Counseling
Counseling is at the core of what we do at The Center KSQ. The inception of the design of our integrated-wellness community was founded on the insight and vision of our original counseling team. Counseling is such a vital and important tool. It centers around not what is wrong with you, but about what has happened. This is a paradigm shift in the clinical world and a cornerstone to who we are and how we practice as a team at The Center KSQ.
Winden S. Rowe
DIRECTOR, MS, NCC, LPC
Winden Rowe is the Director of The Center for Change at Kennett Square where she works with individuals, couples, families, and organizations. Her education, clinical experience, and passionate interest center around the study of and work in the field of stress and trauma. Ms. Rowe’s approach to securing sustained improvement and recovery for clients dealing with the effects of stress and trauma centers around linking the biological, psychological, and social implications of traumatic stress and the identified challenge. In addition to counseling, Winden lectures, teaches, and consults in the field. Her newest venture in partnering with mediation experts is an exciting adventure for her. She is excited to work with families in the community to help reduce the impact of traumatic stress that tends to come along with family transitional change.
Ms. Rowe has been a guest on a variety of media broadcasts including National Public Radio ‘Morning Edition’, ‘Radio Times’ and lectures at Jefferson University in the Community and Trauma Counseling Graduate Program. She is a member of HEAL PA, a trauma informed approach to addressing social and political change in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and a community advisory board member at the University of Pennsylvania on the topic of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), and suicide prevention in military service persons. She is incredibly passionate about her work and is also a prolific writer on trauma, healing, and resilience.
Areas of Expertise: Trauma, Stress, Addiction, Codependency, Eating Disorder, Divorce, LGBTQ, Women’s issues, Parenting, Veterans
To reach Winden please Contact Amanda, our administrative director, thank you!
Beth Wolske
LCSW, MSW
Christine Jones
CLINICAL MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELOR, MS
Christine Jones is a Pre-licensed Master’s level Clinical Counselor. She uses her nurturing energy and empathetic mindset to put her clients at ease in an effort to fully connect and allow them to feel heard and safe. She believes trust and comfort are the foundations of a productive therapeutic relationship. She understands the challenges people face throughout their lives and addresses issues using a combination of a Person-Centered approach and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques. She also often uses humor, creativity, and mindfulness to help clients design step by step strategies to keep them from feeling overwhelmed.
Christine’s goal is to help clients take control of their own lives and set goals based on their own unique vision of contentment. Christine works with all age groups but has more extensive experience with late adolescents and young adults addressing issues such as anxiety, depression, trauma, grief, addictions, and other mental health issues. As a parent, she identifies with the system based struggles families face as children grow, change, mature, and ultimately launch.
Christine is the founder of Care Forward Counseling Services and together with The Center For Change she hopes to offer holistic healthful solutions to mental health issues. She is Ally Trained in LGBTQA issues as well as Cultural Diversity and is familiar with cross-generational and cross-cultural communication struggles. Her goal is to consider all aspects of her clients’ lives, to listen intently, and help them restructure ideas and self-imposed limits. Christine feels strongly that with support and compassion clients will find an ally in her and their partnership can ease growing pains and help clients adjust to changes with grace thus gently guiding them forward with care.
Areas of Expertise: Trauma, Anxiety, Depression, PTSD, Grief, Illness, Addiction, Eating Disorders, Family System Issues, LGBTQ Related Advocacy, Late Adolescent and Young Adult Adjustment and Maturity issues, Self Esteem Challenges.
Christine is a pre-licensed counselor under supervision accruing post-grad hours.
Diana Damon
CLINICAL MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELOR, MS, NCC
Diana is a Master’s level Clinical Mental Health Counselor who creates a warm, supportive, and non-judgmental environment where adults, adolescents, young adults, couples, and families feel comfortable exploring the uncomfortable. She utilizes a collaborative approach, emphasizing that each client is an expert on themselves. She believes that a strong, trusting therapeutic alliance is the foundation to a rewarding experience in therapy. This collaboration helps to build self-esteem, unpack trauma, work towards goals, and overcome internal barriers.
Diana supports each client in developing a realistic and sustainable treatment plan to support them through various life transitions and individual mental health struggles. She applies elements of various therapeutic modalities in order to fit the specific needs of each client including CBT, DBT, psychodynamic psychotherapy, motivational interviewing, mindfulness, and body-based techniques.
“I am very grateful for the privilege of hearing clients’ stories and helping them to heal, make changes, and feel better about themselves and their future.”
Areas of expertise: Depression, Loneliness, Stress, Anxiety, Rumination, Career Challenges, Anger, Life Transitions, Recovery / Relapse Prevention, Relationships, Family Issues.
