Regional Councils extend OCD SoCal’s mission into local communities by organizing events, supporting outreach efforts, and helping create spaces for education, connection, and hope. Their work ensures that people across Southern California have greater access to support and evidence-based information. We are profoundly thankful for the volunteers who generously share their skills and heart to make these efforts possible.
San Diego Regional Council
Cathy Agostino
Cathy’s journey with OCD began in her early 20s, shortly after graduating college. Like many others, she faced the challenges of navigating a new diagnosis while transitioning into adulthood. However, through years of dedicated therapy and persistence, she successfully reclaimed her life. Today, Cathy is living a full and vibrant life, but she hasn’t forgotten the hurdles she cleared along the way. Driven by her own success in treatment, she is now devoting her time to the Southern California OCD community. Her mission is twofold:
- Raising Awareness: Helping others recognize OCD not as a lifelong sentence of struggle, but as a highly treatable illness.
- Providing Insight: Sharing her personal perspective to offer hope and practical understanding to those still in the thick of their journey.
Cathy is a firm believer that with the right tools and support, everyone living with OCD can find their path to a fulfilling life.
Lora Bednarek
Lora Bednarek is an undergraduate student and researcher at UC San Diego, whose path into the OCD world began with her experience growing up as a sibling of someone with OCD. Seeing the daily challenges her older brother faced motivated her to do something to help him. After discovering research in high school, Lora became involved in studies focused on OCD, as well as depressive and other anxiety disorders, with the goal of helping to deepen understanding and inform interventions. She is passionate about OCD advocacy, spreading awareness, and creating a community for individuals dealing with or affected by the disorder.
Summer Contreras-Lemmon
Summer Contreras-Lemmon is a Certified Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialist living in San Diego with her husband. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Public Health from the University of Arizona in Tucson and is currently working toward a second degree in Psychology from Southern New Hampshire University. She hopes to write books about her mental health recovery, start her own peer support business for individuals with OCD, and travel the world to play and judge the Pokémon Trading Card Game as a Pokémon Professor.
Olivia Wallace
Olivia Wallace is a research coordinator at the Center for Understanding and Treating Anxiety at San Diego State University. She received her B.S. in Biopsychology from UC Santa Barbara. She is currently coordinating the STRIVE study, which focuses on understanding how exposures work for people with OCD.
Santa Clarita Valley Regional Council
Annie Barker
Annie is a wife and a mom of two daughters. She lived her first 38 years with undiagnosed OCD, which became more and more debilitating in her early thirties. After receiving a diagnosis at 38, engaging in effective treatment and consistently attending a local OCD GOAL group, Annie took control of her mental health and regained parts of her life that had been lost to OCD. Through her treatment journey, Annie became passionate about sharing her experience and advocating for OCD awareness in an effort to help others find healing and recovery. She co-founded OCD Awareness SCV, which became the OCD SoCal Santa Clarita Regional Council, with the intention of increasing education, reducing stigma and creating opportunities for connection within the local OCD community.
Kjersti Helberg
Kjersti is a dedicated wife and mother of four children. She has lived experience with OCD, as well as lived experience as a parent of a child with OCD. After nearly seven years of receiving incorrect treatment, she was diagnosed at the age of 33 following her son’s OCD diagnosis. She is committed to supporting individuals and families affected by OCD and helping others feel less alone in their journey. Through her involvement in the OCD community, she works to increase awareness, reduce stigma, and share hope that healing and brighter days are possible.
Michelle Witkin, PhD
Michelle Witkin, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist with over 30 years experience. She is in private practice in Valencia, CA, where she specializes in treating children, teens, and adults with OCD and anxiety disorders.
She is a regular presenter at national conferences, and volunteers extensively leading support groups for anxiety and OCD sufferers and their loved ones. She is a graduate of the International OCD Foundation’s General and Pediatric Behavior Therapy Training Institute (BTTI), a faculty member for the International OCD Foundation’s Behavior Therapy Training Institute, and is a Clinical Fellow of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.
