"with Kayla"

A safe space to explore emotions, feel heard, and get support during your cancer experience

Healing Through Writing Workshops

Learn to use journaling as a form of self-therapy in a relaxed and safe environment. Elephants and Tea staff guide participants through writing prompts and an open discussion after each exercise as a way to empower oneself and connect to their peers.

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STEEP

Sitting Together with Empathy and Emotional Perseverance offers a safe, clinician-led virtual space to acknowledge the emotions that we often think we “shouldn’t” or don’t want to feel. Each month will focus on an emotion that is common during one's cancer experience, but not always made room for or expressed.

Contributor Community

A dedicated space for our Elephants and Tea Contributor Community to empower and support our authors to share their stories and learn new ways to practice their skills through a quarterly newsletter.

My Why

My mission has never been to remove feelings or hard things from someone’s life, but rather to create a space that feels safe to explore those feelings and figure out, together, how we can continue to live even with challenges and tough emotions. I believe in the power of feeling all the feels and acknowledging that there is a place and a purpose for all of them and am humbled to work with individuals and couples to figure out what that means for them. There is no right answer to human emotions and what we “should” or “shouldn’t” feel. It’s about exploring the meaning of your experiences, how those make you YOU, and how we can create value and intention together.

Working with adolescents and young adults with cancer since 2007 has provided me with opportunities to learn from remarkable humans that have allowed me to join them in their experiences. I owe so much of my ability to support this amazing and unique population to every patient, survivor, caregiver, and co-survivor I have had the pleasure to know. A cancer diagnosis is hard and my hope for what I can offer is someone that will consistently show up, hold space, challenge and support you, cheer for your wins and sit in your struggles, all with a side of dark humor, a sprinkle of sarcasm, and a quick wit.

Biography

Kayla Fulginiti, LCSW, OSW-C, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and the Senior Director at Elephants and Tea. She has been involved in the adolescent and young adult (AYA) oncology space since 2007, first as a Hospital Social Worker in Adult Oncology and then as a Pediatric Oncology Social Worker and School Program Coordinator. Throughout her career, she has always advocated and emphasized the importance of AYA support by assessing and raising awareness about AYA needs through direct clinical care, research, community engagement, and serving on advisory boards for various nonprofit organizations. Kayla has been involved in the nonprofit space for over seven years, having multiple roles such as Program Manager and Program Director within the youth suicide prevention and AYA cancer communities. She lives with her husband, son, and their boxer rescue – Blue Cheese – in Denver, Colorado. She adamantly believes Taco Tuesday should be Taco Every Day, will always choose summer over winter, and is still on the hunt for the best gluten free donut.