Chicago and The Chicago School of Professional Psychology.

She has garnered many grant awards for her work such as the 3Arts Vision Award, was named one of the U.S.'s top 200 Heroic Leaders making a difference in the country by Extra Mile America and has been featured on WBEZ, ABC News, the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, The Reader, New City and more. She was granted funding from such prestigious groups as The Chicago Community Trust, The Driehaus Foundation, Rebecca's Dream, The Chicago Cultural Center, and the Illinois Arts Council to name just a few. She has also created theatrical experiences around issues of women's health and the impacts of racism and segregation through her collaborative work with MacArthur Genius Award Winner Tonika Lewis Johnson and her Folded Map project.

Brighid has been a Nia practitioner for nearly 20 years and teacher for over a decade, sparking health and wellbeing through movement to people of all ages and physical abilities. She teaches twice a week currently and has a stalwart group of students who attend her classes regularly. She loves providing healing spaces for people to return to and reclaim their bodies and find the connection between their physical and emotional lives. She is also a Certified Qoya Teacher offering monthly classes at ALTAR in Chicago and believes the body is a gateway to intuition and inner guidance.

For her resume click here.

Brighid O'Shaughnessy, LSW
Founder, Return to the Roots