Diana is a pre-licensed counselor under supervision accruing post-grad hours.
Eric Shapiro
CLINICAL MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELOR, MS
Eric is a mental health therapist who recently moved to the area from Philadelphia. Eric’s approach and philosophy are grounded in creative interventions through a supportive and trauma focused lens. A writer, father, and graduate of Thomas Jefferson University’s Trauma Counseling program, Eric uses a combination of cognitive behavioral, existential, and narrative techniques to help clients tell their story and work through both past and present struggles to lead a more fulfilling life.
“Maybe you’re coping with the grind of daily living, or something deeper that was never properly addressed. Our minds have a funny way of trying to reconcile the past by taking a toll on the present. And by building awareness to past experiences we can create a stronger bridge to the present, connecting what you have endured to what you might be struggling with today.”
Eric models his existential work after Viktor Frankl, psychologist and author of “Man’s Search for Meaning.” Eric strongly believes in a non-judgmental person-centered approach, one where the counseling relationship is built with absolute trust.
“My background and specialization in trauma treatment means you never have to worry about whether something you want to discuss is ‘too much.’ We can’t be expected to walk on egg shells or tip toe around the more difficult aspects of our lives. How else can we ever switch from merely surviving, to thriving? I think we all deserve that. Everyone has to start somewhere.”
Areas of Expertise: Depression, Anxiety, Trauma, Creative Professionals, Adults, Adolescents, Life Changes, Career Counseling, Family Conflict, Couples, Stress Management, Existential Crises. Certified in Prolonged Exposure Therapy for PTSD.
Eric is a pre-licensed counselor under supervision accruing post-grad hours.
Jason R. Saltarelli
CLINICAL MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELOR, MS
Jason’s passion is empowering clients to accomplish their goals in an optimal and mindful manner. He works with all ages but specializes in adolescents, young adults, and executives who experience stress, maladaptive coping, and mental health concerns. Jason combines his creativity with his humble yet expansive degree of life experience. As a counselor, Jason is dedicated to holistic health with mindfulness as a core value.
Jason’s professional identity is rooted in humanism with an Eclectic mix of Acceptance & Commitment therapeutic techniques, a Mindfulness-Based CBT orientation, with existential traditions. He believes self-compassion and connection are the keys to change. As a past executive and parent, Jason has seen the impact of systematic hardships and believes sustainable change may be found through vulnerability and communication.
“Your path to recovery, independence, and a higher quality of life may feel distant, but you need not travel alone.”
“My passion is empowering people to accomplish their goals in a mindful and compassionate manner. Together we’ll take steps to Reconnect, Recenter & Restore your wellness.”
Areas of Expertise: Anxiety, Addiction, Depression, Divorce/Blending Families, Career Counseling, Excessive Stress, Parenting, Substance Abuse, Identity/Personality Struggles, Youth Development (ie ADD), and additional mental health concerns.
Jason is a pre-licensed counselor under supervision accruing post-grad hours.
Jenna Loz
CLINICAL MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELOR, MS
Jenna Loz is a pre-licensed master’s level mental health clinician who graduated from Thomas Jefferson University’s Community & Trauma Counseling Program. She started as a counselor interning under the Center KSQ’s very own director Winden Rowe at the beginning of 2022.
With Jenna – you are at the center of your own treatment. She is interested in getting to know you as you are. She believes the therapeutic process relies upon a genuine, trusting relationship between therapist and client. Jenna works from a trauma-informed, eclectic approach focusing on how what we experience in our lives influences our relationship with our bodies and minds. Everything we do is a way of surviving in the world, Jenna wants to work with you to understand how your unique approach to life developed and how understanding it could improve your ability to be kind to yourself. Jenna is particularly interested in trauma and identity-related work.
Jenna has worked in the mental health field in a wide variety of roles including direct care in inpatient psychiatric services, emergency room psychiatric evaluation, and Philadelphia’s mobile crisis team – a new role developed with the 988 number to decrease police violence and increase the presence of trauma-informed mental health care during crisis response scenarios. She has also held several roles in diversity, accessibility, and equity over the last 8 years including community engagement initiatives for the Philadelphia Museum of Art and developing a pilot sensory room for Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom in Allentown, PA.
Jenna loves working with adolescents. During her masters program, she worked with teenagers at the Crefeld School in Chestnut Hill, PA where she developed school-based counseling assessments and influenced social-emotional learning curriculum.
