L'Oréal McCollum Licensed Master Social Worker

L'Oréal McCollum, Licensed Master Social Worker, SW129259 is practicing under the supervision of Stephany Thompson (Pennsylvania, LCSW, CW022321) at Resilience Lab.

Please, note: A clinician listed as being “clinically supervised” is completing clinical hours toward their licensure. They have one or more fully licensed clinical supervisors that often have special training to become supervisors. They consult with their supervisor(s) on all of their cases, which means that, when working with them, you are getting the time and expertise of multiple therapists in your treatment.

My path to becoming a therapist started during childhood, when I witnessed my father’s work as an Air Force mental health counselor. I came to understand the sacred nature of this responsibility during my late teenage years when I was out to my friends and others as bisexual. Through that declaration, I gained credibility as trusted counsel among my peers. The non-existence of sex positive education in my high school was appalling. I “devoured” any credible information I could get my hands on and loved the idea of being in service to my peers. It was only later that I realized how deeply my passion ran for service around this particular topic. Though my undergraduate years centered on chasing a dream of becoming an MTV VJ (that is, when they still existed!), I eventually returned to the idea of serving in a therapeutic role that juxtaposed my interest in sexuality education. Feeling empowered by my role as a sex talk radio show host for our campus radio station during my senior year, I applied to a dual degree Master’s program in clinical social work and human sexuality studies and the rest is history! During those graduate school years, I learned so much about my lived experiences and gained deeper insight into some long repressed traumas. This propelled my ongoing passion for ensuring affirming care. Today, I use what I’ve learned in my journey to create a space for clients to reconnect with their intuition and heal themselves.

I provide a non-directive, trauma-informed, and healing-centered approach, layered with intention and compassionate confrontation (as needed). In session, I hold space for taking mindful breaks and sitting with the occasional silences. These moments are sacred and allow for your inner healing intelligence to connect with the inner-directed wisdom. Rather than honing in on a problem you may be facing, I seek to partner with you to find solutions that may get you unstuck. I may include grounding activities, the occasional homework exercise, and appropriate humor as it comes naturally. I’m committed to helping you uncover or build on your strengths, values, and beliefs so you can make decisions that are in alignment with what's important to you. I want to help you look at a difficult situation in a more adaptive way with curiosity, honesty, and compassion.

My curiosity serves as a mechanism for helping you connect with the parts of yourself that have been forgotten or gone unmet. With radical empathy at the core of my service, it is not enough to understand the experiences of those I serve. It’s my duty to go beyond that call by working to transform the systems that impact their livelihoods. All parts of your personality are welcome. I am honored to hold space for you in your healing journey.

My formal experience in the mental health field spans nearly 15 years. At the start of my career, I identified high-risk middle school youth and provided crisis intervention, short-term supportive counseling, human sexuality education, and social services referrals. From there, I worked with community mental health centers to uphold their provision of culturally affirming and clinically appropriate services to queer and transgender individuals. My focus was driving transformation and ongoing success of the behavioral health system. Shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, I returned to direct service work as an Intimate Partner Violence Counselor. Here, I deepened my focus in individual and group counseling services, advocacy for survivors, and their families and collaborated with a multi-disciplinary team as part of a hospital-based IPV prevention and response program. My next role was with BEAM (Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective)—a national training, movement building, and grant making institution dedicated to the healing, wellness, and liberation of Black and marginalized communities—to support the streamlining, management, and facilitation of its various training and technical assistance programs. In addition, I directed and facilitated team/executive coaching efforts of the organization, independently providing sessions to program and grant project participants. I’ve also facilitated "Movies for Mental Health" workshops, primarily in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, as well as the New England states, Ohio, and other midwestern states, as needed. I’m now a proud member of the Resilience Lab mental health collective. Resilience Lab is the largest community of clinicians working collaboratively to produce better outcomes and improve mental health access. In other words, we want you to work with the industry’s best therapists as you heal, liberate yourself, and move toward a life of authentic joy.