ABOUT US
Our Story
Resilience First didn't start as a business plan. It started with a gap we kept seeing, session after session.
J&K Mental Health was founded by Dr. Kulsoom Malik and her husband, Jawaid Malik, with a vision of building a multidisciplinary mental health practice for the Kingston community. Over 4 short years, that vision grew into a team of more than 40 clinicians across a wide range of specialties. But within that broader practice, one pattern kept repeating in the room, long before it became a program of its own.
Dr. Malik wasn't the only one who saw this gap. She was approached by two colleagues who'd been thinking about it independently, from two very different vantage points.
Stephanie Simoneau, a former correctional officer, and the Trauma Lead for Resilience First understood firsthand what it meant to carry the closed environment home — and how little existing care accounted for that experience. Trisha Nelson, a Registered Psychotherapist at Resilience First and the family member of a first responder, understood the other side of it: what it's like to live alongside the job without ever being treated as part of the picture.
Together, the three of them wanted to change how this population was treated — not adjust an existing model, but build something new around what they'd each seen up close. That collaboration led the three of them to cofound something revolutionary - The STK Method, and later, The Frontline Roadmap: a framework.
Three leaders with an unstoppable mission
The STK Method
The STK Method ( Stephanie, Trisha & Kulsoom) is founded on the idea that most trauma models focus on the individual in isolation. This method starts from a different premise: that attachment — the security or insecurity of our closest relationships play a vital role in how we manage emotions when we work in high risk jobs.
It is based on 3R’s - Recognize, Regulate and Reconnect. Resilience First provides a clinical space for this method to come alive, while the The Frontline Roadmap is an asynchronous online programme to support the family with reconnecting with each other.