We were lucky to catch up with Kelly Jacobson recently and have shared our conversation below.
Kelly, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
Kelly Jacobson founded Stronger Therapeutic Counseling Services in 2017. At that time, she was working full-time as a school social worker and had two little ones at home. She was still a relatively new mama and while she had an overwhelming amount of gratitude for all that came with being a new mother, she also understood the challenges that came too.
In realizing that her identity and life had changed, she was determined to help other mothers navigate this new chapter while still trying to navigate it herself. She wanted mothers to feel healthy and happy, so it would pour into the families they were raising. She believes healthy individuals create healthy families, and healthy families build healthy communities. However, she also understood the barriers that prevent individuals and families from participating in therapy or living a lifestyle free from judgment or fear of the unknown. This belief is what structured the services that are offered today at Stronger Therapeutic Counseling Services.
Kelly believes that we all have strengths and that our strengths are gifts that set us apart and make us unique. Kelly has known that she has had a gift for observation for a long time, which ultimately led her to this field. She remembers watching her own dad build relationships with teens that didn’t have a trusted adult at home and the sense of safety and happiness he extended to these teens.
This observation, as a child herself, has since allowed her to see things that aren’t easily noticed. Kelly honors this gift as a strength that she has and understands the responsibility it provides her with when serving others. Kelly respects and admires the gifts in others as well, and believes that each of the women on her team is called to do this job and it is that calling that makes them each unique and able to care for their clients.
When designing the services of Stronger, Kelly decided to take an unconventional approach to find a way to stand out in the mental health industry while meeting individuals where they are at. She found that normalizing mental health, providing education on accessing therapy, supporting businesses really stand behind statements of work-life balance, and showing what happens behind closed doors have helped reduce the stigma. Through this approach, she has been able to normalize the fear and judgment often associated with therapy or workplace wellness and show others that mental wellness can lead to personal growth and healing, and also be fun!
The space, aesthetic, and brand of Stronger Therapeutic Counseling Services required intentional and thoughtful design. Kelly wanted the space and brand of Stronger to be an extension of what she believed to be possible; to offer hope, inspiration, and compassion. She wanted both the space and brand to invite individuals to see the value in caring for themselves and that they were deserving of the journey that mental wellness and therapy can offer. Kelly believes that incorporating thoughtful details in the therapy space, communicating conversationally, and providing tangible tools, are all ways that cultivate feelings of safety, relaxation, restoration, trust, and healing.
Kelly truly has a heart and talent for bringing out the best in others and is excited to support other leaders do the same. As Stronger has grown she is proud to lead and establish a culture for her team that is fun, dynamic, supportive, and collaborative. She believes that incorporating new team members who have shared values and are driven to improve the health and wellness of our communities will positively impact and heal the mental wellness of our communities in a way that she can not do alone.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
Stronger Therapeutic Counselings Services was designed to be a place that can educate, strengthen, inspire and create lasting changes. We believe that education inspires awareness and awareness is what sparks changes, that we not only feel good about but are excited to implement and sustain.
In our practice we promote personal growth, mental wellness, and improved happiness for adults, tweens, teens our community and corporations. Together, we partner with our clients to help discover and begin to utilize existing personal strengths to live a life with a stronger sense of purpose, fulfillment, and gratification to begin feeling more connected, motivated, inspired, and intentional for the life you live each day.
We see therapy as the ultimate form of self-care. Therapy is a place for you to unravel the workweek, acknowledge and share thoughts and feelings that seem scary to admit but you know are holding you back; holding you back from really feeling happy, connected, or even deserving. Working with a therapist on our team can offer you a place to feel safe to better understand yourself, your feelings, your history, and design a future that feels authentic to how you really want to show up for yourself.
We believe individual therapy is for everyone.
No matter the person, the issue, or what seems to be the challenge, therapy will help identify what might interfere with your everyday life and thoughts about your personal world.
Through the therapeutic process, we will help you find tools and solutions that can relieve symptoms and stress that you are experiencing.
In addition to therapy services, we also offer workplace wellness services to support leaders, and the culture and mental health of their teams.
How your team feels personally as human beings, connected to each other, and their relationship with you- all plays an important role in feeling connected to the goals of the corporation and feeling good about achieving them together.
Finding new ways to explore strengths, create meaningful connections, and build supportive and trusting relationships to support the business you have grown is our passion.
Providing consultation and education services to our local business friends is a service Kelly is proud to offer. Kelly Jacobson, is the founder of Stronger, a practicing clinical therapist, and a consultant with 15 years in the mental health and educational fields. She not only believes in the power of relationships but has built a career and business around teaching, cultivating, and nurturing- effective, trusting relationships.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
I had to unlearn that just because people love me doesn’t mean they understand or believe in the vision I have for my business and that doesn’t mean they don’t support me.
Creating a business outside of a full-time job while doing all the things that modern moms do- I had to be very intentional with how I could grow and scale my business to eventually replace my full-time job.
In doing this it meant creating safeguards for my own self-care while also prioritizing my family. Prioritizing my own self-care and family meant that I only worked one night a week and never worked on the weekends. These schedules seemed unheard of in the mental health industry as clients want to see you when they are done with work or school. I remember talking with my husband about my goal to grow the practice and set my team up with similar schedules. He would often try to provide me examples of other practice owners we knew that always HAD to work nights and weekends and how we didn’t understand how I thought I would be able to get enough clients during the day to support not only myself but my team.
In the early days it really felt hard to have a vision that others didn’t understand. But I knew that I could create something that was meaningful, different, and didn’t cost me my family or myself.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
I think that I always try to make mental health and therapy honest, and relatable (ditch jargon) while also creating a “cool” factor.
I found pretty quickly that our clients often found us on social media or at events that we hosted and they wanted to learn from us. We often got a reputation for doing things differently (in a good way) and I think that our community and market appreciate that about us as they can see that we are doing things for the greater good of reducing the stigma of mental health and are approachable to make reaching out for help less intimidating and scary.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.youstrongerself.me
- Instagram: @yourstrongerself @stronger.at.work
- Facebook: @yourstrongerself.me @stronger.at.work
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-jacobson-40b396210/
- Youtube: @yourstrongerself
Image Credits
@justinsiekiewicz @shootwithkatie