2015 was an exciting year.
I was out of graduate school. I was entering the field. And I also noticed something massive in my community and the communities beyond the bounds of Kennett Square, throughout Chester County, and beyond:
NOBODY WAS TALKING ABOUT TRAUMA.
Nobody.
The hot topic in 2015 was the political scene. We were still at war in Afghanistan. The news and social media debated whether the dress was black and white or blue and gold. Star Wars was making a comeback, as was Adele. But we still weren't talking about mental health. We weren't acknowledging its massive stronghold on our children, teens, and adults. And even then, veteran death by self-delivery was at a peak that never quite seems to come down from 20 to 22 a day.
People around me still continued to muse at my determination to start a practice here in Kennett Square, to focus on and work in my community, and to help the families of Unionville, Chadds Ford, West Grove, Oxford, Nottingham, Landenberg, West Chester, Lincoln, and so many other nearby towns and villages. I was dedicated. But I also had to field a lot of calls, questions, and pushback.
"What trauma?"
"Mental health isn't a problem in our area."
"People who go through PTSD are veterans and people from urban cultures."
"Trauma is something they taught you about in an ivory tower, Winden. It's not here in real life."
I begged to differ. After all, I was someone who had survived quite a few significant and life-altering losses. As had many of my friends and family members. So did colleagues of mine. Schoolmates from my childhood. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I started to see so many patterns of loss paired with community avoidance that the pushback only fueled my belief that there was important work to be done here.
And so, bit by bit, a little world was built.
It started out in the heart of Kennett Square, in a building on State Street, right in the borough. It began with a colleague and me putting ourselves out there, and bit by bit, starting to work with one person, one couple, one family at a time.
And then that grew. We had our first professional inquiry, and then the next: a gentleman from New Jersey who had just moved to the area, looking for office space to see a few clients. And then another professional friend looking for the same. Then, as this little practice grew, a nutritionist who wanted to collaborate on eating disorders and how to help people feel healthier in their bodies as they also worked to heal their hearts and minds.
Slowly but surely, things became big enough that we outgrew our little container of one office, which expanded into two. And that worked. That worked well for several years. But then that space was no longer sufficient, so off we went in search of bigger things. And we found that just down the road at the Willowdale Town Center.
In 2019, a whole series of events changed our lives here forever. First, The Center KSQ was born. Up until then, the practice didn't really have a name. People knew who Winden Rowe was, and that I was a trauma therapist, but I wanted to pull myself back a bit from being the sole face of it all, and highlight that mental health needs diversity in a diverse world.
When I use the word diversity, I do not mean DEI per se, but rather having a group of clinicians who can meet a wide range of needs in a community. Of course, this means needing to serve Black, Brown, and white people, but it also means needing to serve children, teens, adults, older adults, and a huge range of clinical presentations. So, bit by bit, we started to grow with that intention. It wasn't easy, but over time, we have gotten there.
But a lot of it happened by accident.
In June of 2019, I moved a few of us into four total offices, three for clinical work with individuals and one room that could host groups. We started a mental health and wellness hodgepodge and a community co-op model. Clinicians and providers paid into a system tiered by days in the office and office needs. And that worked well for us!
I was still raising a family and managing my dad's healthcare needs as his Parkinson's diagnosis started to take on a greater level of need and complexity. So, a simple model was a great start for what I had in mind. I wanted The Center KSQ to be a place where clinicians were supported and could experience health first: healthy clinician, healthier client outcomes. Bit by bit, our cohort grew, and by December of 2019, our four offices were full. It was a huge leap of faith for me to double our size. And thankfully, it went very well.
But then...
Jokingly, colleagues have laughed that I should have named The Center KSQ something like The Center for Stability and Sameness, because in January 2020, just as I hung the last painting and finished the last office setup, a massive fire broke out, burning down the neighboring business and requiring us to evacuate and move.
I was heartbroken. And exhausted. And devastated.
And also saved. Overnight.
Luck had it that across the parking lot was a tiny little empty cottage that we refitted into four offices to work out of in less than a week. Not only that, but the community really showed up.
I asked on Facebook if anyone had extra furniture to share since we were not allowed to take smoke and chemically contaminated furnishings with us. Magically, I would go into one clinical session, come out an hour later, and there would be a small team of beautiful women standing there having furnished an office. An hour after that, the next office, and then the next. Within a few days, the whole cottage was filled with love and a beautiful aesthetic.
As someone who had carried an entire family across life alone, I was not always great at asking for or accepting help. Those weeks were a lesson in how to be loved that really changed me, and I remain forever grateful to those women. One of them is Deanna Johnson, owner of Lieu and Mache in Kennett Square. If you are ever in the area and want to visit her stores, please do. She has a gift for design that I never will, and a heart of gold the size of the world we live in.
One big exhale later, and we were off to work.
Until...
March 13, 2020, is a day none of us will ever forget. I was with my dad at Longwood Gardens. He was staying with me for the weekend after a surgical procedure that required someone to look after him. Three things happened that day that never happen:
- He agreed to ride around in a cart to avoid reinjuring himself,
- Longwood closed in the middle of the day, and
- So did the whole wide world.
It was COVID-19, and the coronavirus created a global pandemic. What it also created was a deluge of people seeking mental health support.
I don't know how we all went through that, how as therapists we lived through and also counseled through COVID. But we did. And without a lengthy description, a blink later it was 2024 and it was long past us. But in that time, we went from 4 offices to 10, a group room, and a conference room. And also from 5 helping professionals to 20 plus.
Bit by bit over these last few years, our model has changed as well. Having a co-op model proved great in some ways, but not in others. Several providers in a row worked with us, built up caseloads, and then, to our disappointment, left to work on their own. We had not run into that problem in the past, but something about a changing field, and maybe how people have changed as a result of this new world we live in, seemed to have tinkered with the culture that had been so strong here for so long.
The best thing to do when a pattern repeats is to learn from it and to change. So, in the last year and going forward, we have rebuilt how we work as a team, and a better way is emerging. We have more coordinated sessions as providers to connect and collaborate, a monthly learning session where outside organizations come in and teach us, and more ways that we are recreating our system to ensure more safety and stability within our program.
It takes a lot of effort and willingness to learn to build a strong business, and I am so thankful for this team and all the ways we have figured out important things over the years. The field of healthcare can be thankless. And at the same time, there is no better work than the work of helping others.
I am so happy to be at The Center KSQ. I am happy for the sad and hard times. Each of those moments has taught me: taught me how to let go, how to establish boundaries, and how to be consistent. It has taught me how to say yes, how to say no, and how to grieve. And it has taught me that as we grow, we become different versions of ourselves, hopefully each version better than the next.
It isn't always easy. It isn't always hard. But it has always been worth it.
There is more ahead in this blog to come: less narrative and more about trauma, traumatic stress, early childhood trauma, and more. And I look forward to seeing you there!
Lots of love,
Winden