Meet Our Compassionate Team
At This Thing Called Grief, we are proud to have a team of dedicated professionals who bring deep empathy, professional expertise, and personal understanding to support those facing grief and loss.
Sam Vander Schelde
Sam Vander Schelde (he/him) is a Registered Social Worker, Thanatologist, and grief specialist who provides compassionate support to individuals, couples, and families navigating grief, loss, trauma, and life's most difficult transitions.
Sam offers a warm, non-judgmental space where people can explore grief, identity, relationships, and life changes in ways that feel safe, grounded, and authentic. He works with individuals from all walks of life and has a particular interest in supporting fathers, men, and caregivers, while also helping women, couples, and families navigate the complexities of loss, caregiving, and change.
Drawing on both professional expertise and lived experience, Sam helps clients process difficult emotions, strengthen coping strategies, build resilience, and reconnect with a sense of purpose and meaning. His approach is rooted in genuine connection, practical support, and the belief that healing begins when people feel seen, heard, and understood.
Through a combination of social work and thanatology, Sam empowers individuals and families to navigate challenges with greater confidence, emotional clarity, and hope while honouring the experiences that have shaped them.
Kimberley Vander Schelde
As our Community Liaison and dedicated grief, bereavement, and loss specialist, Kim serves individuals and families across Canada with compassion, understanding, and genuine care.
Grounded in both professional training and lived experience, Kim brings a deep appreciation for the many forms grief can take. Her understanding has been shaped by experiences with loss within the first responder community, suicide survivorship, infertility, caregiving, life-limiting illness, and other significant life transitions. These experiences have reinforced her belief that no two grief journeys are the same and that every person deserves compassionate, individualized support.
Through client intake, community partnerships, and special projects, Kim works to expand access to grief support while helping individuals and families feel connected, understood, and less alone. She is passionate about identifying gaps in care, building meaningful community connections, and creating initiatives that ensure people have support when they need it most.
Kim believes that healing begins with compassionate connection and strives to ensure that everyone who reaches out is met with dignity, empathy, and hope.
Sarah Pollard
Sarah is a compassionate, trauma-informed Registered Social Worker with over 20 years of experience supporting individuals through life transitions, loss, and emotional challenges.
She provides strengths-based, solution-focused counselling informed by CBT, along with practical resource navigation during vulnerable times.
Sarah works with adults and individuals across the lifespan, offering care for concerns including anxiety, depression, grief and bereavement, infertility and miscarriage loss, palliative care, relationship challenges, emotional regulation, and cognitive changes.
Her passion lies in creating a safe, supportive space where people can process grief, build resilience, and move gently from struggle toward healing.
Melanie Wuytenburg
Melanie holds a Master of Social Work and is a Registered Social Worker with over 15 years of experience supporting children, youth and adults through grief, loss, trauma and significant life transitions. She holds a deep respect for each person's unique experiences and offers a compassionate, grief informed therapeutic space where clients can feel heard, understood and supported.
Melanie works with children aged 10 and older, adolescents and adults experiencing grief and loss, including both death and non-death losses, trauma, anxiety, emotional dysregulation, relationship difficulties and family transitions. Her approach recognizes that grief can emerge from many of life's experiences, including the loss of a person, relationship, sense of safety, identity, health, family structure or the future we imagined.
Drawing from Narrative Therapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), Internal Family Systems (IFS), Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Deep Brain Reorienting and strengths-based approaches, Melanie tailors her work to the individual needs and experiences of each client.
Her work is dedicated to helping clients develop a deeper understanding of the patterns, parts and past experiences that may be influencing how they are coping today. She recognizes that grief, trauma and difficult life experiences can be held not only in our thoughts and emotions, but also within the body.
Melanie supports clients in making sense of what they have experienced, developing meaningful ways of coping and finding a path forward that honours both what has been lost and what remains.
Edin De Vries
Edin De Vries (she/her) is a Registered Social Worker and Thanatologist who is passionate about supporting individuals as they navigate grief, loss, trauma, and life's many transitions. She believes that healing begins within the context of a safe, trusting therapeutic relationship and strives to create a space where clients feel genuinely seen, heard, and accepted.
Edin's practice is grounded in trauma-informed, anti-oppressive, relational, and person-in-environment perspectives. She recognizes that each person's experiences are shaped by their relationships, identities, communities, and broader systems they live within. Her approach is compassionate, strengths-based, and culturally responsive, with a focus on creating an affirming space where clients feel empowered to explore their experiences at their own pace.
