Tamara is an experienced Clinical Social Worker, licensed in South Carolina and North Carolina and New Jersey, with a demonstrated history of working in the mental health care industry. Private practice operates on the premise that stress surrounds us daily, and can be managed effectively with the appropriate interventions. Tamara enjoys working with adults experiencing life transition, grief/bereavement, and trauma. Tamara utilizes the following therapeutic frameworks to aid in helping clients alleviate stress in their lives: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Solution-Focused, Acceptance Commitment Therapy, EMDR techniques, and Mindfulness-Based Practices.
Katie (00:01):
Hi everyone. Thank you for tuning into the Hustlenomics Podcast. I’m your host Katie, and today I’m so excited to be talking with Tamara Houston. She is the CEO of renewal life counseling and experienced clinical social worker. Her private practice operates on the premise that stress surrounds us daily and can be managed effectively with appropriate intervention. So thank you so much.
Tamara (00:24):
Yes, thank you for having me on our, of appreciate the opportunity to come and speak to your audience.
Katie (00:31):
Yeah, absolutely. So I’d love to learn a little bit more about you, your background, and kind of how you got to where you are today.
Tamara (00:37):
Okay. so again to mayor Houston, I am in Greenville, South Carolina. I’m from a small town of it’s called Seneca, but most people know Clempson or Clemson University to tigers. They’ve been winning here lately, so if you know Clinton and then Seneca is, I’m actually bigger than Clemson. But not that far from, from their sound, from, from that small town. Mmm. Went to undergrad at a Berea college in Kentucky. It is a small liberal arts college. That was my first experience actually traveling away from my small town by myself. So that was very interesting, a very interesting time. Mmm. Let me see. I went to grad school at the university of Georgia go Bulldogs. And so I, there, I got my master’s degree in social work, in a certification in gerontology. Goal. Actually coming out of the social work program was I wanted to kind of have a mix of doing some medical social work and also maybe like some nonprofit or program development type stuff because that was the path that I was on.
Tamara (01:58):
And I was not able to go the nonprofit route yet, so I ended up on straight into the medical field working initially in a nursing home for almost a year. And then our transition from that into hospice work and I stayed in hospice for about eight years and work my way up through that system. Really, really enjoyed that, that opportunity, I say if I want, when I retire, that is probably what I’ll go back to is, is doing hospice work or volunteering or something. But I, Mmm. I say those were some really pivotal a years for me developmentally wise because I was in my early till, very early twenties when I started hospice work. So I learned a lot about myself. I learned a lot about death and dying about it. It was just a great opportunity for everything to come to life that I had learned in both my undergrad and graduate school program.
Tamara (02:58):
So, and I contribute that time to really being the now psychotherapists that I am. Even though hospice work is a little different in terms of the social work aspect of it, but honestly you deal with the same issues. And the therapy work that I do is I did in hospice where you’re still looking at family dynamics, you’re still looking at a lot of mental health issues, depression, anxiety, of course, you know, with the Tom of great adjustment for a lot of people. Mmm. And so amongst other things, but a really great time for me to really grow and flourish. Mmm. Through that opportunity with hospice though I’ll say I get bored easily. And I think after eight years I kind of had the feeling of, you know, I got this, like I could do hospice with my eyes closed.
Tamara (03:56):
So I was looking for a challenge, didn’t really know at that point what I wanted to do because my goal was to work in hospice. And so once I accomplished that, it was just kinda like, ah, you know, what’s next room some relationships that I had. I ended up getting connected with a psychiatrist here in my local area that had a group practice. And that’s really how I kinda got my feet wet in terms of the therapy side. Mmm. Well at least the private practice side, I shall say. And then I worked there for three years, decided that wanted to have more flexibility and opportunities to serve a perhaps a different type of demographic. There were certain like insurances and stuff that this particular practice did not accept. All I really wanted, Mmm. To be able to serve that particular clientele.
Tamara (04:54):
So I started doing mobile therapy and that was not a far stretch for me because again, I had been doing hospice work, so that means for eight years I had been going into clients’ homes and serving them in their homes. So I was very used to comfortable with that type of transition. So I did starting my practice from a mobile aspect and I do that for a year. The interesting thing about that is there were certain aspects of the business that I did not know. I was a therapist and I felt like, and I still feel like I’m pretty good at what I do. But as far as the business side of it, there was just a lot lacking. I did not understand the credentialing process, which is getting connected with the insurances to be able to build. That’s how you get paid.
