Meet our Staff
All Camp Deecio staff are trained professionals with considerable knowledge and expertise in the realm of OCD in children and adolescents. In addition, camp staff have training in wilderness programming, including remote emergency medicine.
Pete Weiss, MA, LMHC
Peter is the founder and owner of Blue Compass and Seattle Child Therapy, and has developed Camp DCO in partnership with Dr. Osborne and Dr. Welch. Peter has extensive experience in developing, managing, and facilitating wilderness therapy programs, and has clinical experience treating OCD in children and adolescents using Exposure and Response Prevention. Peter is a graduate of the Behavior Therapy Institute (BTI), an intensive training for clinicians who treat OCD, and is a member of the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation. Peter works full-time as a child and adolescent therapist in private practice in Seattle. Approximately 50% of Peter’s patient caseload is comprised of children, teens, and adults with OCD.
Travis Osborne, Ph.D.
Dr. Osborne is a licensed psychologist in the state of Washington who specializes in the evidence-based treatment of anxiety and related problems. He has considerable experience treating OCD in children, adolescents, and adults. Dr. Osborne is a member of the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation (OCF) and is also a graduate of the OCF’s Behavioral Training Institute (BTI), an intensive OCD training seminar for mental health professionals. Additionally, Dr. Osborne has volunteered his time and expertise for several years as a consultant to the OCD Support Group of Seattle, serving as professional resource to people with OCD and their friends and family. He has given several lectures on OCD to various professional and lay groups in Seattle and has trained other mental health professionals in how to provide evidence-based treatment for OCD and other anxiety disorders. Dr. Osborne is also a Clinical Instructor for the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington.
Stacy Shaw Welch, Ph.D.
Dr. Welch is the Director of the Anxiety and Stress Reduction Center (ASRC) of Seattle, as well as a faculty member of the University of Washington School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She is also on the clinical faculty of the University of Washington Department of Psychology. In addition to her research and administrative activities, Dr. Welch maintains a clinical practice focused on child and adolescent anxiety disorders and a primary focus of her practice is devoted to working with kids, teens, and families struggling with OCD. She is a member of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America (ADAA) and the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation (OCF). She regularly supervises, lectures, and trains other mental health professionals. Some of her recent publications can be found in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, Depression and Anxiety, and the Journal of Clinical and Consulting Psychology.
Neil Kirkpatrick, Ph.D.
Dr. Kirkpatrick has considerable training and experience in providing individual and family cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) to treat a wide range of problems. His primary clinical interest is the treatment of anxiety, particularly in children and adolescents. Dr. Kirkpatrick has experience and training in working with children with OCD and other anxiety disorders, as well as assisting parents of anxious children learn how to effectively respond to their children’s symptoms. Additionally, he has had extensive training in Behavioral Parent Training, a mode of treatment that has found to be effective in the treatment of a range of problems in childhood and adolescence (e.g., ADHD, oppositionality), as well as helping parents support their children suffering from depression, anxiety, autism spectrum disorders, and developmental delays. He has worked extensively both with younger children and adolescents and their families with both behavioral and anxiety-based problems. He also has experience working with children, adolescents, and adults with comorbid anxiety and ADHD.
Rebecca Cressell
Becca is a special education teacher in the Seattle Public Schools and works with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Becca was diagnosed with OCD at age 25. As an adult living with OCD, she is keenly aware of the complex issues that arise in the lives of children, teens, and adults living with OCD. Becca spent many years of her adolescence and early adulthood struggling with high levels of anxiety, obsessions, and rituals. After being diagnosed with OCD, she started both medication treatment and cognitive behavioral therapy that focused on exposure and response prevention (ERP). Becca found treatment extremely helpful and experienced a significant reduction in her anxiety and OCD symptoms. As part of treatment she learned tools to successfully manage her OCD and it no longer impacts her life in the ways that it used to. Since completing treatment, Becca has become an advocate for the effective treatment of OCD in children, teens, and adults by joining the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation and volunteering her time as a peer facilitator with the Seattle OCD Support and Recovery Group.
Bernie Waterhouse
For over 20 years Bernie was a junior high math teacher in Michigan, Guam, Long Island, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Montana & Washington state. One summer toward the end of his teaching career, Bernie was working with a group of kids with emotional and behavior disorders at a specialty camp and took them to a high ropes course. He witnessed significant changes in the kid’s behavior and self-efficacy, and he was sold on the positive impact an experience like a high ropes course could have on kids. From 1986 to the present he has been the owner, program director, and lead facilitator of Waterhouse Center, an outdoor, experiential learning center (a.k.a. ropes challenge course) in Snohomish, Washington. Bernie will be Camp Deecio’s primary ropes facilitator.
