Introduction
Kari is a fun-loving therapist that believes that everyone can benefit from therapy. Therapy is a profoundly personal experience. Kari enjoys getting to know clients and partnering with them to accomplish their goals. Kari is passionate about helping children, adolescents, and adults grow in their ability to understand and express what they think and feel to the world around them. She is known for having a great rapport and connecting with children and adolescents. Her therapeutic competencies include assisting the client in working on emotional identification and expression, anger management, anxiety/depression management, growing in self-care practices, and boundary setting. Kari enjoys incorporating art, reading, music, and creative expression into the therapeutic experience. She also has experience and compassion working with children, adolescents, and adults that have lost loved ones to suicide. Before becoming a licensed counselor, Kari spent years working as a nanny with families in the Springfield area and has volunteered countless hours working with children through church and missions organizations.
Current Focus & Interests
Kari is working towards certification in Play Therapy, authoring children’s books on mental health topics, and is actively involved in local advocacy for mental health concerns within our communities.
Experience
Kari has served in various roles working with children, adolescents, and adults throughout her life. She has volunteered for multiple opportunities to work with children through church camps and activities, missions work in various countries, and disaster relief efforts. Kari has also worked with local non-profits that support local foster care youth.
Kari’s career-related experience began as a School-Based Supervisor in community mental health. Kari helped launch school-based services in Missouri in 2018. She supervised staff members working with children on social and emotional skills in school. She kept a caseload of high-acuity clients, including children in foster care and teen moms. She helped launch school-based services in 12 school districts during this time. Kari worked with hundreds of families in Stone, Taney, and Christian Counties (MO) to enroll their children in mental health services for the first time. This experience was intense and educational, demonstrating the drastic need for mental health services within our local communities. Kari was able to participate in a variety of connection opportunities within these communities, including working with local law enforcement, public schools, children’s division offices, foster care support groups, CASA workers, legal teams involving custody issues, school social workers, MO Dept. of Social Services, foster reunification meetings, community actions teams and participate in the Burrell Employee Engagement Team.
Kari went on to obtain her provisional license (PLPC) and moved into a School-Based Clinician role in February 2020, where she completed her hours to achieve her LPC licensure. Given this role’s start, she completed many hours utilizing telehealth options and feels comfortable with this counseling modality. The experience of providing therapy in public schools provided a unique experience of working with a wide variety of children and families. She provided individual and group counseling to children and adolescents in K through 12th grade with various mental and behavioral health concerns. Kari also provided psycho-educational interventions to assist parents and school staff.
In March 2022, Kari transitioned to work on campus at Ozarks Technical Community College to provide mental health counseling to enrolled students on a grant-funded basis. Kari enjoyed working with a broad, diverse variety of clients. She worked with clients that had a variety of needs with varying degrees of severity, including test anxiety, general anxiety/depression, past abuse and trauma, loss of a loved one to suicide, death of family members and friends, domestic violence issues, time management, healthy relationship boundaries, homelessness, unplanned pregnancy, addictive behaviors, and general preventative mental health care. This role also included opportunities to engage on campus with classroom presentations, crisis interventions, and raising awareness for mental health issues on campus during events.
Education
Kari graduated from Glendale High School and received her Associate’s Degree at Ozarks Technical Community College as part of the A+ program.
Kari graduated from Evangel University in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in Human Services with a practicum in School Counseling in Republic School District (MO).
She continued into the Masters of Science program in School Counseling at Evangel University. She graduated in 2017 with two practicums in School Counseling completed in Republic and Nixa School districts.
Kari completed her Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) licensure requirements through hours spent working in the Nixa Public School (MO) district as a School-Based Clinician through Burrell Behavioral Health.