Tamara (05:46):
Of course, I did not understand that process and how complicated it can be. And nor did I know how to bill. So I had to, you know, Lauren one part in order to even have the other part be an issue. So I say a, well, what I’ll do is I’m just going to go forth anyway. I did a little bit of research in the beginning that provided me with the information that I had a year to build to insurance is like a Medicare and Medicaid. So I had a year to figure it out. That was my deadline. And so I did research and figured out, you know, how to get the applications and go through that process. Mmm. And so it was a really good thing for me. It’s a little backwards, but sometimes my thinking can be backwards. So it was very interesting because after a year’s time, once I got everything together from the credentialing and billing side, I was able to be paid a lump sum of money, which then allowed me to explore options for brick and mortar.
Tamara (06:52):
And I was very blessed actually to have a friend that was a, a serial entrepreneur and she had a building. I contacted her about really didn’t even have anything to do with the building. I was asking her something about license to practice, like within the city limits and she was just like, well, I mean, if it’s a building that you need, I have a building. So I was like, Oh, okay. So she really really helped me get my foot in the door in terms of an office space and I was very blessed by the opportunity because it was a lot bigger and much cheaper and anything that I had looked at. But it, it allowed me an opportunity to really have the space and flexibility both emotionally and financially to figure out what I was doing.
Tamara (07:48):
Now that I was making that transition to being on the road to being in an office because that entailed me having to transition my people [inaudible] to the office space. And so that was an interesting piece. Shortly after I got into the brick and mortar, Mmm. My business kind of slowly developed into a group practice. That was not my business plan. My plan was I was going to be a sole proprietor work for myself. I just wanted the flexibility. I had a family, young children, and so I just wanted to be close to home, not be on the road as much. But it just kind of blossomed into what I have today, which is a group practice. I had to recently made some transitions, so we may talk about head, but it is a group practice now. Multiprovider each provider has specialty in different areas, but I say overall we are generalist practitioners. We as a group, we kind of deal with all different types of issues. Mmm. And just really are able to offer great services and even still under the circumstances are looking at ways to continue to be able to do that. We just have to tap into some creativity to be able to do it. But definitely we are continuing to grow, continuing to seek out people that are interested in joining the team. So I’m excited about the opportunities, therefore the remainder of 2020. So that’s kind of a, the, that, that’s my story.
Katie (09:22):
Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, that’s, that’s so cool. And I’m also a university of Georgia grad. I went to grad school there as well as fantastic school. Obviously. Again, it’s funny how things work that you were coming on the show during this time because like you mentioned, things have been changing quickly and you know, there’s been so many changes, not only in our daily life, but as business owners having to pivot and adjust our messaging and adjust how we reach our customers and our clients. And so you mentioned you’ve had to make some transitions recently. What were some of those transitions that you had to make?
Tamara (09:55):
Oh my. Well, the structure of my business is it’s a group, it is a group practice and so I’m, I’m market as a team. However, the majority of my providers are independent contractors. So that means that essentially they will not, essentially, they operate their own business. They are sole proprietors of their own business. So, Mmm. The first part was trying to, one, get some, some consensus or, or clarification from each provider as to how they wanted to proceed during this time. Mmm. And that was different for everybody. I’ve had some providers that because of just where they are in life and different risks, situations that they are not able to come into the office and have an optic to just provide services at their home might be a telehealth. Mmm. And so there’s some challenges that that comes with that part. For me, the decision was, was
Tamara (11:02):
Ultimately made for me because I advertise the practice as following the school County, Mmm. A school district, school closings and opening. So when the decision was made by the [inaudible] school district to close the schools down for two weeks, and now we are into our second phase of two weeks. So we know that minimally this will go into the end of April, but because that decision was made I ultimate, I’m, I’m at home, I mean I’m married and at that time my husband was, he was still going to his office, but the children have to be taught at home. They have to eat, learn. So that was a transition. So immediately there was just across the nation really, there was this kind of just frantic mood about what was going to happen with our clients because up until that point there were more, I guess more popular, one of the insurances, Mmm.
