Compass Collaborative: Child Specialists
Jack Mahler
1900 129 Ave SE
Bellevue, WA 98005
(206) 371-9972
email: je62mahler@hotmail.com
Collaborative Law Child Specialist and Mediator
Family Law GAL/Parenting Evaluator
Certified Family and Co-Parenting Mediator
Founder, Compass Collaborative
Innovative, pragmatic, eclectic and visionary are the words colleagues use to describe Jack Mahler. By his own admission, his more than 30-year career has never fit the mold. His diverse background includes working in family law, family courts, children’s mental health and social work, as well as a lifelong passion for community service and volunteering.
Throughout his career, Jack has reinvented himself several times, from running a non-profit alcohol and drug treatment center to serving on more than 1,000 family law cases as part of the Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) Program and in private practice. Jack retired from public service in 2005, eager to help children through the growing field of collaborative law. Today Jack’s private practice focuses around three core services: collaborative law child specialist and mediator, family law guardian ad litem (GAL)/parenting evaluator and certified family and co-parenting mediator.
Always looking for ways to innovate and improve, Jack saw the need for a focused, organized collaborative law pod that better served the needs of divorcing couples and families, and in 2008, he formed Compass Collaborative. While Jack’s interests and skills continue to evolve, what remains constant is his commitment to serving the best interests of children and representing those who so badly need a voice.
Yoshimi Pelczarski, LICSW, ACSW
(206) 683-2754
email: Yoshimip@gmail.com
Collaborative Law Child Specialist
Parenting Coordinator
Parenting Evaluation and Consultation
Cultural Consultation
Yoshimi specializes in working with children, teens and families. Her areas of expertise include: Inter-racial/Inter-cultural marriage, child maltreatment, PTSD, attachment issues, and family system’s assessment. She is a skilled interviewer and psycho-social evaluator. As a trained clinical social worker, she understands the interconnectedness of person/family and environment. In addition, as a person of color, Yoshimi has a keen awareness of how cultural norms and traditions influence family dynamics. She appreciates the complexity and challenges of parenting after divorce and hopes to help parents to develop effective communication and practical problem solving skills.
Yoshimi is fluent in Japanese and English. She is also conversant in Spanish having lived in Central America for several months. She is very familiar with both Asian and Latino cultures.
Her credentials include: Masters degree in Social Work from University of Washington, Academy of Certified Social Workers by National Association of Social Workers, Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker from State of Washington, and Certificate in Child and Adolescent Mental Health from University of Washington. She has had numerous hours of post graduate training in areas of PTSD, Child maltreatment, attachment, and family systems theory. She has completed Title 26 Family Law Guardian ad Litem training as well as basic mediation training. She is a published author on the subject of child maltreatment.
