About Irene
I have 30+ years of experience as a cutting-edge, socially conscious national group facilitator, educator, counselor, consultant, and communication and conflict-resolution coach.
My life’s work is grounded in the values of equity, growth, and healing justice.
My Background
I am a European-American of Irish, German, and Roma descent, a cisgender older woman, an “out” lesbian for over 40 years, a survivor, a co-parent in a queer family, and a long-time community organizer and activist.
I have been working in the healing, mental health, wellness, and social justice fields for over 40 years, starting with my overnight shifts in a battered woman’s shelter in the early 1980’s, to my work in two counseling centers, being the first director of the UM-Twin Cities sexual violence program, being an analyst with the State of MN Crime Victim’s Unit, to my present career as the owner and CEO of Greene Growth and Training, in Minneapolis.
I hail from a large conservative Catholic farming community in rural Minnesota. My mother was a schoolteacher, and my father was a dairy farmer. The farmstead where I grew up and where my father was born is located on stolen Dakota land.
My parents were strong believers in the importance of education. All seven of my siblings and I put ourselves through college and have advanced degrees. I am the third of eight children, and we hold varying political views and values that span the color wheel from deep blue to crimson red.
I am an avid MN Lynx basketball season-ticket holder and a MN Wind Chill ultimate frisbee fan, a gardener, a traveler, and an enthusiastic learner of my ancestry. I have wanted to work in the mental health field since I was in the eighth grade.
With all their colliding lessons, these identities and life experiences inform my values, motivation, and dedication in my personal, familial, and professional life, in the Minneapolis community I live in, and in the communities I choose to serve.
My Services
Whether I am providing personal or relationship coaching, offering consultation, or presenting workshops, I offer a nonjudgmental, professional, and down-to-earth style layered with warmth, respect, and compassion. I am informed by decades of diverse training, certifications, education, and direct service experiences.
Being self-employed provides me with the opportunity to actively intertwine four of my passions:
- The privilege to work directly with people who want to make personal, relational, or professional changes.
- To create and facilitate support groups.
- To engage with many different people by offering national workshops and training.
- To actively volunteer in my communities.
I firmly believe “the personal is the professional, is the political.”
I approach my work and my life from a holistic backdrop that centers the healing and unifying nature of connection with community, self, and the outdoors.
I keep in mind the impacts of cultural and systemic oppression, injustice, and trauma, and how White Supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, conservative religion, and rape culture intentionally and insidiously intertwine to manifest personal, interpersonal, and community harm, violence, and injustice, including in the mental health and medical industries.
I continue to do my own personal work to decolonize, unlearn, and challenge how these systems manifest within myself, my family, and my community.
I strongly believe that healing, empowerment, and wellness are strengthened by human connections that are grounded in embracing differences and prioritizing humanity, equity, humility, justice, and liberation.
See My Approach for more specific information about my style, training, and how I incorporate my values into the services I offer.
See Client Information for more information about my services, approach, issues, and the populations I serve.
If any of my services interest you, please contact me to arrange a complimentary 30-minute consultation.
MOST OF MY SERVICES ARE CURRENTLY OFFERED ONLINE – TELEHEALTH | SOME WORKSHOPS ARE IN PERSON
