Doctoral Associate
Flora Roudbarani
M.A., M.Ed.
Children and teens tend to warm to Flora quickly. She is easy to talk to, patient, and genuinely curious about how each young person sees the world, and that curiosity tends to put families at ease from the first conversation. Parents often leave feeling heard and included, part of the work rather than watching from the outside. Flora believes progress happens through collaboration, at a pace that feels right for each child, with room for flexibility and compassion along the way.
My weekends usually involve some mix of yoga, a mindfulness practice, and hunting down a new cafe or bookstore.
You don't have to have it figured out.
How Flora works
Flora believes children thrive when they feel genuinely heard, seen, and understood. Every child has strengths, insight, and their own way of experiencing the world, and her work starts by taking those seriously. She builds on what is already there, working alongside children and families toward goals that matter to them.
She is especially drawn to children and teens navigating medical challenges, including medical trauma and adjusting to chronic illness, and to supporting the mental health of young people with neurodevelopmental differences such as autism. She also loves working with teens more broadly, as they navigate adolescence, independence, and the question of who they are becoming.
Her training spans some of the most respected paediatric and community settings in Ontario, including Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital and The Hospital for Sick Children. That experience shapes how she listens, and what she pays attention to, in every session.
Flora pays attention not just to what a child says but to how they say it. She stays flexible, tailoring her approach to what each young person needs, and stays honest and transparent with both children and parents throughout.
Clinical approach
Attuned, flexible, and always collaborative.
Flora draws on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), and emotion-focused approaches, chosen to fit the child rather than the other way around. With anxiety and OCD, that might mean psychoeducation about the fight, flight, freeze response and gentle exposure work. With chronic illness or health-related concerns, she leans on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, using mindfulness and values-based work to help young people adjust to changes in daily life..
Across all of it, she is paying attention to the relationship itself. Rapport comes first. She stays curious, authentic, and transparent, partnering with families rather than working around them, and adjusting as she goes.
What matters most is that children know who they are and what matters to them, and feel able to show up in the world as themselves.
What Flora works with.
Areas of focus
Languages: English
Background and credentials.
Education and training
PhD, Clinical-Developmental Psychology
York University
MA, Clinical-Developmental Psychology
York University
MEd, Developmental Psychology and Education
OISE · University of Toronto
BSc, Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour
McMaster University
Professional AssociationsOntario Psychological Association (OPA)
Canadian Psychological Association (CPA)
Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital
Residency
The Hospital for Sick Children
The Red Oak Centre
Advanced intervention placement
The Child and Adolescent Centre
York University Psychology Clinic
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