Board of Directors

 Meet Our Board:

Accessibility and intersectional representation is at the core of Reclamation Collective.

We believe that for trust and safety to exist, there must be distribution of power, systems of accountability, and representation for the wide spectrum of voices, experiences, and identities.

It is with these priorities and values that the Reclamation Collective is honored to have the following individuals guide, direct, and lead this organization.

Sarah Carr

Rebekah Monroe

Paige Lemieux

Kendra Snyder

Max Tang

Doralis Coriano Ortiz

Joanna Luehmann

Tessi Muskrat

Emily Worsham

Jackie Sparrow

Monique Morris

Kristen Yealy

Sarah Carr
CFP CFT-1 Financial Therapist and Planner
Board Chair
She/Her

What personally and professionally brings you to religious trauma support work?
As a survivor myself, I know how great the need is to support religious abuse survivors throughout their healing journey. I passionately believe that survivors should have access to the resources they need, and I am aware of many barriers, including financial constraints, that challenge many. In reckoning with my own experiences and hearing the stories of other survivors, I'm compelled to continue to raise awareness about adverse religious experiences and religious trauma. What happened to me and many others is not a result of isolated incidents but systemic issues within religious institutions that demand collective acknowledgement and change. Addressing these systemic issues is crucial in creating safer spaces for ALL individuals.

What are you in the process of reclaiming?
I am reclaiming all the various aspects of who I am, bringing my fractured and alienated parts back into harmony with my whole being.  With curiosity, hope, and some playfulness I am enjoying the exploration of this vibrant life I'm creating on my own terms.

Rebekah Monroe
Clinical Psychology PhD Student
Board Vice Chair
She/they

What personally and professionally brings you to religious trauma support work?
I want to help cultivate safe spaces in both applied and research Clinical Psychology for people who have experienced religious trauma. I want to do translational, intersectional, interdisciplinary work that acknowledges Christian hegemony and the bigotry that often infiltrates so many U.S. institutions.

What are you in the process of reclaiming?
I continually struggle with religious trauma, in particular, I fear death from being raised to believe if I did not maintain my faith that I'd go to hell.  Also, like many who grew up in a purity culture, I still sometimes feel dirty for being a sexual being. I'm reclaiming my worth, my morality, self-love, and my pride in that I am a Queer, Intersectional Feminist, Atheist, and overall a flawed, beautiful human. 

Doralis Coriano Ortiz, LCPC
General Board Member
She/her

What personally and professionally brings you to religious trauma support work?
My passion for religious trauma support work comes from my own experience of being born into and raised in a fundamentalist Pentecostal church in Puerto Rico. Becoming a psychotherapist and engaging in my own therapy process helped me realize I was living with trauma directly related to the teachings and experiences from my religious upbringing. Connecting with others who are deconstructing from fundamentalist religion showed me there’s many of us in this journey. This is why I strive to validate religious trauma or harm whenever it shows up in therapeutic space. My goal is to make religious trauma information, resources, and support accessible to anyone who may need it and especially to BIPOC, to my fellow Puerto Ricans, and to other Latinx/Spanish speakers who may still not have access to this work.

What are you in the process of reclaiming?
During my deconstruction process I’ve reclaimed flexibility and openness as I move away from the “all or nothing” thinking patterns that were instilled in me at a young age. This includes arriving at an understanding that there’s multiple ways of healing and that no one person or group holds the absolute truth. I’m also in the process of reclaiming my sexuality. Growing up in purity culture meant that virginity and heterosexuality were the only valid ways of existing. Reclaiming my sexuality has meant being able to connect with my body and getting to know myself on my own terms.

Kendra Snyder, MA, LMFT, NCC
Co-Founder & Secretary
She/her

What personally and professionally brings you to religious trauma support work?
My passion for religious trauma support work comes from personal experience of religious trauma and spiritual abuse, alongside my clinical therapy work at NobleTree Therapy. After experiencing significant relational and existential trauma from a former faith community, I embarked on my own therapeutic journey of deconstruction and reclamation of my whole self. My own experience in a safe, respectful and compassionate therapeutic space provided the container I needed to rediscover my authentic, autonomous, and powerful voice. I am so honored to be able to share space with countless others as they heal from painful experiences through reconnection and reclamation of their full selves.

What are you in the process of reclaiming?
I am in the process of reclaiming rest, my own empowerment, the power of my voice, and the present moment. 

Tessi Ynada Muskrat
Doctoral Student in Counseling Psychology
Post-Traumatic Growth Coach & Spiritual Director
General Board Member
She/her

What personally and professionally brings you to religious trauma support work?
My passionate pursuit of religion was always driven by the desire to experience, and offer, healing and beauty to others. Instead I spent many formative years enmeshed in fundamentalist evangelicalism, harming others and being harmed myself. The journey toward my own healing and wholeness has stripped me down to my core self and allowed me to learn who I am as a woman, an Indigenous person, and a spiritual, sensual, sexual being. Companioning others--and myself--through the work of healing from the devastation of religious trauma has been powerful, difficult, devastating, rewarding, and challenging in ways that continually reminds me how painfully human we all are, and how beautiful it can be to be human with each other.

Professionally, my own experiences being a biracial (Irish/Cherokee), queer woman within churches founded on white nationalism and heteronormativity, being home educated and not attending college until my late 30's (because why would a mother need an education?), and of being a proponent of purity culture before it had a name have all worked to provide me a very unique perspective on religious harm and the work of healing.