Tamara (12:09):
Allowed for telemental health. And so telemental health is just being able to provide mental health services via a HIPAA compliant electronic device. So that could be phone, that could be, you know, I’ve had laptop, whatever, how much you have to use a HIPAA compliant platform. And that has been law up until now. Well the insurances expanded their telemental health laws, which allowed for providers too. Mmm. Either not have specific training, do use telemental health platforms or to be able to use any type of device, even those that were not HIPAA compliant. So there was just a lot going on with that. Like figuring out what platform do we use now? I was already as an individual, I was already providing telemental Hill privately through employee assistance and through that one insurance company, however, it was not. Mmm. Agreed upon across all insurances.
Tamara (13:13):
So there was this huge lag of what are the insurance is going to cover. And so well, if, if anything, what platforms can we use? So of course before we got on, you were talking about, you know, a lot of people during the podcasting right now. So we experienced the same thing. The platform that I was that I use and that I paid for. It’s really useless to me because so many providers have hopped on it. They have a free option that it’s just super slow right now. Mmm. And so, you know, ultimately that’s just kind of money. I, I can’t recoup that in terms of asking for, for my money back. I mean, we’re all kind of in the, in the same boat with that particular situation. But that was really the main thing of figuring out what was going to happen with insurances.
Tamara (14:07):
So you have to, you know, understand going from a practice aware, I carry a full case load. Most of my providers, area full case load two, one providing education to clients about what is telemental health, how can they use it, what devices can they use, is their insurance going to pay for it? And you know, at that time it was March, so we had just came out of a season where we have verified benefits. We know we knew what was covered for in office sessions and we essentially had to spend the time to do all of that over again. And it, it takes a lot of time. I do have admins, but because of, again, of how the was set up, I did not have anybody full time so that I ended up putting a lot of that work on me as far as doing the insurance verification figuring out which platform would be suitable for all of us to use, but also inviting the independent contractors to do their own research and figure out a platform that they want to use.
Tamara (15:11):
Because I can’t tell them what platform that they have to use. They can make that choice for themselves. But of course during this term you just want to try to make it easier for people. So what I ended up doing for two weeks, I just, Mmm, well I think it was on that Sunday and Monday after I got the notification about the schools is I just call my clients and I said, well, for the next two weeks, all of the all of my in office sessions are are going to be canceled. And I explained to them why. So I drafted a letter, I emailed people, I called some people and also put a notification up on our website to let them know what was going on. But I, but I did that, although I knew it was ultimately going to hit my bottom line.
Tamara (16:00):
I did that for one to cut down on anxiety. I’m the leader in terms of my practice. So, you know, that doesn’t really look good if I’m not confident in the systems that I have set up. So I wanted to make sure that I was going forward, but not going forward with anxiety. I want it to be able to provide a plan that was clear and that everybody could understand and make a decision about what they wanted to do. Then from there I had to start the insurance verification all over again. Of course, you have some clients that, you know, for whatever reason they are not comfortable with telemental health. Telemental health is, it’s a lot different in terms of what it requires emotionally from both the the therapist and the client. You’re sitting looking at a screen. And so there’s an additional kind of barrier this put in place of that relationship that you have with clients.
Tamara (16:56):
So that does take some getting used to. So I hear that a lot from clients. Well, this is different. Well, I don’t, you know, I, I’m, I’m not sure about this, so we just have to work through with, so my thing was I don’t want to be anxious going forward. I mean, naturally there’s some anxieties that I can’t control because there’s just uncertainty. But in terms of just my everyday how the business is set up I need to have a clear plan and I wanted to provide myself with time to be able to set that up. And so from there I have met with each provider through zoom of course. So we’re doing everything through zoom or phone call and having conversations with them about how they would like to proceed. Because we’re still getting client referrals and those people need to be seen. If not, then we need to refer them out to another provider. So I have not only check in with my people and see how they’re doing, but also check in with my clients as well and make sure that they are doing well in addition to taking care of myself and making sure that I’m okay.
