Care-O-Van, PLLC

Who Care-O-Van Serves:

Children
Adolescents
Adults
Caregivers & Families
Foster Care Providers
School/Care Setting Staff
Professional Service Providers

Areas of Speciality:

Chronic stress and trauma
Intergenerational and early childhood trauma
Emotional/behavioral difficulties
Postpartum and parenting struggles
Sexual abuse and neglect
Autism and Neurodivergence
LGBTQ-IA2S+, gender and sexual identity diversity
Relational harm and domestic violence
Grief, loss and mourning
Addictions
Conflict, transitions and change
Developmental delays and interference

A little bit about me to share with you🥰

Meg Mertaugh-Graber, LMSW - Clinical, MSW, M.Ed

Meg is a trauma sensitive, developmentally informed, neuro-affirming and Internal Family Systems trained clinical mental health therapist. Specialized in facilitating nature-based, expressive arts, experiential and animal-assisted therapeutic services for over a decade, Meg founded Care-O-Van, a private practice through which she works with children, adolescents, adults, families, educators, and care-givers. Meg’s areas of interest and experience include: complex, chronic and intergenerational trauma, postpartum and parenting, caregiver/child relationships, youth development, attachment, issues related to sexual trauma, neglect, abuse and in**st, autism+ neurodivergence, gender and sexual identity and expression, LGBTQIA+, grief and loss, self worth, body worth, and embodied resilience. A mama of elementary age twins, bonus mama of a daughter now grown adult, partner, caregiver of many fur-wool-feather beings large and small, and land steward, Meg honors her greatest teachers as her children, animals, and her own reflective therapeutic work.

Care-O-Van provides parent/caregiver support services🤗 Read below to learn more:

I am driven to support parents, foster parents and care-givers in learning how to remain present, patient, and self-regulate during those tough and overwhelming times of parenting, respond in ways that are informed, predictable, consistent, and maintain developmentally appropriate expectations and boundaries in order to support their child’s ability to successfully manage emotions.

I am called to support parents, foster parents and care-givers in reflecting upon their own experiences of being parented as a child, in order to identify and address unresolved childhood experiences and ways of being, impacting their own experience of parenting. This may be the most humbling invitation of parenting; the invitation to reflect upon our own experiences, thoughts, feelings, sensations, and actions, and to lean in to taking accountability for all the ways in which we impact others, especially our little humans.

Children invite us towards our own healing if we are courageous and earnest enough to listen; to learn how to parent our Selves and our children differently, in order to show up in all the ways we want to for our children and ultimately needed ourselves when very young. I believe this is the most challenging, AND ultimate gift of raising and working with children, the moving towards learning how to show up for our Selves, our children, others, and the world around us with warmth, gentleness, connectivity, and love.

What kind of potion will you make today? The artful magic of potion making has been a therapeutic fave this summer for littles to adults alike❤️ Create a space where you can make some beautiful, accepted mess, and give yourself permission to make and create and maybe just add some sparkles (or LOTS of them🤪🥰)…

“Art can permeate the deepest part of us, where no words exist.” - Eileen Miller

Art Therapy encourages self-expression through the integrative and creative process of active art-making to give a voice to experience. Engaging the whole person through purposefully facilitated sensory, kinesthetic, perceptual, and symbolic art opportunities creates access to alternative modes of expressive and receptive communication, distinct from verbal articulation alone. Through visual and symbolic expression, Art Therapy empowers individual, communal and societal transformation.

“Any form of art is a form of power; it has impact, it can affect change. It can not only move us, it makes us move.” - Ossie Davis

I am just blown away by all Tracy manifests for littles, adults, and families❤️ What Tracy brings to our community and facilitates with such intentionality, creativity and love is a gift and absolute magic🙏🏼💗🙌🏼

Fall Classes Registration Coming Soon! Read for deets:

🖌️Wednesday After School Art Club:
Ages K-2nd grade
Right After School until 5pm (bussing to OAB likely)
$35/session, sold in one month packages
Begins September 11th

🖌️Thursday After school Art Club:
Ages 3-5th grade
Right After School until 5 pm (bussing to OAB likely)
Begins September 12th

NEW

🖌️Tods and Preschool Art Playgroup:
Ages 1.5-4 years with a caregiver
10:30-11:30 (day TBA)
$100/month (except abbreviated months)
Begins mid-September (date TBA)
We will explore art materials, mark making, sensory and pretend play, and cultivate creative relationships with caregivers and our community.

