Founder & CEO of The Food Allergy Counselor, Inc.
[Learn more about The Food Allergy Counselor's mission, vision and advisors here]
Tamara Hubbard, MA, LCPC(Therapist. Content Developer. Relationship Builder)
Currently working on her first book, Tamara is represented by Laura Bradford at the Bradford Literary Agency. "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can." - Arthur Ashe A relationship builder at heart, Tamara is always looking for opportunities to help build connections and enhance alliances, or take part in partnerships and projects that lead to positive impacts for patients, communities, and medical practices.
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Tamara is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (LCPC) trained in marriage and family therapy. Therefore, she understands family systems, parent/child relationships, and marital/relationship dynamics in addition to clinical behavioral health concepts.
Through her telehealth private practice, Tamara offers therapy services focused on women's health, motherhood/parenthood, life changes/transitions, life balance and goal clarification, and anxiety/stress management. Additionally, Tamara helps those managing allergic diseases, specifically parents/caregivers, develop a workable mindset and a "just right" balance between the overwhelm and quality of life. Tamara primarily utilizes a mindfulness-based behavioral approach known as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), but also incorporates other modalities, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Solution-Focused Therapy to teach her clients skills to support their own well-being and the well-being of their families. To fill an unmet need within the allergy community, Tamara developed the Food Allergy Counselor website in 2018 as a resource to respond the demand for allergy-specific psychosocial support. The FAC website is now a highly-respected and internationally-known resource, housing the Food Allergy Counselor Directory, Exploring Food Allergy Families podcast, therapeutic worksheets, and information on the Food Allergy Counselor membership and Food Allergy Behavioral Health Network (FABHN) for clinical behavioral healthcare providers. |
2022 Speaking & Project Schedule:
- Speaker at 2022 Food Allergy Conference for Education & Science (FACES)
- Speaker at 2022 American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI) Conference
- Speaker at 2022 American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Conference
- Speaker at 2022 FARE Summit Conference
- Speaker at the 3rd Annual Comer School Nurses Continuing Education Day (University of Chicago)
- Presenting a national webinar for FARE, largest food allergy advocacy & education organization
- Co-authoring medical journal chapter on psychosocial impacts of allergy for physician assistants
- (5) allergy support group workshops/webinars
- Panel member for the Zestfull & Allergy Insider (Thermo Fisher Scientific)'s #EmpoweredPatient panel
- Various podcast and article interviews
Clinical Counseling Training & Skills
Tamara is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, with an undergraduate degree in Education and a Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy from Adler School of Professional Psychology. With over 18 years in the counseling field, she's worked with clients of all ages, and held an additional Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor (CADC) certification until 2014. She has worked in a variety of levels of care, including in hospital (inpatient/outpatient), partial and intensive outpatient programs, community agency, and private practice settings. Therefore, she has the clinical training that allows her to effectively help clients make improvements to their mental health, families, and relationships, whether they're managing food allergies/health conditions or not. Tamara's counseling style can be described as supportive and compassionate, yet solution-focused and strengths-based. She aims to help clients understand/accept their emotions while also focusing on skill-building. She utilizes a variety of counseling methodologies, including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Family Systems, and Solution-Focused theories to assist clients in building skills that help with coping, decision-making, and growing resilience/an empowered mindset. Tamara provides these services via her private practice (in-person and telehealth in IL), and is also available for consultations, educational workshops and speaking engagements.
She is a member of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS), the American Counseling Association (ACA), and an Allied Health Professional member of both the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI) and the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology (ACAAI), where she also serves as a member of the Allied Health Committee. Tamara is also a founding Community Advisory Board Member for the Center for Food Allergy & Asthma Research (CFAAR), part of the Institute for Public Health/Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.
Tamara is currently working on her first book, and is represented by literary agent Laura Bradford at the Bradford Literary Agency.
(To find out more about her counseling services, or to reach out about appointments, refer to her Psychology Today profile, or her counseling website at www.TamaraHubbardLCPC.com).
