Val Millson

MSW, RSW

Val Millson is a registered social worker and experienced clinician with more than 40 years of practice, working with children, youth, adolescents, adults, parents, and families across mental health, child welfare, education, intimate partner violence, youth justice, and employment services. She brings extensive clinical, leadership, and community experience to her work, with a particular understanding of the complexity of supporting individuals and families navigating high-stress, multilayered circumstances.

Val holds a Master of Social Work from Wilfrid Laurier University and a Bachelor of Social Work from King’s University College at Western University. She is registered with the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers and is a member of the Ontario Association of Social Workers. 

Val’s experience includes work with children, adolescents and adults with a range of mental health presentations, including trauma, anxiety, depression, self-harm, disordered eating, ADHD, OCD, including Excoriation (skin picking) and Trichotillomania (hair pulling).  Val has a particular interest and expertise in attachment-based parenting and has worked with numerous parent(s) and associated systems to strengthen relationships, enhance understanding and support increased regulation and resilience within children and adolescents who are experiencing mental health challenges.    

Grounded in ecological and strengths-based practice, Val takes a trauma-informed, holistic and collaborative approach to therapy. Utilizing a range of modalities including Neuroscience-Informed Psychotherapy, Exposure Response Prevention, Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Internal Family Systems, Narrative, Solution-Focused and Structural Family Therapy, she works with individuals, parents and families to foster a better understanding of their experiences, identify their needs and strengths, develop perspective, foster self-compassion and build practical skills for navigating stress and change. Her extensive experience across systems allows her to recognize how people develop coping strategies and adaptive behaviours in response to difficult circumstances, and to support them when those strategies are no longer serving them well.

Val brings a calm, warm and grounded presence to her work. She believes that meaningful change begins with safety, connection and understanding. Her approach is person-centred and relational, recognizing the importance of the therapeutic relationship in creating a space where individuals and families can explore difficult experiences, make sense of their responses, repair relationships and develop new ways of coping.

Val has provided direct clinical services as part of an interdisciplinary team at the Huron Perth Centre since 2000. During her tenure, she served for 10 years as Clinical Services Manager, providing leadership and oversight to children’s mental health services, including intensive services, psychology, clinical services dedicated to child welfare and day treatment. Most recently, she served for two years as Director of Programs and Services, where she was responsible for the development and implementation of services at the agency, community and provincial levels. Her leadership contributions include Children’s Mental Health System Transformation, Right Time/Right Care, Ontario Intensive Treatment Pathway, Provincial Training Initiative and Youth Engagement.

Throughout her career, Val has worked across a broad range of settings and systems. Her experience includes the development and implementation of peer mentoring and small-group retention programs with the Huron County Board of Education, employment counselling with Human Resources Development Canada, and individual and group counselling with Clinton Community Psychiatric Services. She has also presented at provincial conferences on intergenerational parenting, Treatment Foster Care, and the development of collaborative services between children’s mental health and child welfare.

Val is committed to helping children, youth, adults, parents and families improve emotional well-being, navigate transitions and unexpected life events, strengthen resilience, and develop greater confidence in their ability to manage life’s challenges. Her combination of clinical experience, systems knowledge and compassionate presence enables her to support both individual healing and meaningful change within families and the broader systems in which people live. 

Her professional training includes courses in Narrative and Solution-Focused Therapies, CBT, DBT, Trauma and Loss, Emotional Regulatory Healing, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Practicum Field Instruction, Circle of Security, BodyTalk, and extensive additional training in individual, group and family counselling, resilience, attachment, child development and organizational leadership.