Barbara Schuknecht, Licensed Social Worker

Barbara Schuknecht works with people living alongside disability: adults, teens and families navigating developmental and intellectual disabilities, autism and chronic illness, and the caregivers holding it all together. Many of the people she sees have spent years being the one who knows every phone number, every deadline and every workaround, with nowhere to set down their own exhaustion, grief or guilt. She does not need anyone to arrive in crisis, and she does not need the basics explained.

Before joining Trauma Healing Hawai`i, Barbara spent more than a decade as a social worker with the Hawai`i Developmental Disabilities Division. She supported families in their homes, in care homes, in schools and hospitals, and across the table at IEP meetings. She knows those systems from the inside, and how much they ask of the people moving through them.

Her approach is person-centered and strength-based. She draws on cognitive behavioral therapy when thought patterns have become stuck, solution-focused work when something needs to change soon, and family systems work when the whole household is affected. Sessions are conversational rather than clinical. The work centers on sorting out what is actually yours to carry, and on building coping skills that fit the life you really have.

Barbara sees clients across Hawai`i by telehealth, with early morning and evening times so appointments can fit around caregiving rather than compete with it. She earned her Master of Social Work at the University of Hawai`i at Manoa and practices as a Licensed Social Worker (LSW-2129) under the clinical supervision of Erik Acuña, LCSW. If this sounds like your life, reach out and she will talk with you about whether she is a good fit.