About Us
Our Story
Watershed Initiative began as a dream that was transformed by heartache. In the summer of 2016, after spending ten years practicing counseling, eight years operating businesses, and five years pastoring at a church, Ly Tran began Watershed Initiative. His experience serving as pastor of care for a church revealed the tremendous and often overwhelming needs for quality mental health within the church. As a pastor and trained therapist, his vision was to build an organization that could address real mental health needs in the community and passionately serve the local church.
But that winter, on December 16, everything changed. Ly’s 4-month-old son died during his afternoon nap. Suddenly, nothing else mattered. Ly and his wife were devastated. Intense heartache marked the next several months and years. But Ly began to understand an invaluable lesson: incredible pain yields incredible clarity.
That experience redefined Ly’s sense of purpose in life. If he must stay on this earth, awaiting his heavenly reunion with his son, then he resolved to give everything he had to make a difference in this life.
“When you’ve already felt like you’ve lost so much, there’s not much to hold you back from risking everything in order to gain whatever meaning and joy you can muster from this world. There is no room left in my heart to hold anything back. No fear, no worldly gain, no concerns of failure. So that is what has gotten me here today. Today, the best way I know how to make a difference is to go all-in on the vision of Watershed Initiative.”
Our name is a reference to a watershed moment - a point of critical change. As therapists, we hope to intersect with people in their watershed moments.
Today, Watershed is made up of a group of 40 therapists and pastors who are passionate about making a difference in this world using the tools of mental health.
Quote taken from interview published on Oct 25, 2018.
Our Structure
Watershed Initiative comprises three entities:
Lifeologie serves as our community-facing counseling practice. We currently have 6 locations in Dallas, Houston, and Austin, with additional locations in other states coming soon. [Client Focused, Collaborative & Creative]
WELD University is our education and equipping arm which focuses primarily on training up our therapists both professionally and personally. WELD offers base level training for interns to highly advanced clinical specialties to developing leaders for the next generation of therapists. [Watershed Education & Leadership Development]
Sweet Deeds Foundation is the philanthropic non-profit arm of our organization. Its goals are to make mental health services accessible and affordable to under-resourced communities and to partner with other community organizations doing work adjacent to mental health (poverty centers, abuse shelters, etc). [Philanthropy, Faith & Impact]