Our Values
Collaboration and Community
One of the most distinctive and valuable aspects of what we do as a group is place a high value on collaboration. We believe therapists stop growing and improving once they begin to do their work of therapy on their own. Without exposure to other methods and experts in the field, a silo effect ensues, which limits a therapist’s ability to continue expanding their understanding and proficiency. To counter this, we meet weekly, if not more, to collaborate on cases. This allows couple’s specialists, trauma specialists, addictions specialists, kids/teens specialists, etc., to learn from one another, thus expanding their understanding of a case. Secondly, this provides a much higher quality of care for our clients. More eyes and ears on our clients’ case ensures that our clients are getting the best therapy possible from our therapists.
These weekly, collaborative meetings among our therapists also ensures that we are taking care of ourselves and one another. It’s imperative that our therapists are mentally and emotionally healthy if they’re going to help their clients become healthy as well. Burn out in this field is rampant as therapists walk along side their clients. Creating a healthy rhythm and culture of self-care is critical for us to grow personally, professionally, and as a team of therapists that can be effective in helping our community.
Training and Proficiency
We place an incredibly high emphasis on the training and preparation of our team of therapists. Our in-house education program called Watershed University ensures that by the end of the first 4 years of our therapist’s career, they’ll have received 500 hours of training beyond what is required by the State for licensure. This means our clients are receiving higher quality therapy simply because they’re trained and educated better than most other therapists. One of our core values as an organization is continual growth and development of our therapists. Because we believe ever investment we make into our therapists to become healthier and more proficient is also an investment into the care of our clients as well. Below is a broad overview of the kind of training we take all of our therapists through their first 4 years with us.
Level 1: Basic Training for Therapy and Assessment
Level 2: Watershed Methodology & Systems for Therapy
Level 3: Personal Mastery & Growth (Ensuring Personal Mental/Emotional Health for Clinicians)
Level 4: Clinical Mastery (Exposure to Most Often and Effective Methods Used for Therapy Today)
Level 5: Specialization (In-Depth Training and Certification for Specialized Areas of Therapy)
Level 6: Development for Leaders & Instructors
Diversity & Accessibility
With over 40 therapists on our team, we make it a point to create a diversity of therapists that can suit and meet the wide range of our clients needs. That means creating diversity and range of options on three primary fronts:
Areas of Specialty. From couples, family, kids, addiction, trauma, etc., we ensure that we have a wide range of therapists with varying expertise to meet the specific needs of our clients.
Cultural Background. Additionally we try to maintain a culturally diverse staff to not only understand the nuances behind different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, but also to speak fluently in other languages to provide therapy for those that cannot converse easily in English.
Price Point. Therapy can be costly for most people and that’s why it’s important for us offer therapists that can offer therapy at lower costs but still be trained and specialized to meet our clients specific needs. This is why our in-house training and education program (Watershed University) is critical. Lower cost doesn’t have to mean lower quality of therapy.
Faith & Philanthropy
Faith. We are all dedicated followers of Jesus Christ. It is the reason why we are so fiercely passionate and devoted to making a difference in the lives of our clients and their families, in the community we serve, and in the lives of our counseling team. Our faith in Christ drives us to be a part of something much bigger than ourselves and what any of us could do on our own. Our objective isn’t to evangelize and our primary mandate isn’t to lead others to Christ. Our work is to delve deeply into the ministry of discipleship, healing, restoration and transformation. This is our gifting and how we serve not only the Church, but those that don’t profess to be followers of Jesus. The Bible and the name of Jesus may never come up in our sessions with non-believers, but our desire to help the afflicted and the principles that guide our counsel will always be formed by our faith in Christ and by biblical truth.
In addition to being highly trained and skilled therapists, all of us are rooted in faith. Many of us are biblically trained having received our degrees from accredited seminary institutions. Some of us are ordained and serve as pastors or ministers at our local church. But it’s best to think of us standing in the gap between the Church and culture. There will always be a tension between the two; we see our mandate as sitting in that tension, even if that means facing discomfort and uneasiness. We intentionally serve in the gap because that is where the need and the possibility for making a real difference reside. This is what ultimately binds us as an organization - the deep and relentless desire to make a difference.
Philanthrophy. We understand that many individuals are priced out of receiving the help they need. Let’s face it: therapy can be costly. As therapists we have the training and capability to offer real help. At the same time, we need to provide a sustainable living for ourselves and families. No single person can solve everyone’s problems. However, as a group and organization, we can begin to help make a difference. We allot proceeds from our practice (under the Lifeologie brand) to fund our non-profit initiatives. That funding might go toward scholarships to provide reduced or free therapy for those that qualify; or to fund partner organizations reaching the underserved, oppressed, or victims of injustice. Our for-profit practice ensures we keep healthy boundaries for our staff, while empowering us to fund our non-profit objectives creatively. Our faith drives our philanthropy and desire to be difference-makers here on earth and ultimately for God’s Kingdom.