Dorothy Pedro

Dorothy Pedro brings 25 years of clinical experience to her counseling work, with extensive time spent supporting people in acute medical settings as they face grief, trauma, suicide risk, and life-changing illnesses.

Her years in high-acuity environments honed critical thinking and crisis-management skills that she uses to help individuals and families process traumatic events and make practical decisions for themselves and their loved ones. In less urgent situations she employs motivational interviewing and goal-focused planning to help clients move forward amid chaos and create achievable plans for change.

She has worked with military families and children, and spent two years in a school-based homeless program providing meals, counseling, home visits, and resources to families experiencing significant hardship. Dorothy has coordinated care with schools, courts, and child protective services to support families in staying together and meeting requirements for safety and reunification.

Dorothy provides couples counseling, family therapy, group work, and parenting education, and she learns from the practical wisdom parents share. She often relies on systems theory as a primary framework, emphasizing family and individual strengths and seeking indirect pathways to change that can produce positive ripple effects across relationships.

She approaches the family process as a collaborative effort, focused on safety and the welfare of children, and adjusts the intensity of intervention to the family’s needs - from brief supportive work to more intensive interventions when appropriate. If a different resource would better serve a family, she will refer them to someone who can help.

Dorothy is a licensed clinical social worker in both Arizona and California and practices from Arizona. She listens to both the spoken and spiritual dimensions of family life and aims to guide families toward practical, attainable steps for healing and growth while remaining compassionate and attentive to safety.