Katie (18:00):
Absolutely. Yeah. And I’m glad you could talk about all that because I think people have been interested in learning more about tele-health and all that kind of stuff because not only are we dealing with physical health, but a lot of people out there are not able to go into like their regular appointments. And are, you know, according to that home. And I think mental health is definitely something we have to remember as a priority as well. And I know this is a scary time for a lot of people and especially business owners who are struggling. So talked about how people are having a lot of anxiety. Do you have any tips and tricks for people who are at home who maybe don’t have access to mental health facilities that they usually would, that they can really stay present and kind of manage their anxiety in a healthy way?
Tamara (18:42):
Absolutely. I think this is a, a great time if if I work was not a big supporter of just perusing social media and stuff before I, I do think this is a great time for that. Many providers again across the nation are going into podcasts and doing more lives about just grounding tips and stuff. So I think if it’s a, if there’s an interest in nationally, being able to see somebody that, that is a great way to get connected with people. There are a lot of free groups and stuff that are, that are taking place. And I mean that can be just as a simple search online for like a grounding group or self care group or something like that. So I think this is a great opportunity to tap into those resources because they are free. Another option as well is I mentioned employee assistance.
Tamara (19:44):
So employee assistance is typically connected with your job and so it is free. It’s brief and it’s solution focused. So there’s confidentiality there. But you can, if, if you’re still employed can contact your HR department to confirm what EAP company they are contracted with and you can get connected with the provider that way for free. But just things like if you’re not interested in, you know, going that route, things that, that can be done, some simple tips is just grounding. There’s a lot of different grounding things that can be done just as simple as kind of making sure that your feet are planted on the ground. And just sitting in a comfortable seat, a seat with your back against the the back of the chair, taking in deep breasts. And again, there’s a lot of different ways to, to, to do that.
Tamara (20:44):
But one would be kind of taking a deep breath on a four count, holding it for a six or eight count and then breathing out on a four count. And that just kinda helps to just settle your body. The truth of the matter, any grounding activity that you do, it does not change the circumstance around you. However, it helps you kind of get to a place where you can take inventory of what’s going on and decide this feeling that I’m feeling right now because of this. Like, do you want to have any control over this? Can I do anything about it? When you’re in the midst of anxiety, it’s hard to make those decisions. So, you know, little little tips like that can kind of help snap you out of it real quick and give you a moment to just take inventory. Just look and see.
Tamara (21:33):
Well, can I do anything about this? Is this important for me to deal with right now or is it something that I can sit on the back burner and maybe address at a later time when I’m in a different head space? Some tools that I use with clients a lot is either something as simple as drinking cold water. Maybe, you know, even putting them, I seen it or whatever to make it even colder. It’s almost kind of like a shock to your body. So you know, you’re just kind of going, going, going and things are different now because typically are going, going, going is we are like physically doing a lot of moving around where right now we’re in our homes but our minds are still going, going, going is don’t, the physical movement is accompanying it, which is not the case anymore right now.
Tamara (22:21):
So that shock to your body can be done by this drinking a cool glass of water or actually getting a cube of ice and maybe putting that on the tip of your nose. I mean, if you’ve ever tried that immediately, whatever else you were focused on, you’re not focused on that anymore because you’re, the tip of your nose is cold. So it helps to kind of redirect and distract you from whatever the noise is going on. I am a firm believer in finding a vehicle to ventilate whatever is going on within you. So for some that may be journaling, for others that may be listening to music, for others that may be dance. I think anything that helps to tap into some creative part of you or words is really helpful. Drawing can be, you know very helpful as well. But, you know, we walk around anyway with just a lot of stuff going on inside of us and it’s not like we have the time to give someone a verbal dissertation about everything that has happened to us during the day, most days because we got stuff that we gotta do.
Tamara (23:30):
But, but being able to set aside anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes a day to allow yourself to just kind of tap into what’s going on. I call it checking in with your parts. So checking in with how am I doing physically? Did I, you know, get up and take a shower? Did I brush my teeth? Did I brush my hair? Did I feed my, my, my, my vessel today? Did I do that? Spiritually, whatever that looks like for you, whatever. You know, that may be prayer, that may be meditation, but setting aside time for this, so just kind of running through that list of your parts, the spiritual, the emotional, the physical, all those different pieces. And then just doing a really quick check in with just asking yourself, did I take care of this piece today? Tool that can be found online is called the self care wheel.
