The Counseling Place

Our mission is simple, and our tactics are powerful. We strive to disrupt and help people heal from intergenerational trauma, restore and strengthen mental health, and cultivate resilience in individuals of all ages. We’ve been committed to this work since 1979. 

The Counseling Place provides crisis intervention, short- and long-term mental health and advocacy services. Our clients include children, teens and adults affected by domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse, suicide, and other traumatic incidents. Our services are free or fall on a sliding scale, based on ability to pay.

Our Victims' Assistance Program services help victims of violent crime and other tragic events recover and avoid repeat victimization. Under our Victims' Assistance Program, clients receive free professional therapy and advocacy services. Victim advocates assist survivors with crisis intervention, accessing resources, safety planning, and emergency services. Advocates also help victims apply for Crime Victim Compensation, understand Victim Rights, and receive updates on the status of their cases and offenders. Therapy is available for children, teens, and adult victims of violence, and most therapists are trained in EMDR, ART, or other modalities beyond traditional talk therapy.

Our Youth Programs services help young people strengthen mental health and manage big emotions without violence toward themselves or others. Project Positive, our 5-week mental health education course helps teens strengthen emotional intelligence and manage the stress, often brought by poverty, family addiction and mental illness. Some of our participants hold full-time jobs while attending high school and completing the program. Often, our course facilitators identify the need for and provide additional assistance, such as individual therapy and the meeting of basic needs, like food and clothing. Youth services are fee-based, and donations help us drastically reduce or waive fees altogether.

Our Community Counseling Program provides affordable, professional therapy for families and individuals of all ages. People come to us for help with a variety of life struggles:

• Grief (death, estrangements, loss from a natural disaster)
• Anxiety, Phobias, Fear
• Everyday stress, test anxiety, toxic bosses/co-workers 
• Adjusting to major life changes (college, marriage, divorce, relocation)
• Relationships (couples, families, parent-child)
• Anger, Irritability
• PTSD

 

Community Counseling fees fall on a sliding scale. Sessions take place in-person or by video, depending on the client's need.

Our Needs

Throughout the year, The Counseling Place encounters unpredictable needs for clients, particularly those who have survived a trauma and are facing financial adversity. While many obtain assistance from churches and other nonprofits, often they disclose their needs after hours or they require a swift and creative response. Donations through NTGD will help us provide emotional support and emergency essentials to our clients. 

Pictured left: Victims' Assistance Program Director, Ashley Akers, in a truck with donated furniture for a family who fled domestic violence. Ashley and victim advocate Ali Piepenbrock hit the ground running to help the family break free of an unusual and unpredictable situation.

Together, Ashley and Ali provided crisis intervention, safety planning, and relocation services. This included acquiring enough furniture for an apartment, beds for mom and her children, and a starter kit of personal care needs. Ashley and her husband Manny even helped move the furniture into the survivor's new apartment.

Lorjon Ali, our Youth Programs Director, has a passion for helping young people. She not only teaches mental health strategies, but she also notices when families are in need of basic items, like clothing, personal hygiene products, and food.  In 2025, we partnered with the North Texas Food Bank as a Food Rx Member. Donations will help us maintain the additional space required for this new service.

When Lorjon (pictured left with a student to her right) noticed how teens tend to be overlooked during the holiday season, she launched our Good Tidings to Teens program. Lorjon shops, assembles each package, and personally delivers them to Good Tidings to Teens recipients, all of which have graduated from Project Positive, a five-week course designed to strengthen mental health. Packages contain items the teen needs (bath & hygiene products, socks and shoes), gift certificates to places where they'd love to eat, a mental health support item (such as a gratitude journal or weighted blanket) and something to support a hobby (art supplies, sports or music items). She also throws in their favorite snack. Each year the program grows, and in 2025, Altrusa International Richardson and The CP volunteers provided additional support so that Good Tidings to Teens was extra special.