What are you in the process of reclaiming?
I am reclaiming delight and joy and freedom and hope. I'm leaning in to the healing power of the living world: the sound of tree branches creaking in the wind, the gentleness of grass beneath my feet, the healing energy of a gently flowing stream. And I'm reclaiming the powerful wisdom, insight, and magic of my ancestors through discovering and welcoming it in myself.

Paige Lemieux
Treasurer & Lead of Financial Committee
She/her

What personally and professionally brings you to religious trauma support work?
I come to this work as a queer woman who grew up in the church not knowing it was okay to be gay. I am now happily out and have been able to deconstruct much of my church upbringing and am excited to be part of an organization that brings others through their own healing journey. 

What are you in the process of reclaiming?
I am reclaiming autonomy over my body.

Max Tang, MSW (expected 2024)
Clinical Social Worker, Therapist, & Community Wellness Advocate
General Board Member & Lead of Representation, Reciprocity, Accountability, & Accessibility (RRAA) Committee
All Pronouns

What personally and professionally brings you to religious trauma support work?
I was born and raised in a non-denominational Chinese American church community. Around 10 years ago, I began my journey of leaving the faith I loved and building a new life beyond it, but I struggled to find resources - so I connected with everyone I could find and got involved in the online deconstruction support community (before we had that word for it!) Today, as a therapist in training, I'm still passionate about helping people heal from harmful spiritual experiences. I'm especially passionate about supporting survivors of spiritual abuse at home and people who are queer, neurodivergent, or in the Asian diaspora, because I know religious trauma has unique impacts (and still little support) in these areas.

What are you in the process of reclaiming?
My relationship to dance (!), community, creative writing, my inner compass, and my spirit.

Jackie Sparrow
General Board Member
They/Them

What personally and professionally brings you to religious trauma support work?
I grew up in a highly conservative religious environment and left the church at eighteen after being outed. One of the my major hardships was realizing how undereducated I was as result of religious homeschooling, so I dove into college with a thirst for knowledge and community. Professionally, I now work in education. Personally, I participated in a Reclamation Collective support group a few years ago and it was life changing to find community and support with others that had similar experiences as me. There are many people in my life that work in non-profits, and I am excited to support the work of the Reclamation Collective so others may continue to find community and healing. 

What are you in the process of reclaiming?
There’s something new to reclaim every day, all of it ultimately coming back to trusting my innate self. I am reclaiming that my worth is not built on labor (freely given or paid) or if I have made myself small enough to be palatable to everyone in the room. 

Joanna Luehmann
General Board Member
She/They

What personally and professionally brings you to religious trauma support work?
I am a religious abuse survivor and also a trained theologian and writer. My work is at the intersections of oppression, religion, spirituality and liberation. I write about theologies and historical events that have shaped the way in which we see ourselves and others around us, sometimes to the detriment of our communities and the individuals in it; sometimes to our benefit.

What are you in the process of reclaiming?
Myself and the wisdom hidden by my ancestors in my own nervous system. Reclaiming collaborative, transformational communion with myself and my communities.

Kristen Yealy, M.S.Ed
General Board Member & Lead of
Employment, Volunteer, & Internship Committee
She/Her

What personally and professionally brings you to religious trauma support work?
I am a survivor of religious abuse - I grew up in an evangelical church that distorted the way I thought about my body, my capabilities as a woman, and the amount of personal responsibility I should hold for others' choices. After a significant trauma in 2014, I had the privilege of receiving therapeutic group support that helped me detox from my religious upbringing so that I could safely move to deconstruction and finally to reclamation. Knowing how essential a safe and tolerant community is to religious trauma survivors, I'm passionate about supporting Reclamation Collective in their work, especially with their focus on addressing systems of power, accountability, and representation.

What are you in the process of reclaiming?
I'm currently reclaiming what it looks like to work towards a higher purpose in my life, along with the joy of being in an intergenerational spiritual community. One of my favorite things that I've reclaimed in the past decade is the inherent wisdom found in listening to my body!

Monique Morris
Project Manager & Certified Yoga Teacher
General Board Member
She/Her

What personally and professionally brings you to religious trauma support work?
Being disempowered by trauma and recognizing the spellbound systems I was a part of has personally led me to engage in religious trauma advocacy work. As a certified and practicing Yogi, this knowledge has informed my own emancipation from stifling cultures and circumstances. Professionally, having a strong foundation in personal spiritual exploration, emotional regulation, and mind-body connection is sometimes the missing element to free a beautiful soul. It is an honor to be able to impart/inform the board with such information. 

What are you in the process of reclaiming?
I am currently in the process of reclaiming my psycho - spiritual , social and economic power from the trauma impose on me as a black woman of the African diaspora. I am reclaiming my emotional autonomy, sensual and sexual power and my ability to wield these things for my community and my own good. 

Emily Worsham
General Board Member & Lead of Fundraising & Grants Committee
She/Her

What personally and professionally brings you to religious trauma support work?
My passion for religious trauma advocacy work comes from my own lived experience. As a survivor of years of religious abuse and trauma, I am passionate about supporting others in their healing journey. 

Professionally, I am a lover of details and organization. I have spent my entire career so far in the nonprofit sector, and I look forward to helping Reclamation Collective breakdown the nonprofit industrial complex while supporting victims and survivors of religious trauma.

What are you in the process of reclaiming?
I am in the process of reclaiming my intuition and my voice. For most of my life, I was taught not to trust myself and to make myself smaller. I am practicing being loud and trusting my gut!