Tamara (24:26):
I love the self care wheel because sometimes what many times in my word I will ask a client like, what do you do to take care of yourself? And I used to be shocked that people didn’t really have an answer to that. So I have adopted this as just like a commonplace tool and my practice, it actually came out of doing work with vicarious trauma, but it is, it simply, it’s a wheel and it’s divided up into the parts in each section of the wheel, which is like a wedge. It has a list of all different types of things that you can do to take care of that particular part of you. And they’re simple things. It’s like the things that I, I was naming there, but those are just a few, you know, things. There are different apps. There’s a calm out that I lied.
Tamara (25:19):
There’s yoga apps, ton of resources out there that are free. The last thing we need to be worried about right now is adding on additional expenses. So just getting on that app store and typing in free meditation app, free yoga app, finding different things like that. So just if, if minimally you can dedicate 10 to 15 minutes a day. So checking in, do something for yourself during that day when you are refueling and not having to give away. Then I think your hand in the right direction. And then the next step after that is figuring out what, how do you develop consistent consistency in that? Because that 15 minutes may not be enough to get you through the day. You may have to do that 15 minutes, you know, three or four times a day, which adds up to, you know, 45 minutes to an hour. But that’s okay. You’ll figure that out. But you have to start somewhere.
Katie (26:11):
Yeah, I really liked that. And I’ll link to all those things that you mentioned in the show notes so people can check them out. And at the beginning of our conversation you talked about a lot of the things that you are doing as a leader within your practice to kind of manage what’s going on right now. And I’ve been thinking a lot about leadership, whether that is as a business owner or I’m in a community or with your family, you know, and I’ve been thinking about how we can be better leaders during this time of crisis and stress and uncertainty. So do you have any insights on that, on how people can become a better leader and come out of this stronger?
Tamara (26:45):
Absolutely. I think and I mean this is interesting because this is definitely been on my mind as well, is modeling behavior. You know, I think that’s just a and obvious that, that as a leader people are looking to you as to what to do and what not to do. And so I think modeling good behavior in terms of self care is a great start. I hear and I read and I see different, you know, news stories about how you know, employees are being treated right now during this time. And this is frustrating. But I also understand that there’s hard decisions that have to be made. But I think in terms of being a leader, you have to understand that you as a leader, you’re not just kind of supervising or managing people. You are also helping to grow, helping to cultivate leadership in other people as well.
Tamara (27:47):
You know what I mean? I mean, the truth of the matter is I love what I do, but it is not my goal to be doing this forever. I want to have someone many people in my practice that I can teach them how to do this. And so part of that is one being willing to share certain information. I think it’s really important right now where I can delegate, where maybe I would not have done that if I were in the office because I have all my things in the office, right? So I can take care of multiple things. Well, right now I’m splitting between getting to my office when I can and, and working out of my office at home, you know, when my office at home was not really set up for this, it was set up to take care of my home stuff.
Tamara (28:33):
So it’s important. To checking in with your people. And of course I have a smaller practice. I’ll say I don’t have like 50, you know, employees or contractors that I have to check in with. So that may maybe easier for me, but even identifying certain people within your organization that you can kind of check in with them and modeling how to do that, how to do the check in with them so that they can check in with other people as well. And hopefully that will trickle down. The bottom line is people are looking at the top and whatever you do at the top is going to triple down. So if my contractors, my employees don’t see me taking care of myself and sharing that information with them, this is a great opportunity for transparency. Well, so I think that really models great leadership which has always been very important to me.
Tamara (29:30):
There’s something about knowing that the place in the people that I work with, that they’re really interested in me so much so that they want me to have certain information, what’s going on with the business now. Not every single thing, but things that they know are going to be of concern to me. So I share that, that type of information with my other leaders I’ll say and my organization about, you know, how do things change financially? I’m not talking about actual numbers, but I am sharing with them. Okay, so now this is an opportunity for us to look at our billing practices. Maybe we need to, you know, figure out, do we need to utilize this particular code more so over another, you know, code that we would use if we were in the office and how much, maybe additional income would that create for us during this time?
Tamara (30:24):
And how does it help to sustain the business? I mean, my people that I worked with, they, they shared with me, they appreciate me being transparent with them because they know at the end of the day, they were not concerned about the stability of the company because they trusted me and things that I’ll share with them before. So I think that’s a really important thing to keep in mind as much as you can, being transparent and modeling a good behavior in terms of how you’re taking care of yourself and encourage that in them so that they can encourage their people that they are managing or supervising as well. So I think those are some, some key things when you’re looking at leadership right now.
