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The Counseling and Wellness Center discusses growth

Photo by Jeffrey Saulton The Counseling and Wellness Center in Parkersburg has been owned by Stephen Givens, right, since November 2015. He stands with Michael Moore, left, his co-owner of The Counseling and Wellness Center Ohio in Belpre.

PARKERSBURG — In November of 2015 a well-known mental health care facility changed hands.

Stephen A. Givens became the owner of The Counseling and Wellness Center, 936 Market St., in November 2015. Givens also is co-owner with Michael Moore of The Counseling and Wellness Center Ohio in Belpre.

Givens said the founder of The Counseling and Wellness Center, Priscilla Leavitt, Ph.D., is still working with the center.

“She still works here,” he said. “She’s still seeing clients with us.”

Givens said when he came to work at the center he was under the direct supervision of Leavitt.

“I let her know one of these days I’d like to do what she was doing,” he said. “When she decided to retire, she came to me and said ‘have you thought about wanting to take over.’

“I was completely honored by that.”

Givens said he and Moore recently bought the building in Parkersburg and are looking at purchasing the building they use in Belpre.

In 2016 Givens met with Michael Moore who had a practice in Athens.

“He was looking at expanding toward Parkersburg and I was looking to expand on both sides of the river,” he said. “Everybody was telling me ‘You need to talk with Mike Moore.'”

Finally he called Moore and suggested they join forces and be partners rather than competitors. That led to the creation of the Belpre practice.

Givens said the Belpre practice opened at 225 Main St. about a year after he purchased the Parkersburg practice.

“We opened that in September 2016,” he said. “There was a lot of building and development but in the last couple of months we’ve seen tremendous growth.”

Givens said one reason for expanding into Ohio was because some insurance companies will not cross state lines.

“Sometimes when state lines were crossed the service was out of network,” Givens said. “There was a big need coming from over there so we wanted to open our door to people who did not have the help they needed.”

Moore said people with insurance were having a hard time getting service.

“It is because some places have a mission to serve the Medicaid populations,” he said. “They are regulated by the state to provide for those services. We wanted to help those with other insurance to get help quicker.”

In addition to the expansion into Ohio, Givens said they started a non-profit organization.

“We could not just stop there,” he said. “We opened a non-profit organization called GiveMore Connections. I’m the Give and he’s the More.”

Givens said this summer GiveMore Connections will have a social skills camp for children, the first endeavor of the new group.

Givens said since The Counseling and Wellness Center changed ownership there have not been a lot of changes in the services offered.

“Both sides have grown,” he said. “In serving our population in our first year we grew 19 percent and in our second year 14 percent; for this year we are still on the trajectory of continuing on and meeting the needs of between 1,200 to 1,300 people a month on the West Virginia side.”

In Ohio, the center sees about 386 people a month and in one year they have grown 17 percent.

“We are serving a whole lot more people, both for therapeutic and medical,” he said. “Both sides have grown; we have more than 20 clinicians and medical staff.”

“One big change in the West Virginia side we have partnered with a company from Charleston for TMS,” Moore said.

Givens said that stands for transcranial magnetic stimulation.

“This is a cutting-edge treatment; it has only been around for six or seven years now,” Givens said. “It is designed for treatment-resistant depression. It is very effective using very strong electromagnets to stimulate parts of the brain.”

Moore said due to stimulation the depression is lifted.

Givens said there is a 70 percent remission rate and an 90 percent response rate. He added there are no side effects.

Givens said the TMS is offered only in the Parkersburg location.

One area they have moved into in Ohio is working with the schools for functional behavior analysis.

“We actually do the analysis by going into the schools and we monitor a child’s behavior in its natural setting,” he said.

“Once we do the observation, we determine the function of the behavior and then using it we write a behavior intervention plan that is specifically designed for that child,” Moore said. “We assist the school in implementing that plan.”

Givens, a Little Hocking native, has two bachelor’s degrees from Ohio University, in psychology and secondary education with an emphasis on history. He did his graduate work at Marshall University, earning a degree in mental health counseling with an emphasis on couples, families and marriage. He is working on his Ph.D. in psychology.

Moore, a native of Scott Depot, W.Va., got his counseling degree from Ohio University. He has been working in the Mid-Ohio Valley area for about 20 years. He has worked for various agencies and the State of Ohio.

In 2008, Moore went into private practice in Athens. He has contracts with the Washington County Juvenile Center and school districts in Ohio for counseling as well as professional development training.

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