Chamber Member of the Week: Flourish Counseling
Beth Partain created Flourish Counseling in 2020, offering counseling services for women seeking guidance with anxiety, depression, mood disorders, neurodivergence, and life transitions. Partain specializes in prenatal, postpartum, and perinatal counseling for new and expectant mothers.
One of Flourish’s primary goals is to empower women and their families by navigating the changes that occur with not only the birth of a baby but the birth of a mother.
Partain has spent most of her professional life as a counselor, shifting her focus to perinatal services in 2017 after her first pregnancy.
“I had my first child in 2017, and everything was going well with the pregnancy; it was perfect until it wasn’t,” Partain said. “I had a placental abruption and an emergency c-section at 34 weeks. Everyone plans to be a parent at some point, but we were thrown into everything. It was a very traumatic experience.”
Partain recalls the month-long recovery in the hospital and her daughter spending 3 weeks in the NICU. During that time, she said no one offered mental health support or mentioned available services.
So, she formed Flourish just 3 years later to bring awareness to perinatal mental health and support women on their journey to motherhood. And should that journey encounter trials like miscarriages, infertility, traumatic births, or anything in between, Partain will be there.
“It’s a life-changing experience to become a parent, especially for moms because of the hormones and role changes,” she said. “I want to bring awareness to the perinatal time period and the importance of it. Flourish is a space where moms can come and discuss the complex and challenging parts of being a mother, all while celebrating the positive things. Society wants us to celebrate all the time, but that’s not always the case.”
Partain said the community has been receptive, and her client base has grown drastically over the past year. She attributes the growth to recent networking and connecting with the hospital and local OBGYNs for referrals.
“Within the last year, I’ve really stepped up my marketing, connected with the hospital, and met with folks involved in labor and delivery,” she said. “We must raise awareness and let the community know these services exist. Mostly, when people learn about them, they are very receptive.”
Flourish offers individual counseling and accepts several different insurances, including Medicaid. Partain plans to launch group classes early in 2024.
“We want services to be accessible to as many people as possible,” she said. “We started the groups to create a community for moms to discuss those really difficult parts of being a parent. For a group of women to come and talk and know you aren’t being judged is instrumental in being a mom.”
Partain hosted the community’s first Perinatal Mental Health Awareness Walk this past fall at Yellow Creek Park. She plans to continue growing the event to include more activities and more opportunities to raise awareness.
Click here to learn more about Flourish Counseling.
By John Kirkpatrick The Owensboro Times