Areas of Expertise: Trauma, Stress, LGBTQ+, Gender Identity, Caregivers, Healthcare/Frontline Workers, Adolescents, Sexual Abuse, Anxiety, Depression, OCD
John R. Hill
MARRIAGE & FAMILY THERAPIST ,M.DIV., MFT
John specializes in Couples and Family Therapy. He also works with a variety of people having many other different treatment goals. He utilizes an eclectic approach that begins with analysis of his clientele in the context of where they see themselves at the time the therapy begins. He focuses on the family and the individuals as part of a larger system and treatment is prescribed according to needs.
John seeks to assist people in making the changes they would like to make to strengthen and improve how they view themselves and function within the family or other relationships, helping to guide them to a happier healthier life.
“I am unique as a therapist because of the many life experiences I have had. These have included extensive education and many different cultural influences. I have lived in rural, suburban, and urban communities. Professionally I have worked as a laborer, business professional, clergy person, and therapist. I have been a husband and a father.
“Over the years I integrated my education and these many experiences to become the person and therapist I am today. These qualities and others help me to relate to a wide range of individuals and the many different circumstances they bring to me.”
Areas of Expertise: Affairs and Infidelity, Anger Management, Divorce, Grief, Loss and Bereavement, LGBTQ, Life Transitions, Men’s Issues, Parenting, PTSD, Relationship Issues, Veterans, Active Military and Their Families.
John is a pre-licensed counselor under supervision accruing post-grad hours.
Julie Smith
CLINICAL MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELOR, MS
Julie is a master’s level clinician who recently graduated from Thomas Jefferson University’s Community and Trauma Counseling Program. Julie uses a trauma-informed approach when working with clients and families to better the whole picture of what is happening with the client. Julie is passionate about helping the client feel encouraged and supported throughout the therapeutic process. She utilizes many different approaches when in therapy because one size does not fit all, and the same goes for those in therapy. With this, Julie is able to work with the client to listen to the client’s needs which in turn allows client to practice autonomy. Julie believes that the therapeutic relationship is one of the most critical parts of counseling and strives to connect with all her clients.
Julie works with all ages but has the most experience with adult and adolescent clients during her internship, addressing issues such as trauma, anxiety, depression, grief, and other mental health issues that are commonly experienced. Julie’s goal in therapy is to help her clients recognize the supports and strengths that they can utilize during the healing process while also working with the client to promote new knowledge of coping skills and techniques.
As a therapist, Julie understands the importance of working alongside multiple levels of support with the client to ensure the best care and treatment planning. Though trauma work and therapy can seem daunting to individuals, Julie works to make each session a comfortable, safe place where the individual can thrive and feel welcomed.
Areas of expertise: Trauma, Anxiety, Depression, Stress Management, Grief, and Attachment issues.
Kasey Mingione
LPC, M.Ed
Kia Medley-Stephens
LICENSED PROFESSIONAL COUNSELOR, MS, NCC, LPC
Kia Medley-Stephens is a masters-level psychotherapist, behavior therapist, and PA and DE-licensed professional counselor specializing in treating children, adolescents, and adults across the lifespan. She earned a Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Walden University in 2015 and became a nationally certified counselor with the National Board-Certified Counselors. An avid learner, Kia takes continuing education courses to ensure the delivery of evidence-based practices to individuals served.
For more than 25 years, Kia has served the child and adolescent population in one capacity or another. She worked as a counselor to adjudicated youth residing in residential therapeutic programs. Kia counseled adults diagnosed with chronic mental health disorders and aided in their transition from hospitals to group homes to independent living in the community. Kia transitioned back to serving youth by working with children in the PA foster care system. She served as a clinical director in community behavioral, facilitated social-emotional group therapy services to the child and adolescent autistic population, and provided individual counseling services to individuals across the lifespan.
Melissa Paolercio
CLINICAL MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELOR AND ART THERAPIST, MS, MFA
Sarah Lanahan
CLINICAL MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELOR, MS
Sarah is a pre-licensed counselor under supervision accruing post-grad hours.
Sean Burns
LICENSED PROFESSIONAL COUNSELOR, LPC
Sean is a Licensed Professional Counselor, with a Master of Science in Clinical Psychology. Sean has experience working as a TSS, working in the school, home, and community with families and their children that had externalized behaviors. Sean completed his master’s level internship in a community mental health setting facilitating groups for substance use. Sean has spent the last four years working in an urban school district as a School-Based Therapist. During his time in this role Sean worked with children from Kindergarten to Eighth grade, providing critical services that were otherwise unachievable to this population. Sean utilized creative interventions to highlight the clients’ resiliency and boost self-esteem. Sean emphasized the establishment of safety in the therapeutic environment to build a trusting relationship. Sean worked with a diverse range of caregivers including: married parents, single parents, co-parenting, adoptive parents, and grandparents. He worked with them to utilize behavioral strategies to meet the needs of their child and family. Sean addressed the parents’ own mental health concerns, providing coping strategies and encouraging support systems for their own self-care.