General and Counseling/Therapy-Related Interviews or Projects
Social Media Presence & Projects
[Please note: Tamara does not connect or engage with her clients online; content posted online is general & educational in nature]
Food Allergy and Allergic Disease-Specific Experience
Food Allergy Knowledge: Tamara is the mom of a child managing a food allergy. Therefore, she gets it. She knows firsthand what it's like to navigate life with this chronic illness as part of the family system. She understands the daily nuances, the overwhelming feelings, and the need to find reputable food allergy information in order to create action plans and resilience. After identifying a gap in accessibility to food allergy-informed clinical therapy professionals, Tamara set out to create a remedy. As such, she created the Food Allergy Counselor Directory in 2018, the original state-by-state listing of food allergy-knowledgeable licensed clinical behavioral health clinicians in the US, which has since expanded to include other countries. The Food Allergy Counselor website houses the Food Allergy Behavioral Health resources page, a blog exploring related topics, a variety of therapeutic worksheets focused on allergy anxiety and psychosocial impacts, and now a podcast called "Exploring Food Allergy Families". Tamara is the original founder of the Food Allergy Counseling Professionals Network, which transitioned into the professional network known as the Food Allergy Behavioral Health Network (FABHN). With the goal of strengthening and promoting the allergy counseling/therapy niche, this networking group offers allergy-informed therapy providers the opportunity to connect, network, learn, and join allergy-focused peer consultation groups. Additionally, she is passionate about creating unique therapeutic content for the community and healthcare professionals, highlighting food allergy mental health, empowerment, and resilience, focusing on patient/family advocacy, and educating fellow therapists or doctors about working with food allergic families.
Food Allergy Advocacy/Speaking: In 2013, Tamara proposed recognizing Food Allergy Awareness Week at a village meeting, which resulted in her town's Mayor officially acknowledging it through a proclamation. Those advocacy efforts helped her local library coordinate a food allergy awareness community education session during that same week. She also created and led an online support group for food allergy trial families prior to starting the Food Allergy Counselor website. And, of course, Tamara's behavioral health-focused efforts within the allergy and immunology field have helped further develop the allergy counseling niche and bring this much needed focus to the forefront.
Tamara regularly presents at various national allergy industry conferences and develops webinars for advocacy and support groups, primarily presenting on topics focused on allergy mental health, psychosocial impacts, allergy parenting, family systems, and collaborative/multidisciplinary healthcare.
Tamara is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, with an undergraduate degree in Education and a Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy from Adler School of Professional Psychology. With over 18 years in the counseling field, she's worked with clients of all ages, and held an additional Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor (CADC) certification until 2014. She has worked in a variety of levels of care, including in hospital (inpatient/outpatient), partial and intensive outpatient programs, community agency, and private practice settings. Therefore, she has the clinical training that allows her to effectively help clients make improvements to their mental health, families, and relationships, whether they're managing food allergies/health conditions or not. Tamara's counseling style can be described as supportive and compassionate, yet solution-focused and strengths-based. She aims to help clients understand/accept their emotions while also focusing on skill-building. She utilizes a variety of counseling methodologies, including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Family Systems, and Solution-Focused theories to assist clients in building skills that help with coping, decision-making, and growing resilience/an empowered mindset. Tamara provides these services via her private practice (in-person and telehealth in IL), and is also available for consultations, educational workshops and speaking engagements.
She is a member of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS), the American Counseling Association (ACA), and an Allied Health Professional member of both the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI) and the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology (ACAAI), where she also serves as a member of the Allied Health Committee. Tamara is also a founding Community Advisory Board Member for the Center for Food Allergy & Asthma Research (CFAAR), part of the Institute for Public Health/Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.
Tamara is currently working on her first book, and is represented by literary agent Laura Bradford at the Bradford Literary Agency.
(To find out more about her counseling services, or to reach out about appointments, refer to her Psychology Today profile, or her counseling website at www.TamaraHubbardLCPC.com).
General and Counseling/Therapy-Related Interviews or Projects
- Listed as an expert on PsychWire's ASK the Experts section, featuring world-leading experts in behavioral science
- Quoted in Forbes article by Dr. Jessi Gold: "We Need to Talk About Another Pandemic Mental Health Crisis: Therapist Burnout"
- Quoted in SELF Magazine article by Dr. Jessi Gold: "10 Common Return-to-Work Concerns - And How to Mentally Prepare for Them"
- Quoted in Forbes article by Amanda Krupa: "Newborn Hiccups: Causes, Remedies and More"
- Quoted in Cubby at Home article by Lisa Lombardi: 10 Game-changing Ways to Lessen Anxiety for Kids
Social Media Presence & Projects
[Please note: Tamara does not connect or engage with her clients online; content posted online is general & educational in nature]
- Currently, Tamara is active on social media in a professional capacity. You can find her on Facebook, Twitter (@TherapistTamara), or Instagram (@TherapistTamara). You can also follow Food Allergy Counselor updates via the FAC Facebook page, Twitter (@FACounselor) and Instagram (@FoodAllergyCounselor).
- Tamara created/hosts the podcast, Exploring Food Allergy Families. You can find it on Apple Podcasts or any podcast app. Learn more at www.FoodAllergyFamilies.com
- From 2009-2011, Tamara was a "mom blogger" known as The (Un)Experienced Mom, writing about her experiences transitioning from parenting one child to parenting two children.
