Creative Family Counseling, A Children's Therapy Practice in Louisville, Kentucky, Expands with Growth in Both Clientele and Business Following COVID-19 Pandemic

When Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Registered Play Therapist Lacey Ryan opened the doors of Creative Family Counseling in Louisville, Kentucky in 2019, keeping those same doors open through a pandemic was not in her five-year plan. However, that's exactly where Ryan, the Founding Director of Creative Family Counseling, found herself in the early months of 2020 as COVID-19 started to make its way into the lives of Louisvillians across the city including her staff members' and patients'. While plenty of businesses were forced to close their doors over the last year and a half, Creative Family Counseling has done the opposite. After a period where Ryan and her team worked together to realign their business approach to meet the new normal that included telehealth and social distancing, the practice continued to offer therapeutic services throughout the pandemic. And now, 18 months later, Creative Family Counseling is preparing to open a second office location in Prospect, Kentucky as the team of therapists and the list of specialties and services offered continues to grow.

Adapting to the pandemic was a learning opportunity for the team at Creative Family Counseling and the knowledge they gained throughout the experience will not be soon forgotten despite Kentucky lifting mask mandates and loosening social distancing restrictions. According to Ryan, "when the COVID-19 pandemic first began in the U.S. and things shut down in Kentucky, the initial impact on our practice was that appointments for counseling significantly decreased. Since we specialize in working with children and families, using expressive therapies like Play Therapy and Animal-Assisted Therapies, our services were difficult to convert to virtual platforms like telehealth. Many client families decided to try to wait it out until we could get back into the play therapy rooms for in-person appointments. So our practice was very quiet, both in-person and virtually. After the pandemic continued for several weeks, and weeks turned into months, we all realized the need to find alternative ways to meet the emotional and mental needs of our community."

So, Creative Family Counseling did just that. The practice not only opened up their appointments to telehealth, despite Ryan and other staff members believing that the art of their therapy approach is best received in-person but also developed tools to offer parents support from afar. One such tool was the Positive Discipline Foundational Parenting Package (PDFPP), a downloadable Positive Parenting, self-paced, parent education program. The PDFPP includes interactive learning to help parents develop positive parenting tools, mostly from the Positive Discipline curriculum, which focuses on a non-punitive and non-permissive approach to parenting. Despite in-person therapy sessions being available once again at Creative Family Counseling, the PDFPP remains available for purchase online as a means of support for parents within the local area and across the country.

Not only did the services offered at Creative Family Counseling adapt and grow throughout the pandemic, so did the team of counselors. Last summer, after people had spent months social distancing and the effects of isolation were starting to come to a head for most, the team found their caseloads filled. As new team members were added to the roster, their caseloads quickly filled, as well. So, Creative Family Counseling moved into a larger office to accommodate a larger team and serve more families but, with each period of growth came the need for more and to this day the pace has not slowed. Now, the team of counselors offering services including therapy for children, teens, individuals, couples, and families as well as specialties such as Autplay® Therapy, EFT, Play Therapy, EMDR, Art Therapy, and Animal Assisted Therapy has grown to 17 members split across two locations.

The flagship Creative Family Counseling office in Louisville, KY located at 8134 New LaGrange Road in Suite 102 has been open since 2019 and continues to act as the office for the majority of therapists within the practice. The newest Creative Family Counseling office location to open is located in Prospect, KY at 12945 US 42 and is currently occupied by four members of the team. The new and spacious Prospect, KY location is slated to open in August in response to the fast-growing clientele that Creative Family Counseling has taken on since the pandemic. According to Lacey Ryan, Creative Family Counseling has "maxed out our Lyndon office with a huge team" and while the team members "make the most of the space by working from home via telehealth on some days each week, we've still had a wait-list of 40-50 families at a time, waiting for support. We have a lot of families who drive all the way from Oldham County to Lyndon for our services, so it was a no-brainer to meet them where they are to make what we have to offer even more accessible."

While some private therapy practices may not be accessible to families who don't have health insurance coverage or are living on lower incomes, Creative Family Counseling aims to be as accessible as possible. And the pandemic has taught the therapists that incorporating telehealth into their individual practices is one way to open up the possibility of therapy to a wider variety of individuals and families alike. Prior to 2020, Creative Family Counseling didn't offer any form of telehealth services; however, telehealth allowed the practice to continue to work with families when in-person appointments were not safe to offer. The therapists also found that some clients prefer telehealth and some of the team members enjoy providing telehealth, therefore the practice will continue to offer it through the foreseeable future. Prior to the pandemic, throughout, and after, most of the practice's team members offer a sliding scale fee when the full fee is cost-prohibitive and prevents interested clients from partaking in therapy. Additionally, beginning this fall of 2021, Intern Clinicians, who will be supervised by seasoned and experienced team members, will be available to serve families at a very reduced rate, as Creative Family Counseling will become a Practicum site for Masters' level student therapists.

Those interested in in-service therapy sessions or telehealth services can learn more by visiting the Creative Family Counseling website. The website features information on all of the services and specialties that Creative Family Counseling offers as well as biographies and available schedules of each of the therapists and location information for the open practice in Lyndon, KY, and the Prospect, KY location that is opening in August. Parents who may not be interested in scheduling therapy sessions but are looking for resources to help them discover new parenting techniques will find the website beneficial as well.

To learn more about Creative Family Counseling, the team, and all the practice has to offer, visit https://creativefamilycounseling.org/ or call (502) 709-0410 today!

About Creative Family Counseling
Creative Family Counseling is a therapy practice founded and led by Lacey Ryan, LMFT, RPT-S with office locations in Louisville, KY, and Prospect, KY. Both locations are staffed with experienced therapists who share like-minded approaches and enjoy working with people of all ages and backgrounds. Since 2019, Creative Family Counseling has been offering various forms of therapy for kids, teens, individuals, couples, and families. In addition to a wide variety of therapy services, Creative Family Counseling also offers therapeutic specialties ranging from EFT and EDMR to LGBTQIA+ Support and Art Therapy. For more information on the practice, the staff, the services offered including specialty areas, and the two locations in Louisville, KY, and Prospect, KY, visit the Creative Family Counseling website today.