Throughout her career, Edin has worked in community mental health, crisis services, settlement services, gender-based violence, and grief support. She has experience supporting individuals facing complex grief, trauma, addiction, and major life transitions. She draws from a variety of evidence-informed approaches and believes that meaningful healing comes through connection, collaboration, and helping clients rediscover their strengths while making sense of their experiences.
Tamelynda Lux
With more than 30 years of experience supporting people through life transitions, Tamelynda Lux brings professional expertise and a calm, compassionate presence to individuals navigating grief, loss and significant change.
As a Grief, Loss & Life Transitions Practitioner, Certified Grief Educator and Hypnotherapist, Tamelynda supports widows, caregivers, people navigating later-life transitions, and others adjusting to the emotional and practical changes that can accompany loss.
An important part of Tamelynda's work is her training and experience in hypnotherapy. Used as a complementary approach to grief and life-transition support, hypnotherapy can offer another way of working with experiences that sometimes accompany loss, including disrupted sleep, anxiety, emotional overwhelm, racing thoughts, and difficulty settling or relaxing.
Her work is not about erasing grief or encouraging someone to "move on." Instead, Tamelynda provides a supportive, nonjudgmental space where individuals can explore what they are experiencing and develop greater calm and steadiness as they adjust to a life that may look very different than it once did.
Tamelynda has a special interest in the identity changes that can follow loss. Whether someone is grieving the death of a loved one, adjusting to caregiving, facing solo aging, or navigating another significant life transition, she supports people in rediscovering who they are, exploring what comes next, and reconnecting with meaning and purpose.
Tamelynda believes grief is not something to be fixed or cured. Her approach honours each person's experience and pace while offering compassionate support and practical tools for navigating life after loss.
Jennifer Stan
Jennifer brings a heart-centred, intuitive and compassionate approach to therapy, grounded in safety, trust, and a deep respect for the honour and integrity of each person's lived experience and individual journey.
With more than 35 years of experience as an Art Therapist in mental health settings, Jennifer has worked extensively with children and youth experiencing a wide range of life challenges. She also works with adults, offering a supportive and creative therapeutic space for people across different stages of life.
Jennifer supports children, youth and adults experiencing anxiety, emotional dysregulation, grief and loss, trauma, and interpersonal and relationship difficulties.
Within the safety of a one-on-one therapeutic relationship, Jennifer uses a variety of art materials and the creative process to help individuals explore thoughts, feelings and experiences that may be difficult to express through words alone. Art Therapy can provide another way of communicating, understanding and processing experiences while fostering inner strength, growth and a greater sense of wellbeing.
Goals of Art Therapy may include expanding self-expression, self-discovery, self-awareness and self-acceptance; supporting emotional regulation and the development of healthy coping strategies; restoring or strengthening a sense of wellbeing; enhancing communication, insight, creativity and a sense of accomplishment; developing conflict-resolution skills; incorporating mindfulness techniques and practical tools; and providing advocacy when appropriate.
The creative process itself can also promote mindfulness. By focusing on the present moment, individuals may feel more grounded, experience enjoyment and develop new ways of managing stress and anxiety. No artistic experience or skill is required. Art Therapy is about the process, not the finished product.
Ingi ElAkary
Grief has a way of changing how we experience ourselves, our relationships, and the world around us. Whether you are grieving the death of a loved one, coping with a life-changing diagnosis, navigating family changes, or carrying the weight of another significant loss, you do not have to face it alone.
Ingi provides a warm, compassionate, and culturally responsive space where clients can share their stories without fear of judgment. Fluent in both English and Arabic, she is committed to providing therapy that honours each person's unique cultural, spiritual, and personal experiences. She is passionate about supporting individuals from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds, ensuring they feel heard, understood, respected, and empowered throughout their healing journey.
Using a trauma-informed and culturally responsive approach, Ingi integrates evidence-based methodologies including Narrative Therapy, Person-Centered Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Motivational Interviewing. She also draws on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), and Solution-Focused Therapy (SFT) when appropriate, tailoring therapy to each client's unique needs, values, culture, and goals.
Ingi believes healing is not about forgetting or "moving on." Rather, it is about learning to carry loss in a way that allows hope, connection, meaning, and purpose to exist alongside grief.
Seeking support is a courageous first step. Whether your loss is recent or something you have carried for many years, Ingi is committed to walking alongside you with empathy, respect, cultural humility, and genuine care as you navigate your path toward healing.