Meet Ann & Annie
Founders, Playful EMDR
Ann Beckley-Forest, LCSW, RPT-S, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in private practice in Buffalo, New York. Her specialties include attachment and child and adolescent trauma, and she also works with adult survivors. She has been a play therapist for over 20 years and is both a Registered Play Therapy Supervisor and Approved Provider of play therapy continuing education through the Association for Play Therapy, as well as being a past Board member of the New York branch of APT. She is also an EMDR Approved Consultant and Virtual Basic Trainer and an affiliated faculty member of the Child Trauma Institute. She provides consultation in person and remotely, and gives trainings locally and internationally. Her primary interest is in the intersection of play therapy and EMDR and has published on this topic including as co-editor of EMDR with Children in the Play Therapy Room: An Integrated Approach (2020).
Annie Monaco is a New York State Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Registered Play Therapist and a faculty member of the Child Trauma Institute & Trauma Institute and of University at Buffalo School of Social Work. Annie travels throughout the US and internationally providing a multitude of trauma-informed trainings and agency and therapist consultation. Annie is an EMDR trainer (EMDRIA approved), Progressive Counting and STAR (Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resiliency). Annie also provides specialty trainings on attachment, dissociation, and EMDR with children.
Annie has extensive experience in complex trauma, family therapy, and play therapy, restorative justice and over 30 years as a trauma therapist serving children, teens, families and adults. Her private practice includes a multitude of behaviors and issues including foster care, out of country adoptions, juvenile justice and dissociation. Annie is a co-editor and contributing author in the book EMDR with Children in the Play Therapy Room: An Integrated Approach (2020).
Annie also is a field liaison for the University at Buffalo School of Social Work.