Michele Harmon

I have worked with people, especially children and youth, throughout my adult life. I felt strongly that I needed to be a stay-at-home mom and raise my family.  I raised six children and along the way I taught piano and provided a listening ear to hundreds of children for over thirty years. I volunteered in the local schools and served at local food banks, and I provided daycare for friends and neighbors. I gained insight and invaluable life experiences.

I have always known that I wanted to work with the youth and that I love people. I knew that counseling held a special place in my heart and when my turn finally came and I was able to return to school, I was naturally drawn to social work. Through the path of my schooling, my husband and I became foster parents for two years. We have had 18 children in our home over the course of two and a half years. These children taught me about trauma, attachment, depression, anxiety, and other mental illness challenges in personal ways that you can’t learn from a book.

My love of children led me to school counseling for the first two years of my career. I worked in the Counseling Office at both the Middle School and High School levels where I was able to establish and facilitate mental health groups for students, offer counselling services, teach life skills, provide mental health crisis intervention, and help students cope with anxiety, depression, and other mental health needs. I learned a lot and gained more experience working with children, but I felt I was limited in my scope and ability to help in the school setting, so I made the move to private counseling.

I am currently working on trauma certification and plan to continue to focus my practice with children and teens. I also enjoy working with adults and find that my age and my life experience lend valuable insight into the challenges people face at all stages of life.