About the Board
Duties of the Board
President
Serves as chief executive officer of the Association, presides at all Board and Member meetings, appoints committees, approves all expenditures
Vice-president
Presides at meetings in the absence of the President, performs all duties of the President in the event they are unable to or refuses to act
Secretary
Keeps minutes and records of the Association, consults with Treasurer for reporting to state and federal government for purposes of maintaining non-profit status, keeps record of official correspondence, serves as custodian of records.
Treasurer
Cares for money accounts, is authorized to sign checks for the Association, maintains responsibility for all funds and securities, receives and gives receipt for monies due and payable, maintains adequate and correct accounts of the Association’s assets, prepares financial statements, provides documents to state and federal government for purposes of maintaining non-profit status
Meet the 2025 Board
Vicky Essebag
President
Vicky Essebag (Toronto, Canada) is President of the Solution Focused Brief Therapy Association (SFBTA). She is widely known for inspiring inclusive and compassionate spaces for living and learning as she applies and teaches Solution Focus as a communicative practice to support a relationship-based approach in schools, families and organizations. Vicky pairs her extensive background in education as a teacher, school counselor, head of counseling, curriculum consultant and school administrator, with her experience as a family therapist and certified solution-focused coach. She is Founder of Relationspaces, through which she provides international public speaking, instructional leadership, coaching and consulting.www.relationspaces.com. info@relationspaces.com. Vicky is author of Relationspaces; A Solution-Focused Handbook for Parents.
New Podcast: School Solutions Talk. This podcast is dedicated to the power of solution focused practice in education with Vicky Essebag and Tara Gretton
Podcast: A Call Across the Pond; Transforming Relationships at School, at Home and Beyond. With Vicky Essebag and Tara Gretton
Nate Guyton
President-Elect
Nate, owner of Guyton Counseling Services, is an LPC and LCDC in private practice in The Woodlands and Greater Houston area of Texas. Nate’s passion for Solution-Focused Therapy began in his graduate program at TCU in Dr. Frank Thomas’s Helping Relationships class. Solution Focused Therapy brought a professional language and philosophy to Nate’s values of humility and servant leadership, values nurtured in his time playing Division I Football for TCU. Nate has contributed to SFBTA as a member by reviewing conference proposals, in addition to submitting his own, before being elected to the Board in the Fall of 2023. If Nate were to overhear a conversation about his work ten years from now, Nate hopes to find descriptions of a gently paced approach to conversations that promote co-construction of ideas grounded in his client’s feedback. Adaptable and compassionate, Nate will meet clients and colleagues where they are, trusting their good reasons for their positioning and respecting that the work he brings to solution-focused practice is only possible because of the giants who came before him and walk alongside him. He will demonstrate the wisdom to reflect on the words of others and the courage to change in response.
Tom Fraire
Treasurer
Cecile Dietrich
Secretary
Cecile Dietrich DNP, PhD, PMHNP-BC, is Board Secretary and Chair of the Membership Committee. She is a psychiatric nurse practitioner in private practice. She has worked in health care for sixteen years with experience in medical acute care settings, inpatient psychiatry, residential treatment programs and outpatient mental health settings. Before she transitioned into private practice, she was program director of a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner residency within the U.S. Veteran's Administration Health Care System.
Marsha Wichmann
Board Member
Mo Yee Lee
Board Member
Mo Yee Lee is Professor and PhD Program Director at the College of Social Work, The Ohio State University. She is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work and has served on CSWE Commission of Diversity and Social & Economic Justice & Commission on Research. Her scholarship focuses on intervention research using a solution-focused, strengths-based, systems-based, and integrative perspective in mental health treatment and in cross-cultural settings. She was Principal Investigator on research projects pertaining to Integrative Family and Systems Treatment, solution-focused brief treatment with domestic violence offenders, and use of meditation for treating female trauma survivors of interpersonal abuses who also have substance use problems. She is currently Principal Investigator of a Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training (BHWET) grant from Human Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) to prepare the next generation of mental and healthcare professionals to specialize in culturally responsive services with BIPOC and LGBTQ+ and transitional-age youth and their families. Mo Yee Lee has published “Family Therapy for Treating Trauma: An Integrative Family and Systems Treatment (I-FAST) Approach,” “Integrative Body-Mind-Spirit Social Work: An empirically based approach to assessment and treatment,” “Integrative Families and Systems Treatment (I-FAST): A strengths-based common factors approach,” “Culturally Competent Research: Using Ethnography as a Meta-Framework,” “Solution-Oriented Social Work: A Practice Approach to Working with Client Strengths,” and “Solution-focused treatment with domestic violence offenders: Accountability for change.” The Oxford University Press published these books in 2020, 2018, 2014, 2013, 2011, and 2003 respectively. She is the recipient of 2008 Insoo Kim Berg Award for Innovative Research and Application of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy.
