Sara ElMakawy, LCSW
Sara ElMakawy is a licensed clinical social worker with over eight years of comprehensive experience working with children, adults, and families. She has provided mental health services in private practice, school, university, hospital, and residential settings. Sara’s therapeutic approach is person-centered, holistic, and trauma-informed. She profoundly values building positive therapeutic relationships with her clients. Sara creates an environment for clients to feel connected, safe, and empowered to facilitate hope, healing, and self-efficacy.
Sara integrates various schools of thought to best support each person she works with. In her work with children, her approach draws heavily upon child-centered play therapy, internal family systems, and creative forms of expression and processing through art and movement. Sara’s approach draws upon Family Systems, Behavioral, Cognitive, and Somatic therapy in her work with adults. Sara specializes in providing services to elementary-aged children who have experienced various forms of trauma and stress. She specializes in treating grief, depression, anxiety, emotion regulation, and behavioral challenges.
Sara completed her Master of Social Work from the University of North Carolina Charlotte. During her graduate school clinical training, Sara provided advocacy, crisis support, counseling, and group therapy services to trauma survivors. For her second-year practicum, she provided mental health services to children and parents at an elementary school.
After graduating and receiving her license, Sara began to provide therapy for adults with various mental health challenges such as depression, anxiety, personality disorders, and trauma and stressor-related disorders.
Sara later joined a private practice where she provided school-based therapy services at an elementary and middle school. During her three years as a therapist at an elementary school, she provided individual, family, and group therapy services. She gained extensive experience working with children with a history of complex trauma and various mental health challenges. Sara led groups focused on social skills, self-esteem, grief, and anxiety. As part of her role at the school, she also provided parenting support, teacher consultations, classroom observations, and trauma-informed workshops. Sara has training in teaching yoga and mindfulness practices to kids, and she incorporates these practices into her clinical work. Sara also has experience working with children and teens who are struggling with anxiety and depression in a variety of settings.
Sara supports clients in exploring their identities, healing wounds, and becoming their most authentic and empowered selves. Sara incorporates the client’s interests, values, and strengths into the therapeutic process. She understands that several systems influence people, such as family, culture, home environment, and religion. She also values supporting the whole person in her clinical work.
For additional clinical content written by Sara, check out these links!