Saint Louis Counseling will move to new location, but its mission to provide individual counseling and other programs remains the same
Catholic Charities ministry Saint Louis Counseling is relocating its Fenton office to a new home in south St. Louis County.
While the address is changing, the mission to provide compassionate, professional mental health services remains the same, chief program officer Christopher Seigel said.
“Our mission is the mission of all the ministries — to bring the healing, help and hope of Jesus Christ to those in need with a compassionate and caring presence,” he said.
The ministry’s overall footprint spans across several parts of the Archdiocese of St. Louis. Saint Louis Counseling operates in five counties and at five additional locations — Union, Herculaneum, St. Charles and two smaller locations in Troy — along with virtual services.
The Troy office is embedded in a program serving homeless minors, and another site is housed at Bridge of Hope in Lincoln County, which Christopher said reflects a mission to partner with other organizations to reach people where they are.
Full range of counseling services
Saint Louis Counseling offers individual counseling for children as young as 4 through older adults, as well as couples and family therapy. It also serves clients through Catholic Charities ministry Cardinal Ritter Senior Services, including plans for virtual counseling in HUD housing units managed by CRSS.
Counselors and therapists address most mental health concerns in-house and offer referrals for specific needs such as eating disorders or for clients who experience psychosis and need a higher level of care. In those cases, Saint Louis Counseling often continues to support the emotional side of those clients’ needs. Adolescent and adult psychiatry through a psychiatric nurse practitioner also is offered virtually.
Formation efforts — including quarterly clinician gatherings with a spiritual formation talk and monthly coffee formation gatherings for staff — aim to keep Catholic Charities’ mission at the center of their work, Christopher said.
“It’s a place where we reflect on what it means to be a Catholic organization, how the faith informs our work,” he said. “And it’s for folks that work for us who aren’t familiar (with the Catholic faith) to come and ask questions.”
School Partnership Program
Julia Pickup, with Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, presented to clinicians during a School Partnership Program training on Aug. 5 at the Saint Louis Counseling office in Fenton.
Its largest program is the School Partnership Program, which embeds licensed clinicians in about 100 schools across the area. More than 60 percent of those are Catholic schools.
Clinicians provide services anywhere from one to five days a week during the school year. Services in the schools are supported by grants, with some schools privately paying for additional days if more coverage is needed. Therapists are licensed or provisionally licensed social workers and professional counselors who become part of the school community.
“We encourage them to become part of the school community,” Christopher said. “Every building is different — they all have different personalities.”
Clinicians spend most of their time in individual sessions with students, respond to crises as needed and provide classroom presentations on different topics. Christopher said the concerns often reflect what’s happening in the broader culture: rising anxiety, depression, social isolation and self-harm.
They also address with students the impact of social media, artificial intelligence and the effects of disruptions from the COVID pandemic, especially with the development of social skills, Christopher said.
Crisis response and EAP
Beyond schools and individual counseling services, Saint Louis Counseling helps when a community is in crisis. The agency sends therapists to respond after sudden deaths, incidents of violence or large-scale disasters — whether at Catholic Charities ministries, parishes, schools or other community settings.
“We also do crisis response for any other Catholic Charities ministry or anyone anywhere in the community as a whole,” Christopher said, noting a recent response to recovery efforts following the tornado in St. Louis last year.
The agency also serves as the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) provider for the archdiocese and has additional EAP contracts with individual Catholic schools.
Introduction of Mira
This fall, Saint Louis Counseling will debut a new artificial intelligence platform called Mira, which will assist callers and online visitors complete intake, schedule appointments and fill out assessments. Mira-powered kiosks are planned for office waiting rooms.
Christopher noted that Saint Louis Counseling is building in specific escalation pathways for callers who present with suicidal or homicidal thoughts, and clients will always have the option to reach a human being.
The effort “is simply to reduce the administrative burden on coworkers — it is not to take them out of that process,” he said. “They can’t be taken out of that process. We’re in the helping field.”
Mission as helpers
Under shared leadership with Catholic Charities ministry Queen of Peace Center, Saint Louis Counseling sees itself as one part of a unified Catholic Charities mission.
That call extends to anyone in the helping professions, he said. “If you’re a helper and you can’t get behind that mission,” he said, “you probably need to talk about a career change.”
Saint Louis Counseling
To learn more about Catholic Charities ministry Saint Louis Counseling, including locations and how to schedule an appointment, visit saintlouiscounseling.org.
Saint Louis Counseling will be moving to a new location at 12200 Weber Hill Road, Suite 205, in south St. Louis County. Anticipated move-in is December.
To learn more about Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, visit ccstl.org.