These 3 classes will go live Monday, August 26th on the Old Art Building’s website. Please call OAB office or dm me directly with any questions ahead of time—age considerations/exceptions, details, etc.

More creative opportunities:

✨ Collective Self Cinema tickets are linked in my bio. This is a really cool new project that I am facilitating art workshops for. Meg Mertaugh-Graber of is the mastermind behind this project. Read all about it through the link. These events take place at the Dennos Museum.

✨Middle School Art Explorers is a class that I will be co-teaching with the amazing artist, author, and art educator (and very cool human) These classes are being carefully planned and will take place starting in January at the OAB. Be on the lookout for a more in-depth update by the end of September.

✨I am in the process of dreaming up some Family Art experiences and possibly even some Adult Creativity classes. Stay tuned!

To Learn & Heal Is To Be With.

At Care-O-Van, all parts of you are welcome and you are embraced for all that you are, as you are.

You already have the capacity within yourself to persevere, grow, learn, heal, and flourish.

I am here to help hold what may feel stuck, overwhelming, numb, conflicted, lost, alone or like too much, to bear witness to and help make sense of what you have experienced and are going through. I am here to support, guide, and strengthen your access to your own inner-knowing, interoception, connectedness, and full Self.

I am here to show up for and be with you, all of you.

That means all of your raw, extraordinary, strange, rough, spicy, destructive, bright, ashamed, intelligent, primal, punished, driven, forbidden, soft, rejected, addicted, divergent, shy, corporeal, hurt, scary, invisible, celebrated, mad, unwanted, concealed, wondrous, and real parts of you, are not just welcomed, they are invited and accepted here.

What I know is that our behaviors, thoughts, feelings, sensations ultimately serve with the intention to protect us. Most likely at one point they were purposefully effective, and since may have grown to become unhelpful, hurtful, limiting, dysfunctional, or even illegal. I am here to help listen, reflect and partner with you, in the seeking out of the, ‘for why;’ the purpose behind these parts and behaviors. Not only do all parts of you make perfect sense once we can deeply listen to them, we can make meaning of them together to release burdened beliefs, learn how to show up in your life for your Self and others differently, and access the freedom, rest, joy, and peace, you, yes, every last one of you deserve.

It is my honor to provide relationally safe regulatory partnership, in order to support such individual growth towards self-actualization, and integration as a whole, accepted, and sacred self.

We only learn and heal when in relationship with our Selves & others.

COLLECTIVE SELF CINEMA // A HERONRY FILM PROJECT

About The Collective Self Cinema Series

Explore complex feelings through this Collective Self Cinema series. Bridging the Parent-Child relationship through film, Collective Self Cinema aims to help young and grown-up humans understand themselves and each other better, to enhance a family’s felt sense of connectivity and love. Enjoy the movie in the Milliken Auditorium through a partnership with the Dennos Museum Center, and take home guided mental health resources. For a deeper experience, register with Care-O-Van for guided workshop sessions with and more leading professionals after the film.

For more information check out the Humanitix event link in bio🤗❤️🙏🏼

To joining together in delighting in watching, learning, and creating together🙌🏼❤️🙌🏼

I am excited to share Care-O-Van’s new community programming — Collective Self Cinema — made possible in partnership with the Dennos Museum Center, and in collaboration with Tearwater T💗💗💗

More information to come, AND here is what information we have to share as of now here🤗

https://www.dennosmuseum.org/events/films.html

https://events.humanitix.com/collective-self-cinema

Collective Self Cinema | Humanitix Bridging the Parent-Child relationship through film, Collective Self Cinema aims to enhance a family’s felt sense of connectivity and love.

