Maryam immigrated to Canada from Iran at the age of thirteen. She completed her Master’s in Counselling from University of Ottawa, focusing on working with immigrant women who were survivors of war, abuse and domestic violence as well as children and adults with disabilities. This strengthened her passion for advocacy for mental health services for all. Since then she has become a Registered Psychotherapist (RP.) and Certified Canadian Counsellor (CCC.). During the past 10 years she has worked as youth and family therapist with at risk youth in low income communities in GTA. Over the past several years she has moved to leadership in children’s mental health organization and currently a manager in a mental health hospital. She is currently completing Master’s of Health Administration at University of Toronto’s Dala Lana School of Public Health.
Her leadership goals are grounded in passion for improvement of health services for all. She believes improvement of services must be grounded in healthy organizations with healthy workforce that can model and lead the conversation about health and mental health from within.
Maryam speaks English, Azeri and Persian. She enjoys trying new recipes from around the world, listening to podcast while exploring new parts of Toronto.