Katie (31:12):
Yeah, I think that’s fair. Like I couldn’t agree more. And you know, one thing that I’ve also been thinking about a lot is, you know, the people who are maybe struggling with mental health, struggling with anxiety, stress, depression and they’re, they’re at home and they don’t really have access to the resources that they usually would. Can you kind of explain a little bit about what telehealth is when it comes to, to mental health and if people are interested, how they could possibly get connected and maybe you know, if they’re nervous about it, ways you know, you know, explaining kind of how it works so they can reduce some of that anxiety about trying it.
Tamara (31:46):
Absolutely. So I’ll, I’ll say this and start off that therapy in itself is not jail. Okay. And therapy with a particular provider does not restrict you to only seeing them, meaning that you can go see a provider, right. And, you know, have that first session and then decide, you know, this is not a good fit. Typically it is during that first session that you as a consumer need to ask the questions there are kind of burning for you in terms of what type of services they provide, sharing what your concerns are and asking, well, how will you be able to assist me? There’s your opportunity to do an interview of sorts. I also encourage provider consumers to be more to be more savvy. There are tools that websites and things that you can get on to actually research a particular provider.
Tamara (32:47):
So you may, you know, want to get, learn and go to like to a psychology today or a therapy tribe or you know, several different sources like that to see who’s in your area, go to their website, chicken out and see what do they have on that website and does it really resonate with who you are and what you’re looking for. So I do advise people to do that research upfront there. And that’s not abnormal for you know, clients to come in the office even transitioning to this and saying, you know, I’m not all that comfortable with this. I think that’s just the stigma that proceeds mental health anyway. If therapists or something, then something is wrong with you, you know, but it’s, it’s, it’s a part of us. Our mental health is a part of us. And so it, it deserves the attention just like your physical health does.
Tamara (33:41):
So I think asking questions, asking as many questions as you can about who they are, what services they provide, do they accept your insurance? If not, what is your out pocket out of pocket expenses. Some will, you know, suggest that you call the insurance yourself. I for one recognize that just with my own frustration as a, as a consumer and as a provider of trying to navigate insurance of how frustrating it can be. So that is something if I have the opportunity to, you know, verify benefits, in fact, it’s issues a crucial part of my business because I would not want someone to start the process and then later we realize that, Oh, your insurance is not covering this. And then that’s an out of pocket expense for them that they probably were not anticipating. So I think doing as much research upfront as possible is really important.
Tamara (34:42):
And I keep honing in on employee assistance because the EAP services are under utilized. A lot of research is showing maybe about 2% of employees utilize this benefit. And so can you imagine these companies are paying for this EAP? And I think, you know, it just comes with the benefit package, but for one they’re not really promoting it as much. The client or the employee may feel like, well I don’t want to use that because they’re, my employee is going to know that I saw somebody, the EIP companies are their only affiliation with a job is that that particular organization pays them. They do not share any information with them about, you know, you go in or why or what. Now there is a particular part to it that’s a mandatory referral, but that would be like you’re having problems on the job and you’re probably at risk for losing your job.
Tamara (35:44):
So your employee is trying to give you an opportunity to get some help so that, that does not happen. But in most cases when you are seeking out those services on your own, that is a great way for you to, I would say kind of test drive different therapists. Now I’m not encouraging therapy hopping because I think then you kind of get into, well, you know, I don’t like what they look like or I don’t like what they had or I don’t like what they said. Maybe they, you, maybe you were confronted with some things that you needed to be confronted with and it just didn’t feel good. And you’re looking for somebody that’s going to work with you in a way that really appeases you in terms of it just satisfies your need or justifies your behavior. And that’s not really what therapy is about.
Tamara (36:34):
Therapy is about improvement. What you’ve been doing is not working in or you just need to add more tools to your toolbox. And so that’s what we do. We’re not advice givers. And we, we do have training in and theoretical framework works that guide the the work that we do with clients. So if there’s an opportunity to use a particular service like that, like an EAP do. So there are many programs out there given our is a program that honestly I’m going to fill it with given hour. And I when I initially signed up for it, I did so because it has a particular portion of services is dedicated to service men and women to veterans and families. And my dad is a veteran, an army vet. And so I have a special place in my heart for serving military service men and women.