“Animals stimulate us not only by touch, but by some deeply buried aspect of nature within us, a connection to part of something greater, more healthy, more whole.” - Peter Levine

Animal-Assisted Therapy partners with animals within the psychotherapeutic process, and places emphasis upon the human-animal bond to enhance emotional, psychological, cognitive, physiological, spiritual learning and healing. The human-animal relationship, can bring forth a visceral array of nonverbal experiences of nurturance, relationship, co-regulation, empathy, trust and empowerment. Partnering with animals as sentient beings, teachers, and guides, Animal-Assisted Therapy is a powerful healing modality that enhances interpersonal relationships, communication skills, and facilitates repairiative experiences and the development of a sense of self-worth, respect, patience, acceptance, leadership, assertiveness, empathy and responsibility.

Never underestimate the power of chicken cuddles and hugs❤️🐓❤️

I recognize I’ve taken a rather long pause from sharing, and, there is SO much manifesting🥰

Tomorrow, please come and experience this profound and beautiful short film🙏🏼 It is tender and extraordinary, and the story it shares will go straight to the heart. I am simply honored to participate on the panel and be a part of this event❤️

Here is what The Dennos Museum Center shares about the screening tomorrow:

‘Join us for a screening of “Eat Flowers” and a panel discussion on Thursday, July 25th at 4:00 PM. Get tickets online: https://www.simpletix.com/e/eat-flowers-screening-tickets-172781

Our panel features representatives from Michael’s Place (), Got Grief House (),Care-O-Van, PLLC (), and Interlochen Public Radio. We’ll explore the question, “How can creative outlets help in processing grief?” This event also draws inspiration from Louise Jones’ () solo exhibition, “10,000 Flowers,” now on view at the museum.

Don’t miss this insightful conversation.

ABOUT THE FILM
“Eat Flowers” is a short film inspired by British artist Cig Harvey’s, “Blue Violet,” a book of photographs and writing that explores themes of isolation, beauty, and loss.

Told through a series of poetic vignettes, Eat Flowers brings us into the dreamy worlds that Cig creates for her best friend Mary who is being treated for Leukemia.

These artistic gifts create a portal for us to experience magic in unexpected places: a dahlia compost heap, a field of yellow weeds, a disco ball. Cig’s vibrant, passionate work breaks open a world we didn’t know we were missing.

“Eat Flowers” tells an urgent story about living, all through the language of flowers.

After the film, join us for an afterglow at our film sponsor The Little Fleet (). Enjoy a beverage of your choice for $1 off when you show your movie ticket, and chat about the film with your fellow movie-goers.

The ticket price reflects the cost of admission to the museum. Please register in advance. Limit of 34 people, please limit groups to four people.’

Join us for a screening of "Eat Flowers" and a panel discussion on Thursday, July 25th at 4:00 PM. Get tickets online: https://www.simpletix.com/e/eat-flowers-screening-tickets-172781

Our panel features representatives from Michael's Place (), Got Grief House (),Care-O-Van, PLLC (), and Interlochen Public Radio. We'll explore the question, "How can creative outlets help in processing grief?" This event also draws inspiration from Louise Jones' () solo exhibition, "10,000 Flowers," now on view at the museum.

Don't miss this insightful conversation.

ABOUT THE FILM
"Eat Flowers" is a short film inspired by British artist Cig Harvey’s, "Blue Violet," a book of photographs and writing that explores themes of isolation, beauty, and loss.

Told through a series of poetic vignettes, Eat Flowers brings us into the dreamy worlds that Cig creates for her best friend Mary who is being treated for Leukemia.

These artistic gifts create a portal for us to experience magic in unexpected places: a dahlia compost heap, a field of yellow weeds, a disco ball. Cig’s vibrant, passionate work breaks open a world we didn't know we were missing.

"Eat Flowers" tells an urgent story about living, all through the language of flowers.

After the film, join us for an afterglow at our film sponsor The Little Fleet (). Enjoy a beverage of your choice for $1 off when you show your movie ticket, and chat about the film with your fellow movie-goers.

The ticket price reflects the cost of admission to the museum. Please register in advance. Limit of 34 people, please limit groups to four people.

