Val Walker
About Val Walker :
Val holds a Master of Science degree in Rehabilitation Counseling from Virginia Commonwealth University, with specialized study in loss and life transitions. Previously, as a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor, she has guided Veterans Affairs clients with service-related disabilities in their major transitions from military to civilian life. She has facilitated bereavement support groups at the Massey Cancer Center, Medical College of Virginia, and served there also as an interviewer/researcher in a national study of grief and depression. With Jewish Vocational Service in Minnesota, she designed and implemented an accredited community-based rehabilitation program. Later, she developed support groups for coping with illness and caregiver stress, and trained group facilitators as a bereavement coordinator at a hospice in Maine.
Before Val became a counselor, with a B.F.A. in Theatre from Virginia Commonwealth University, she taught drama, speech and movement for 7 years. She performed in her early 20’s in Scotland with the Craigmillar Festival Society, while teaching drama to children in Britain for 2 years. In her teen years, she performed with the Virginia Museum Theatre and the Virginia Ballet Theatre.
Currently, Walker is finishing her book The Language of Comforting: What to Say and Do for People in Distress to be published by the Penguin Group (Tarcher/Penguin). She was a regular contributor to the health and wellbeing section of Maine Women's Journal, and has written for The Maine Women's Network online. She also wrote and narrated the scripts for two self-help CDs. Her relaxation CD, Even Keel, is now broadcast as video-on-demand in major hospitals.
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