Olivia Wedel
Board Member
Dr. Olivia Wedel is an Assistant Professor in the Graduate Counseling Department at University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, where she also serves as the Director of Internship for Clinical Mental Health Counseling. She lives in Decatur, Texas where she owns a small counseling practice. Dr. Wedel primarily utilizes solution-focused counseling and solution-focused supervision and has had enjoyed attending many of the SFBTA Conferences since 2008.
She obtained her Master’s and PhD from TCU in 2007 and 2017 where she had the honor of meeting Insoo Kim Berg and worked on the BFTC Archives under the direction of Dr. Frank Thomas. Dr. Wedel is a Licensed Professional Counselor-Supervisor, a National Certified Counselor, and has certification in Perinatal Mental Health. She is a Past-President of Texas Mental Health Counselor’s Association (2021-2023) and is active within Texas Counseling Association. Outside of work and service, Dr. Wedel enjoys traveling with her husband and young son; they love finding local playgrounds and coffee shops in places they visit.
Tara Gretton
Board Member
Tara Gretton (UK) is Chair of the Membership Communications Committee. She is a registered social worker, international trainer, consultant and practitioner specialising in Solution Focused practice with children, young people, families and professionals. She holds postgraduate qualifications in child development and is widely recognised for creating relational, compassionate and inclusive spaces that support meaningful and sustainable change.
Tara brings together her professional training in social work and child development with extensive experience of direct work in schools, mental health services and specialist projects supporting young people who have experienced harm, adversity or relational disruption. Her work is firmly grounded in Solution Focused Practice and informed by relational, compassion-based and motivational approaches.
She works nationally and internationally as a trainer, supervisor and coach, supporting practitioners across education, social care, mental health and leadership contexts to embed solution focused, relationship based ways of working. Tara is particularly known for translating Solution Focused ideas into accessible, creative and practical tools that can be used in everyday conversations with children, young people and adults.
Tara is co-host of the podcast, School Solutions Talk, alongside Vicky Essebag. She is also co-creator of Relationspaces Power Bursts, a YouTube series offering brief reflections on relationship questions through a solution-focused lens.
Alongside her training and consultancy work, Tara is a writer, book reviewer and speaker, committed to amplifying what is already working and supporting hopeful, future focused conversations.
Toya Brown
Board Member
Dr. La Toya Brown is a clinical psychologist in San Antonio, Texas. She has nearly a decade of experience as a mental health professional working with military personnel, with a strong passion for crisis work. Toya dedicated more than eight years to mobile crisis efforts, providing support to individuals during some of their most critical moments. She also enjoys teaching, mentoring, and developing innovative strategies and processes to advocate for and aid those in need of psychotherapy. Toya has been a proponent of Solution-Focused Therapy (SFT) since 2015, when she was first introduced to the approach during her doctoral training. As one professor advised, “Have a passionate affair with all therapeutic models, but don’t marry them.” Despite attempts to remain eclectic, Toya found herself connected to SFT, developing a lasting commitment to its principles and practice. As a board member, she is committed to increasing the visibility of the SFBTA and expanding opportunities to mentor and engage others in this work.
Katharine Davis
Board Member
Katharine Davis PhD is the Chair of the Archives Committee. She is owner of Southlake Child and Family Therapy, where she supports clients across the lifespan, with a focus on children, young adults, and families in Southlake, TX. She is also Certified in Clinical Hypnosis and an Approved Consultant for supervision through the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis.
Dr. Davis is especially passionate about solution-focused brief therapy, grounding her work in a deep respect for clients’ strengths and resilience. Her clinical interests also include Ericksonian Therapy, mindfulness, developmental trauma, and hypnosis. Her practice offers a unique opportunity for clients to participate in sessions observed by a solution-focused reflecting team, providing thoughtful, strengths-based feedback at no additional cost. Dr. Davis first encountered solution-focused brief therapy while attending TCU and has since been a lifelong student and proponent of the model. She began leading community trainings in 2014 and has presented at SFBTA conferences in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2024, also serving on the 2023 conference committee and proposal review team.
Dedicated to service and professional development, Dr. Davis serves as adjunct faculty in the M.Ed. Counseling Program at Texas Christian University and trains and supervises practitioners through the North Texas Society of Clinical Hypnosis, where she is also a Board Member.
