About Laura

Laura became interested in becoming a therapist for children when she was in high school. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BAS in psychology in 2001 from the University of Colorado at Boulder. For the next year, her training continued as a Youth Treatment Counselor at the Denver Children’s Home, counseling under supervision, at risk, abused and neglected children and adolescents residing there. In 2005, she received an MSW degree from Colorado State University. As part of her program there, she interned at Adams County Mental Health Center providing support and counseling to school age children in the Day Treatment Program. Laura completed an internship and two additional years of training at Denver Family Institute where she received intensive training from licensed clinicians and provided individual, couples and family therapy to clients under their supervision. 

Starting in 2001, Laura volunteered as a Research Assistant in a study conducted at the University of Colorado at Boulder and led by psychologist and researcher, David Miklowitz, PhD. The study looked at the effect of family focused therapy on bi-polar disorder in youth. Laura participated in this study as a volunteer and then an employed Research Assistant on and off for 10 years. She conducted the Kiddie SADs Diagnostic Assessment and co-facilitated family therapy for the study. 

Laura began her career with the Psychiatry Department at Children’s Hospital Colorado in 2002 as a Mental Health Counselor and then a Programming Coordinator for the Inpatient Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Units. In 2005, after receiving a Master of Social Work degree, she became a family therapist, conducting individual, family and group therapy to children and adolescents on the Inpatient Psychiatric Units and in the Partial Hospitalization Program. In 2006, Children’s Hospital Colorado sent Laura to Phoenix, Arizona to attend a training on Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) to then implement DBT skills training into the Inpatient programming at Children’s Hospital Colorado. Laura was sent to two more DBT conferences in Colorado, one of those given by the founder of DBT, Marsha Linehan. Laura implemented DBT skills training into the programming on the Adolescent Inpatient Psychiatric Unit, leading and coordinating twice weekly DBT Skills Groups on the unit. In 2010, after her son was born, Laura left her full time position on the Inpatient Psychiatric Unit to work part time on the Psychiatric Emergency Services team at Children’s Hospital Colorado. There, she conducted Psychiatric Crisis Assessments in the Emergency Department at Children's, working with the Psychiatric Crisis Team and across systems to place Patients in the appropriate level of care.

In 2016, Laura changed positions within the Psychiatry Department (now called the Pediatric Mental Health Institute) at Children’s Hospital to work in the Outpatient Clinic as a therapist. During her time in the Outpatient Clinic, Laura provided evidence-based treatment to children, adolescents and their families. From 2017 to 2019, she co-facilitated a multifamily group for children ages 5-7 with emotional and behavioral dysregulation and disruptive behaviors. She also co-facilitated a DBT skills multifamily group for teens and their families from 2017 to 2020. In 2020, she established the telehealth multifamily DBT skills group for teens out of the Highlands Ranch Therapy Care location of Children's Hospital. She ran the telehealth group until June of 2022. In June 2022, Laura founded Laura Anderson Family Therapy...