Meet Kia Ferrer, MS, CCLS, GC-C Mental and Behavioral Health Specialist

Kia is a born-and-bred-Chicago-Puerto Rican who grew up in Humboldt Park/Logan Square neighborhoods. She is a single parent of two children (boys ages 8 and 10) and has worked in various pediatric settings across Chicagoland for the past 12 years. Currently, she is the mental and behavioral health specialist at Donohoe Pediatrics in Chicago's north center neighborhood. Kia is currently in the last stretch of her doctoral studies to obtain a Ph.D. in Child Development through Erikson Institute and Loyola University Chicago. Kia is also the daughter of two retired Chicago Public School teachers, a VERY proud boricua, with a passion for child life research on the impact of implicit bias and racism on child development outcomes. In this episode we discuss her journey growing up in a teaching enviroment, her career working with children during covid and racial injustice. As well as her motherhood journery and mom guilt. Kia also provides best practices to expose and normalize mental health symptoms and resources parents can look into.