Sean describes his therapeutic modality as an eclectic approach. Sean uses art and play based theories to foster an understanding of the core concepts of cognitive behavioral therapies.
Areas of expertise: Children, Adolescent, Trauma, Multicultural, Externalized Behaviors, Anxiety, Depression, Self-esteem, and Familial Distress.
Aijah Hickey
COUNSELING INTERN
Heather Davidson
COUNSELING INTERN
Heather is an intern finishing her master’s degree program in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Walden University. She joins us after ending a 15-year career as a public-school teacher. This career allowed her to witness the power of the group process, something she would like to carry into her counseling career by engaging in group therapy based on community needs.
Heather is enthusiastic about the professional growth opportunities The Center KSQ offers her. She has many areas of interest but is currently focused on trauma and addiction. Heather believes that addiction is intertwined with unresolved trauma that must be healed for sustained recovery. She looks forward to training in EMDR and ketamine-assisted therapy to help clients reprocess trauma.
Through the lens of Feminist Theory and with a preference for narrative therapy, Heather hopes to empower clients to harness their agency and create the life they want, and to advocate when broken systems get in the way.
Heather’s ultimate goal is to know you. She understands that you are the only expert on your life and that you have the answers you are searching for within you. She wants to help you uncover them so that you can grow more fully into yourself.
Kayla Wilson
COUNSELING INTERN
Kayla is a master’s level student in the Clinical Mental Health Counseling program at West Chester University. As she is finishing her classes, Kayla is putting her education and experiences to practice as an intern. 10 years of working in diverse childcare settings allowed her to develop a deep understanding of the cognitive, social, and emotional development of children and the effects of environmental influences. Kayla knew she wanted to be a counselor since middle school however, working in childcare is what fueled her interest in becoming a counselor for children, adolescent, and teen populations. Through her studies, Kayla has learned about the effectiveness and benefits that early intervention services can have for child development– especially for youth who have experienced trauma.
Kayla’s previous clinical experience was in a Partial Hospitalization Program which treats adolescents and teens who experience chronic or acute mental health difficulties. While Kayla utilized a variety of CBT, ACT, and DBT techniques, she found strength-based approaches to be especially helpful for assisting clients in recognizing their resiliency, strength, and capability which overall promoted increased self-esteem and feelings of empowerment.
Kayla is so excited to be a part of a team that are advocates in the community and partner with organizations such as A Child’s Light– who provide support for children who have been victimized. Kayla’s primary goal as a counselor is to provide a safe and comfortable environment where her clients feel heard, seen, and supported in ways that will promote healing and growth. Kayla recognizes and emphasizes the importance of autonomy which is why she aims to work collaboratively with her clients to develop goals and skills that are unique to each person’s journey.
“In my free time, I love to explore and appreciate nature (especially with the company of good friends), engage my creative side through painting and crafts, and listen to my favorite songs on repeat.
Areas of interest: Trauma, LGBTQ+ concerns, anxiety, depression, self-esteem
Keith Schumacher
LIFE COACH
Linda Gross
LIFE COACH & MEDIATOR
Linda Gross is a life coach, business professional, and former global nomad. Before settling down in Kennett Square, PA in 2014, Linda spent her time living, working and studying in various countries across the globe. Her extensive international background combined with her corporate world experience, provided her the opportunity to work in populations of different contexts. This, along with her curiosity in behavior and personal growth inspired Linda to take the step into a life-long dream: working in the field of life coaching.
Her goal as a life coach is to help people deepen their connection with their inner voice – to help individuals grow their inner dialogue from a place of strength, courage and compassion. She has a keen understanding of human insights and complex emotions, and is a firm believer that growth is best achieved when using a holistic approach that involves the mind, body, and soul.
Education accomplishments include a BBA from Jonkoping University (Sweden); Leadership & Management studies at Singapore Management University and Copenhagen Business School (Denmark). She has a certificate in Positive Psychology and Emotional Resilience at the University of Pennsylvania as well as in Mediation from CORA Good Shepherd Mediation.
Linda has a strong gravity toward those looking for direction and guidance when feeling “stuck” or looking for a way to move forward. She is also interested in working with those who need direction, support and encouragement while moving through a challenging time.