🙌🏼💫🙌🏼

The Single Most Important Parenting Strategy | Becky Kennedy | TED Everyone loses their temper from time to time — but the stakes are dizzyingly high when the focus of your fury is your own child. Clinical psychologist and r...

https://www.facebook.com/share/G3XdRZ3YnqMtXiwC/?mibextid=WC7FNe

You're Invited: Watch for FREE In this free excerpt from Dr. Gabor and Daniel Maté’s new online workshop, Starting Fresh, you will finally begin to uproot your working theories. The clarity and freedom you’ll gain from this discovery can break down barriers and open up a world of new possibilities for your relationship.

Care-O-Van is an inclusive, place-based mental health service that provides integrative and adaptive therapeutic support to children, adolescents, adults, and care-givers.

Located on the grounds of the secluded and family owned, 4 acre AVEC Farm, Care-O-Van specializes in offering purposeful interactions with animals, plants and landscapes with the integration of nature, expressive arts, culinary and movement based therapies.

Housed within a renovated school bus, Care-O-Van is an innovative therapeutic space; a school bus turned into a play, art and experiential therapy office! Step on in, and children and adults alike experience a therapeutic setting informed to cultivate wonder, curiosity, creativity, warmth, and relational safety.

Care-O-Van’s services are purposefully facilitated, paced, and individualized in a therapeutic environment unlike any other. Shaped to each individual’s earnestness for exploration, Care-O-Van’s services are uniquely adapted to offer individually preferred modes of engagement, expression and methods of processing, and designed to create an embodied experience of both interpersonal and intrapersonal safety and connectivity.

Originally created as a mobile mental health service platform, to partner with schools, farms, parks, and local service organizations to enhance accessibility to services, Care-O-Van currently remains stationary and parked to provide services and meet the needs of our community on the grounds and in partnership with the animals of the AVEC Farm.

A follow-up to a previous conversation shared featuring Elizabeth Gilbert, with another wonder of a resource and love-full discussion on the podcast We Can Do Hard Things.

Episode #269: ‘Glennon Shares Her Love Letter with Liz Gilbert’

About the episode:
‘Glennon FINALLY UNDERSTANDS FORGIVENESS! She reads a gorgeous letter about her newfound, hard-earned understanding of forgiveness and it helps us all breathe deeper. What happened when Glennon finally surrendered to the “Letters From Love” experiment. The dance of forgetting and remembering – a cycle that holds the essence of what’s worth living for; How to overcome fear and blocks that get in the way of creative expression; and Liz challenges Amanda to try doing something without being attached to the outcome.’

Link: https://muckrack.com/podcast/we-can-do-hard-things-with-glennon-doyle/episodes/6292142-269-glennon-shares-her-love-letter-with-li/ #!

A little bit about me… Hi, I’m Meg ❤️

I am a mama of elementary age twins, a bonus mama of a daughter now grown adult, a partner, a caregiver of many fur-wool-feather beings large and small, and land steward. My greatest teachers have been foremost, my children, animals, and doing my own reflective therapeutic work.

I am an attachment-focused, trauma sensitive, developmentally informed, and Internal Family Systems (IFS) trained mental health therapist - LMSW, Clinical. I have facilitated nature-based, expressive arts, experiential and animal-assisted therapeutic services for over a decade. I am committed to creating relationally secure, inclusive, and embodied reparative experiences for children, adolescents, adults, and care-givers. I help guide and lead with warmth, relational attunement, partnership, creativity, reciprocity, empathy, and openly welcome all parts of one’s individual experience, multiplicity of being, identities and relational landscapes inside and out.

I opened Care-O-Van PLLC in 2022, and we are nearing Care-O-Van’s official 2nd birthday come the start of April🎉🙌🏼🙏🏼❤️

Pepa and her egg❤️

A sunshine smile from Chewie to you☀️❤️☀️

Myrtle loves being a bus buddy❤️🐓❤️

Prepare for a heart hit that is such an overwhelming and needed heart hug directly from Love. 💗

This We Can Do Hard Things podcast episode, and project initiated by Elizabeth Gilbert IS the healing the world is asking for - yes - that profound.

Give episode #286 a listen:
https://muckrack.com/podcast/we-can-do-hard-things-with-glennon-doyle/episodes/3420757-268-elizabeth-gilbert-on-her-most-importan/

Fish’s equivalent of the llama cold dip❄️😂 Toast to the snow🦙❄️

Socks in her element❄️❤️❄️