Tamara (37:34):
And so that’s the reason why I signed up for it while I was doing some research not that long ago and realize that they serve the community at large. And so that’s a website that a potential consumer could go to and find out information about how to get connected with providers. There is, and I don’t have to look in here actually to give you the names so that you can add this and, but there is recently because of the coronavirus there’s a group that has been started Carl coronavirus therapist or coronavirus tribe or something and those practitioners have and this is all over the, all over the United States have agreed to provide pro bono services to provide services that costs no more than 25 or $50 and at least four sessions a piece. So you can essentially find a provider that will see you for free or up to $50 for at least four sessions.
Tamara (38:37):
And I think that it is a wonderful resource. I’ll get the the exact name for you, but I’ll say start with that. Do your research, like typing and free mental health services. There is mental health America. That would be a great place to start. Not only is there just a lot of information there, if you’re kind of questioning you know, am I depressed or is this, you know, just some type of trauma reaction or I don’t know what this is, but I just don’t feel right. You know, that would be a great place to go to find some information. That may help you guide you in the right direction as well. And of course, if, you know, someone is at a, at a place where they are really stressed out and there’s some concerns about, you know, harming themselves or someone else, there are resources like the a suicide hotline, which is a one 800 number.
Tamara (39:36):
Of course you would always advise a person in that situation to go to their nearest hospital. I know here locally, and I imagine, you know, just across the world that a lot of hospitals have set up systems where a a potential consumer would call in with whatever their concerns are because of course you can’t just walk into the hospital now. So there are some limitations to that, but there are resources hotlines that the hospitals have set up. And they’re still, you know, the, the mental health facilities outside of the hospitals that are seem up and running. They, we are essential. It’s just that, you know, some of us like myself I am I’ll say in this situation, I am lucky enough right now to have the opportunity to be able to work from home and preparing myself for a time and I get back into the office because I’m, I’m anticipating that the phone lout of all of this is just going to be tremendous from an emotional and our mental health standpoint. So a lot of free resources out there. People can research or of course go to some of the websites and apps that are,
Katie (40:50):
Yes, absolutely. And I’ll link to all of those because that’s so valuable and I want to make it as easy as possible for people to find those. So thank you so much for sharing that. And you know, I’d love if you could share how people can connect with you online and your website and social media and all that.
Tamara (41:06):
Oh, for sure. So the name of my practice is renewal life counseling and again we’re located in Greenville, South Carolina. The website is the same namesake is www.renewallifecounseling.com. There’s a lot of great information on there. I have a blog section, a section on there that I’m, some folks may find interesting and helpful. Just some really great tips about just how to, how to deal with life stresses. That’s what we’re talking about. Managing stress. We are on Facebook. Again, same namesake is renewal our counseling. You can just type any M on Instagram. It is at renewal underscore our LLC. So at renewal, R E N E w a L life L I F E underscore R, L C and I personally can be found on like LinkedIn. You can just type in my name to mayor Houston. I’m a licensed independent clinical social worker. So I can be found there. But those are social media platforms and website and yeah, so I’m like [inaudible]. That’s it.
Katie (42:21):
Fantastic. Well, Tamara, thank you so much for coming on the show today and sharing about your story and all the, all the, you know, helpful insights. I really appreciate it.
Tamara (42:30):
Absolutely. Absolutely. This has been wonderful talking to you and just being able to share during this time. There’s a lot going on, but I, I encourage you know, your, your viewers to really take an opportunity to take a pause if, if you have not already to just take a pause, check your wounds, if you’re wounded, see what’s going on with you first. Then check in with your people that are in your home and then figure out from there what if anything you have left to give. This is a really great time for us to take inventory of just what’s going on with us personally and how we may need to reevaluate some things, start some new things up. But I will, that can be good stuff. And in the end, it’s just being able to take advantage of this time we have in quarantine to really just tap into us and make sure that we are doing okay because this too shall pass.
Get In Touch:
Resource List:
National Suicide Prevention Hotline (1-800-273-8255)
Employee Assistance Plans (FREE, brief-solutions focused assessment offered through employer; this service is confidential)