- Tamara was featured on Mom Talk Radio with Maria Bailey as part of a round-table discussion on spending quality family time together.
- Served as the Chicagoland blogging correspondent for ConAgra Foundation's National "Child Hunger Ends Here" campaign in 2010, which included the support of celebrities such as the Desperate Housewives cast members & David Arquette.
Food Allergy and Allergic Disease-Specific Experience
Food Allergy Knowledge: Tamara is the mom of a child managing a food allergy. Therefore, she gets it. She knows firsthand what it's like to navigate life with this chronic illness as part of the family system. She understands the daily nuances, the overwhelming feelings, and the need to find reputable food allergy information in order to create action plans and resilience. After identifying a gap in accessibility to food allergy-informed clinical therapy professionals, Tamara set out to create a remedy. As such, she created the Food Allergy Counselor Directory in 2018, the original state-by-state listing of food allergy-knowledgeable licensed clinical behavioral health clinicians in the US, which has since expanded to include other countries. The Food Allergy Counselor website houses the Food Allergy Behavioral Health resources page, a blog exploring related topics, a variety of therapeutic worksheets focused on allergy anxiety and psychosocial impacts, and now a podcast called "Exploring Food Allergy Families". Tamara is the original founder of the Food Allergy Counseling Professionals Network, which transitioned into the professional network known as the Food Allergy Behavioral Health Network (FABHN). With the goal of strengthening and promoting the allergy counseling/therapy niche, this networking group offers allergy-informed therapy providers the opportunity to connect, network, learn, and join allergy-focused peer consultation groups. Additionally, she is passionate about creating unique therapeutic content for the community and healthcare professionals, highlighting food allergy mental health, empowerment, and resilience, focusing on patient/family advocacy, and educating fellow therapists or doctors about working with food allergic families.
Food Allergy Advocacy/Speaking: In 2013, Tamara proposed recognizing Food Allergy Awareness Week at a village meeting, which resulted in her town's Mayor officially acknowledging it through a proclamation. Those advocacy efforts helped her local library coordinate a food allergy awareness community education session during that same week. She also created and led an online support group for food allergy trial families prior to starting the Food Allergy Counselor website. And, of course, Tamara's behavioral health-focused efforts within the allergy and immunology field have helped further develop the allergy counseling niche and bring this much needed focus to the forefront.
Tamara regularly presents at various national allergy industry conferences and develops webinars for advocacy and support groups, primarily presenting on topics focused on allergy mental health, psychosocial impacts, allergy parenting, family systems, and collaborative/multidisciplinary healthcare.
Tamara's Allergy-Focused Webinars, Podcast Guest Spots & Discussions:
- Check out the growing list on the WEBINARS page
Food Allergy-Related Interviews, Articles & Projects
Content Creation:
Experience Within Schools
Tamara has experience volunteering and working within school systems. Her previous roles include: former educator, high school Career Advisor, PTO President, PTO committee chair, and district referendum committee member. These positions have allowed her to work closely with a variety of staff, including nurses, teachers, principals, and administrators, including superintendents.
Content Creation:
- Created the Food Allergy Counselor Directory: Listing of allergy-knowledgeable counseling providers by area
- Created the Exploring Food Allergy Families podcast: Find/listen/subscribe from your favorite podcast app
- Continued creating various therapeutic interactive worksheets specific to psychosocial aspects of food allergies
- Most popular blog articles: 5 Reminders for Parents of Kids with Food Allergy-Related Anxiety (1.1k shares), Coping with Food Allergy Tragedies (1k shares), The Emotional Side of Food Allergy Treatments (400 shares)
- Allergic Living magazine - authored (2) articles in their electronic Food Allergy Anxiety Guide
- Food allergy anxiety article published in Coping with Allergies & Asthma Fall/Winter 2019-2020 edition
- Food allergy parenting journey article shared via Scary Mommy (Scary Mommy has over 4 million followers)
- Interviewed for article in American Counseling Association's magazine, Counseling Today: Supporting Clients Through the Anxiety and Exhaustion of Food Allergies
- Interviewed for article in Nature: Food Allergies: The Psychological Toll
- Interviewed for article in Romper: Food Allergies Sometimes Come With Social Isolation — Here's Some Good News On That
- Interviewed for article in NPR: 'Extend A Little Grace' — Navigating Food Allergies And Sensitivities At Thanksgiving
- Interviewed for article in Business Insider: Upcoming Peanut Allergy Treatments Available in 2019
- Interviewed by Esther Landhuis for various articles:
- "Why Parents Are Turning to a Controversial Treatment for Food Allergies" (Undark.org, August 2019)
- "Food Allergies Can Trigger Stress & Anxiety" (Science News for Students, Feb. 2020)
- "New Success in Treating Allergies to Peanuts & Other Foods" (Science News for Students, Feb. 2020)
