Danyelle Mei Kaplan
AMHSW, MSW, BA (Hons)
Pronouns: they/them (learn more about pronouns here!)
magkasama ~ together, hand-in-hand
About Dan
I am an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker of colour, with a decade of experience working in clinical and community organisations on Lenapehoking (New York City) and Gadigal (Sydney) lands.
I have specialist experience providing anti-oppressive & healing-centred support and counselling with young people of diverse genders, sexualities and intersex variations (LGBTQ2IA+).
I am a proud member of AUSPATH (Australian Professional Association for Trans Health), AASW, Lilly Pilly Counselling Consortium and Open Dialogue Psychotherapy.
I am in solidarity with, and committed to centering people of colour & diverse cultures in this work, especially Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islands and South Sea Islands peoples.
My areas of experience are: LGBTQ2IA+ youth and mental health, gender diversity and transition support, trauma, domestic violence & dynamics of power and control, systems of privilege & oppression, burnout, homelessness, grief and survival.
I believe a respectful therapeutic relationship is more like walking alongside each other, rather than a top-down power dynamic. My approach entails first understanding what is important to you, and what supports you to feel safe in our collaboration.
I work from an Integrated Framework (including response-based practice, narrative therapy, somatic, trauma-informed & healing-centred approaches) centering anti-oppressive, intersectional & decolonizing ethics.
I am passionate about centering racial and social justice principles in my practice, co-creating spaces for safety and curiosity, and providing non-pathologising, respectful & empowering care and support.
I am diversity-positive and welcome people of diverse relationship and family networks, cultural backgrounds, refugee/displacement backgrounds, faiths and bodies. My practice is sex work-positive.
photo credit: suriya black
(image description: portrait photo of Dan, a non-binary Filipino-Hong Kong Chinese-Jewish person. They are sitting with their hands clasped together on a soft red armchair, with a white wall and a straw sculpture in the background. Dan is wearing a sleeveless smoke-patterned tunic, a black shrug and a jade pendant. Their dark brown hair is curly and short with an undercut, and they have a big smile on their face.)
acknowledgment of country
I acknowledge that I work and live on this land which is bordered by water, of which the Gadigal people of the Eora nation hold custodianship. I acknowledge that I benefit from an uncompensated and unreconciled dispossession which began over 200 years ago, and continues today.
This land and these waters have been materially, ecologically and socially transformed through occupation by White settlers. The presence of the city known as Sydney, and its surrounding suburbs, does not erase the history of the Eora nation, or the ongoing connection to land and culture held by all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
I pay respect to Elders past and present.
I pay respect to trailblazing Sistergirls, Brotherboys, as well as other sexuality, gender, and bodily diverse Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Those who came before us, who taught us, who forged many of the paths we now take.
Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land.
author: rebecca howe, photo: danyelle mei kaplan
(image description: a large blue board with a spray-painted stencil of a quote by dr. martin luther king: “until justice rolls down, like waters / and righteousness like a mighty stream”. the board is attached by zip-ties to a chainlink fence, against a backdrop of green grass and lush trees on Gadigal land.)