Diana Izard, MSW, RSW
SHE/HER
REGISTERED SOCIAL WORKER
Child Therapist
QUALITIES
Fun fact about Diana
In addition to Diana‘s extensive child and family therapist expertise and experience, she counts horsemanship among her many athletic skills!
Diana Izard is a child therapist in Calgary
who uses her helpful, happy thinking Superpower
to help kids get back on track
as they explore and grow their own Superpower.
Diana’s Superhero Story
Attention Parents
Before your first session, you can share this story with your child. Parents can also scroll below to read about Diana‘s professional expertise as a child therapist in her professional bio.
Once upon a time, there was a kid called Diana, who loved to run. This is her Superpower story, and she wants to share it with you. It’s about running for fun and how your dreams can change and grow.
Diana loved playing outside. She liked taking off her shoes and walking barefoot on the grass. She liked making mud pies and listening to the natural world. While Diana played and thought about happy things, birds would sing special songs, and the wind made whishing music as it danced with the tree leaves. Tulips bloomed and grass grew, smelling sweetly in the sun.
Diana’s favourite thing of all was to run outside, and she ran all the time. She dreamed about running so fast she could almost fly. For a while, Diana thought that running fast was her Superpower. But it was not.
Her best friend was a perfectly purple dog called Howard. Howard was a helpful, happy, peppy puppy who had amazing know-how Superpowers. He knew how to help. How to hug. To be a good friend, loyal and kind. Howard was athletic, and just like Diana, he too loved to run. They ran together every day. Each day, Diana was able to run faster and faster.
Until one day, Diana could not run any faster.
She felt that she had lost her Superpower. (But don’t worry; she had not). For a while, she felt super sad. She sat down on the grass and reached out to hug her doggie pal.
Howard looked at Diana, licked her hand, and wagged his tail. This is how doggies smile to help kids. Diana smiled back. Slowly, she began to think about many things that made her smile. She got back to helpful, happy thoughts and shared them with her best friend.
“I have an idea,” she told Howard. “What if now we run, not to get faster, but just for FUN!”
Howard wagged his tail. This was his way of saying: “What a fun idea!”
“And what if—,” Diana went on, “what if we also go on bike rides, lift weights, and horseback ride!”
Howard tilted his head, trying to understand. “I cannot lift weights. I cannot ride a bike or a horse, Diana,” he thought.
“You can come with me, Howard,” Diana reassured him. “We can go to the gym, run, and ride together.”
Howard loved the idea.
Click on Howard the puppy to see how he runs for fun.
That’s how Diana discovered her real Superpower!
Diana’s real Superpower is getting back on track, with helpful, happier thinking and doing patterns! The more she used her Superpower, the stronger it got and the healthier, happier she felt. She ran, biked, hiked, rode her horse, and lifted weights. Her body got super strong and fit, and so did her heart and mind. Howard joined her in doing all this.
When she grew up, Diana became a social worker. Her heart and mind grew as she used all she knew. She has helped many kids and teens (ages three to seventeen!), parents, families, and adults all the way to over seventy! Everyone, at any age, can sometimes need help with feeling healthier in their heart and minds, you see. For many years, she worked in schools and communities with kids who needed protection, like kids who are fostered or adopted. Now Diana is a child therapist at Kids Reconnect in EmPOWERland, where she uses her special Superpowers to help Superhero kids discover happier, more helpful, fun ways to think, act, and feel.
When you meet Diana, what Superpower strengths and dreams will YOU find within?
Diana’s Professional Bio
Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves back up.
—Alfred Pennyworth
Bruce Wayne’s (Batman’s!) legal guardian
Growing up can be especially difficult within an environment of community challenges. However, through specialized counselling interventions, children of all ages, from toddlers to teens, can build protective factors and sharpen their life skills. My work involves helping children to cultivate these protective factors and life skills—their Superpowers—such as hope, kindness, resilience, knowledge, and building meaningful connections. These (Superpower!) strengths grow within individual children and parents, weave through family systems, and permeate into healthier, happier, more connected, resilient communities.
As a Registered Social Worker, I explore the social environment of children, parents, and families through a social justice lens, to understand their circumstances and help them hone their strengths. I am passionate about supporting kids and youth who have a variety of cultural backgrounds, including foster and kinship families, to be better equipped to face life’s challenges. To engage kids and parents, in my counselling sessions I draw from various specialized techniques including play therapy, art, mindfulness, storytelling, nature-based healing, and digital media.
For over ten years, I have supported the mental health of children and adolescents through child, family, and group counselling. My professional experience is complemented by an empathic, inclusive sensitivity developed within Alberta’s education, youth justice, and child welfare systems.
I hold a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work, as well as a Master’s degree in Social Work with a Clinical Specialization, both from the University of Calgary. My specialized training includes play-based treatment of trauma, divorce, and attachment-based parenting. My personal interests include community advocacy and volunteerism in sustainability, climate change, and ecological grief.
Parents, are you looking for couples counselling?
In addition to Diana Izard’s child therapist expertise and experience, she is also adept at working with parents and provides couples counselling at Couples Reconnect.