- "What's New in Food Allergy Etiquette" (Real Simple magazine - hard copy & online, June 2020)
- "Allergists Can Fight Misinformation by Anticipating Sources of Confusion and Engaging Patients with Facts and Curiosity" (Medscape, November 2021)
- Work quoted in article, "Mindset Matters When Facing Food Allergies" (Plasma Lab International, Feb. 2021)
- Guest on Psychologists Off the Clock: Ep. 222 "Living With Food Allergies with Tamara Hubbard"
- Guest on (2) episodes of allergist, Dr. Alice Hoyt's podcast, Food Allergy & Your Kiddo to discuss navigating allergy anxiety using acceptance/mindfulness, with tips for parents and kids
- Guest on Mighty Parenting Podcast episode #135: Emotional Support for Managing Allergies in Teens
- Guest on allergist Dr. Jason Lee's podcast, talking about the unmet need for psychosocial support and psycho-education in allergy care, how clinical counseling providers can fill that gap, and the work she's doing to encourage a collaborative care approach
- Guest on Allergic Living's "This Allergic Life" podcast discussing COVID-19 anxiety/stress for food allergic families with host Jen Jobrack
- Listed on Spokin's 2019 Top 100 Women in Food Allergy List
- Other notable mentions via The Land of Can & Food ASC
- In 2018, took part in an incredible nationwide NBC Universal/Comcast-affiliated food allergy education project
Experience Within Schools
Tamara has experience volunteering and working within school systems. Her previous roles include: former educator, high school Career Advisor, PTO President, PTO committee chair, and district referendum committee member. These positions have allowed her to work closely with a variety of staff, including nurses, teachers, principals, and administrators, including superintendents.
Clinical Counseling & Consulting Services:
- To learn more about Tamara's general counseling and allergy-related counseling services, please visit her private practice website: www.TamaraHubbardlcpc.com.
- To learn more about Tamara's consultation services, visit the Consultation & Webinar page. She offers services that help allergy practices incorporate psychosocial components to patient care, peer-to-peer allergy counseling training sessions for therapists, and webinars/training for therapists, healthcare providers, support groups and organizations.
Feedback About Tamara's Work In The Allergy Community:
"This is the most helpful resource when it comes to finding a food allergy informed mental health expert for children, parents and families managing food allergies! It’s also an excellent resource for clear and practical guidance and techniques, as well as worksheets, to help manage the everyday stressors that often occur with this chronic health condition. I highly recommend!" -Registered nurse, public health graduate student, and allergy mom
"Tamara has brought those with food allergies and mental health professionals together. I am so grateful that we can get these individuals and families the support that they need! Tamara is always full of invaluable information and has filled a void in mental health care." -Behavioral healthcare provider and allergy mom
"Your page has truly been an inspiration to me and has helped me to deal with some of my fears and not allowing them to stop my child from experiencing life. I’m a work in progress, but you should know your work is wonderful and is really impacting lives!" -Food allergy mom and behavioral healthcare professional
"Our food allergy group had a truly amazing consultation with Tamara last night. She is a great speaker and all our minds and hearts were full of new empowered information and tools. She’s the real deal. A true helping professional."
-Food Allergy Support Group Leader
"Tamara is such a gift to the food allergy world. 99 percent of living with food allergies is about quality of life but few in the medical field are able to offer this resource. I can’t wait to follow her journey as she continues to influence the world.." -Therapist and food allergy parent
"Tamara’s professional background as a therapist and personal experience as a food allergy parent is the perfect combo for understanding how to address mental wellness around food allergies. My preschool aged kiddo with severe food allergies opened up about his fears and anxiety over the possibility of having a severe allergic reaction. Tamara strategized and worked with me on a game plan on how to address and calm those fears. Her multifaceted approach was spot on. The worry and fear my kiddo felt has dissipated. Tamara also has a history of driving positive change for the children in our community. Our food allergy affected family is very excited that she is channeling her talent and energy into this cause. We appreciate Tamara and all that she has done to help us is more than she’ll ever know." -Food allergy parent
"Tamara has created an invaluable resource for the food allergy community…. The videos provide helpful support as parents navigate the different stages and issues associated with food allergy. And the directory is the best place to start when looking for a local professional with whom to work and address specific issues that arise."
-Allergy parent and advocate
"This directory of food allergy aware mental health professionals has been a tremendous resource to food allergic families and those of us working to serve them. Tamara is an amazing leader who facilitates conversation, learning, mutual support and networking. So here is a big shout out! Thank you!" -Allergy mom and behavioral healthcare professional
For counseling services, connect with Tamara via her private practice website:
