Today we’d like to introduce you to Britni Kelley.
Hi Britni, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My undergrad is in Youth and Family Studies – I had intended to go into youth work through the church. I quickly realized I wanted to know people on a deeper, more one on one level and help promote healing. This led my to follow the footsteps of one of my beloved professors, Professor Talley from UNW-St Paul. Pursuing a masters in Marriage and Family Therapy at Bethel Seminary brought together my desire to know people intentionally, promote change, and have the opportunity to support holistic integration – including spiritual integration. I gained a masters in Marriage and Family therapy from Bethel Seminary in 2014 and started my outpatient career in a large outpatient clinic treating clients with severe and persistent mental health, including diagnosis’ of borderline personality disorder, persistent major depression, and bipolar disorder. I was trained in Dialectical Behavior Therapy by the agency and at one point or another in the first 2 years of work as a pre-licensed provider I was running numerous DBT groups, helping with maternity leave care for my teammates, and drowning in the despair of my clients. I quickly found my way to burnout. I was working 30+ hours of client care with a challenging population – challenging is an understatement! The trauma treatment piece was missing for me- I was encouraged to learn about prolonged exposure therapy and quickly learned this was a brutal, often re-traumatizing way for a person to move through their trauma. It was not the fit for the population I was given to care for. Soon after that I was given the opportunity to train in EMDR and took it readily – I had been helped by EMDR myself and was eager to find a model of therapy that really truly helped people grow up- move out of their childhood dysfunction and traumatic experiences and live lives that were more satisfying. So through burnout and misalignment working for a large agency that seemed to have different priorities – growth over true care and commitment to the community, I needed to move on. This led me to a conversation with a grad school professor, colleague and now friend, Jane McCampbell-Stuart. She had run this successful, satisfying private practice focusing on trauma healing. She was such an insipration and generously offered me the chance to rent a spot from her office suite in st paul. I switched to private practice in 2018 and haven’t looked back. It has been the best move of my life. I was finally able to build a caseload I love, work fewer hours, make more $$ and go deeper in my EMDR practice. In 2021 I had the opportunity to take over the office suite (Jane moved to Canada to live on an island and do virtual work!). I then started a group practice called Sage Leaf Wellness, specializing in EMDR trauma treatment for the community. Since then we have moved a block away into a larger space with a handful more providers – still maintaining the vision of specialty care for trauma treatment. I have since shifted my own personal niche to serve First Responders and military service members/retirees. I have found through this journey that many therapists come into the work because they themselves need to do a deep dive and honor their own story – the trauma of their own past. This has led me in my own healing, promoting my staff to dig deep and do their own self of the therapist work, and honor our community with effective, evidence based treatment – EMDR. We have adjunct providers as well who help us with clients who struggle with relationships, marriage, addiction issues, etc. It’s been a really humbling process building a team, learning to lead, and also continue to enjoy the work in a meaningful way myself.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Wow, I wish! It’s bee full of challenges-
1. personal: doing this work has led me to fall on my face, burnout and get my ass into therapy. I have had to face my own upbringing and the impact of the stress in my young years. Facing PTSD myself and recovering with EMDR, my faith community, and staying intentional with older, wiser mentors has been the difference.
2. building a stable team has been tough. St Paul-Minneapolis, Minnesota has been through a lot- many political divisions in our city, pandemic, riots, ICE, etc. Therapists go through it all too and it has been a tough time to raise up healthy, steady providers while they are going through the same stuff as their clientele.
3. creating a stable compensation package- we are in a good place now but it has taken these last 5 years to build and revamp and ask our team what they want, stay steady with the market, etc.
4. leading people is hard. its a lonely place in leadership. I have had to find other leaders to talk to, people who are in it and who have been through it to stay steady. My spouse is my business partner and it’s been the greatest blessing. We have also hired on more management to help support and make sure the team is being heard.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Sage Leaf Wellness?
We are a boutique mental health practice serving st paul, minneapolis and greater minnesota + wisconsin (virtual). We specialize in treating trauma – childhood trauma, incident trauma (car accidents, natural disasters, etc), first responder trauma, veteran trauma, relational trauma, etc. The majority of our providers are EMDR trained and skilled to help just about anyone. We have a substance use counselor, marriage and family therapists, adolescent therapists, and adult therapists. We are right in the city and we are known for treating trauma, being personable, creating a beautiful and real space to come and get better. I am most proud of the committment to our clients and treating trauma. Trauma is missed or inproperly treated in many other settings. We don’t miss it. Relationships and the power of healing within relationship is also not missed in our group. The team is truly wonderful – kind, empathetic, and skilled. We offer individual and couples therapy for ages 13+. We offer groups from time to time – Therapeutic Dungeons and Dragons group and First Responder Trauma Recovery.
What are your plans for the future?
We are planning to continue to fill out our new office space- we have 14 offices and 10 are filled. We have room for more providers with various expertise to round out our team. Working with trauma is essential and we will continue to do so. I am looking forward to seeing our group gain deeper roots in the community and be known for a place to truly heal- move on from the trauma and live more satisfying lives.
Pricing:
- we accept most major insurances
- private pay rates are between $125-160
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sageleafwellness.com
- Other: hello@sageleafwellness.com
