Restoring Hope to Those in Need

Restoring Hope Counseling Center is home to 10 mental health counselors practicing within their own areas of expertise. Licensed mental health counselor Alicia Pfahler is the site director. The center was founded in 2019 with a vision of autonomous counselors practicing together to better serve a wide variety of clients under one roof.

Restoring Hope provides mental health counseling to adults, individuals, couples families, children and teens. Group therapy was offered prior to COVID-19 and will resume when it is safe. “A wide array of mental health concerns can be addressed, including depression, anxiety, ADHD, addictions, grief and loss, couples therapy, attachment-related issues in foster care and adoptions, as well as adult adoptees,” says Pfahler. “A wide variety of treatment modalities are used, including trauma-informed care, attachment models, cognitive behavioral models, dialectical behavioral therapy, narrative therapy and developmental therapies.”

She shares, “I would say a lot of wisdom in parenting comes from taking opposing ideas and creating brilliant strategies that comes from using the wisdom in each. For example, opting for structure over nurture is just as ineffective as often nurture over structure. Like a tension bridge a general approach to parenting with the goal of thriving children puts structure and nurture in balance, and doesn’t chose between one or the other. Parents don’t have to be reactive to authoritarian models of parenting that emphasize obedience and responsibility without connection.”

A trust-based relational intervention practitioner and educator, Pfahler is a qualified clinical supervisor for the state of Florida who supervises practicum students and registered mental health interns. She contracts with Partnership for Strong Families, seeing children in foster care and then post-adoption, and also with Created Gainesville, seeing their clients of complex childhood sexual trauma as they come out of sex trafficking.

Like a tension bridge, a general approach to parenting with the goal of thriving children puts structure and nurture in balance, and doesn’t chose between one or the other. ~Alicia Pfahler

Her nonprofit organization, Thrive, is dedicated to empowering, equipping and encouraging foster and adoptive families in Alachua County. “We have brought quality, professional workshops and conferences on topics of fostering, adoption and parenting through the lens of trauma-informed care that respects attachment and sensory processing theory,” says Pfahler. “Prior to COVID-19, Thrive had a support group that met once a month for families who fostered and/ or adopted. Thrive has held family day events at area farms for encouraging meeting other families who foster and adopt in the community. We are all looking forward to what Thrive will look like in the new year as our community heals from the impacts of COVID 19.”

Restoring Hope Counseling Center is located at 4421 NW 39th Ave., Bldg. 3, in Gainesville. For more information, call 352-380-0209 or visit RestoringHopeCounselingCenter.com.