About Authentic Counseling and Wellness, LLC
Our Mission
At Authentic Counseling and Wellness, LLC, our mission is to provide high-quality counseling services to individuals, couples, and families who are experiencing emotional or psychological difficulties.
Our Timeline
Our Beginning
Heather opened Anchor Family Counseling in Cleveland Bradley Business Incubator Ste 105A! She wanted to be able to meet her clients needs, which wasn’t something she felt she was able to do with the ‘in-and-out’ clients seemed to experience. For the first few months, Heather was doing everything, like progress notes, intake paperwork, treatment plans, posting on social media, etc., all on her own. She hired her first assistant around November 2017, when she found she just couldn’t keep up with the demand. Her assistant ended up moving away due to personal reasons. With help from friends, she was able to continue working. Thanks to help from McMiller Photography, Anchor Family Counseling won the 2018 FedEx grant.
Our First Expansion
With the money from the grant, we were finally able to move into a bigger office by May of 2018. In August, Heather had expanded to the office right next to her space for a playroom! She started selling tshirts with the anchor family counseling logo and the ‘hope’ anchor to raise money to get the playroom set up. Thanks to the support of the community, she had the playroom set up in no time! In September, Heather prepared her first group with Prepare & Enrich marital therapy. Caitlin was finally hired part-time to help keep kids distracted during the adult groups!
The Biggest Mountain
In March of 2019, Heather, Caitlin, and the receptionist struggled with moving to a different client portal platform. By late 2019, the Cleveland area started feeling the effects of covid. Early 2020, right after really bad storms that left its own mark on our community, everyone was given the ‘Stay-At-Home’ order to combat the worsening covid effects. Realizing the need for person-to-person interactions between those in isolation, Heather started offering online groups. Caitlin started offering the art therapy group online for the children. Even so, Heather struggled with continuing to meet the needs of the clients she already had, while balancing meeting the needs of new clients. Anchor Family Counseling won CBBI’s 2020 Momentum Grant, and Heather started falling into the ‘in-and-out’ trap that she had started Anchor Family Counseling to combat in the first place.
Currently
Luckily, Heather soon realized herself what was happening, and started planning. The client load was too much, so there was nothing to do except hire another therapist. Anchor Family Counseling started selling candy bars in September to support that plan. Around this time was when Jessica was first hired to support Heather in that planning. In Jan of 2022, Jeff Bayne officially joined our team. In March, Erin Swem joined us. Unfortunately, Jeff ended up leaving in May, with Erin following by September. Despite this, Heather was still able to move forward and move out of CBBI’s building and into her own in May of 2023. We hired Keith Nilsen in late September of 2024 and Tonya Anderson, a nurse practitioner, in late December. So, here we are. Continuing to support our clients needs in every way we can.