The Family Life Center
Visiting a counselor is commonly thought to be done only during difficult situations. However, counsel can be given not only to help someone get out of trouble, but also to start a person on the right track with something new, especially with things like finances and marriage.
“This is not just a program to treat individuals when there is something wrong, but rather to consider it as a program when they’re considering marriage,” said Kim Openshaw, associate professor of the Marriage and Family Therapy Clinic.
The Family Life Center offers a variety of services to students and nonstudents. The two departments that occupy the Family Life Center are Housing and Financial Counseling and Marriage and Family Therapy.
“We are here to educate people. We don’t make any money off of it,” said Kemper Ure, financial counselor at The Family Life Center. “We just want to help people be able to solve their own problems but also make the change in life that they want to be better, so they can solve their own problems down the road.”
The Financial Counseling Office offers several savings plans, such as the revolving savings accounts and the step down principle.
“Our clients come up with the best solutions themselves. We just help them,” Ure said.
Ure said it is a great idea for couples thinking about getting married who have never had to figure out money before to visit with a counselor on what financial roles each person will be responsible for. The counselors can aid on how to determine who would be the best at doing different kinds of roles.
Young couples often find themselves trying to get out of a whirl of debt because they want what their parents have right now but are not making the same amount of money as their parents, Ure said, so the office offers counseling to help get out and stay out of debt.
As stated on the Family Life Center’s Web site, financial counselors help people learn money management skills, honorably discharge debts, budget their expenses, prepare for home ownership, qualify for a mortgage, understand the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage and prevent the loss of rented or mortgaged housing.
“The best part of our job is seeing success in people’s eyes,” Ure said. “That’s what some people need. They just need somebody to be accountable to.”
Powerpay.org is a financial tool that financial counselors use to show people payment plans on how to get out of debt the quickest way possible. It is available online for anyone to use and was created by USU extension.
“Powerpay is an awesome program that we love to use with clients because it puts hope back into their lives,” Ure said.
Openshaw said marriage and family therapy offers a whole range of therapy services but said their real skill and forte is treating marriages and families.
“The term marriage and family therapy obviously says our specialty is working with marriages, premarital work, marital work, both enhancement as well as couples for who have problems in their marriages whether they be sexual problems, communication problems or parenting issues,” Openshaw said. “But we’re also trained to do a spectrum of individual work such as depression, anxiety and other mental illness issues.”
Both Financial Counseling and Marriage and Family Therapy are student-based programs, and financial counseling is used as a training facility for senior level students. Therapy is done by the students under licensed therapists’ supervision.
“When people come down here, they know that we’re a training center and as such they sign a release saying you know that we’re video taping the session,” Openshaw said. “And if they don’t want that then we refer them somewhere else. However, marriage and family therapy has the most tight supervision of any of the therapies, and all information is kept confidential.
“By the time (students) finish up, they have 500 hours of clinical training. And of that, they have 200 or 300 hours of supervisions from us. So my role is to make sure they are effectively working with the people so that therapy is getting the people to where they want to go. So it’s correcting the issues that are coming in.”
Program director of marriage and family therapy, Scot Allgood, said they deliberately try to recruit graduate students who speak Spanish because a large percentage of therapy is done for the Hispanic community.
“They trust us. We have a long history with them,” Allgood said. “Many of them have minimal English skills but still come because we have a good track record with them. It takes a long time to build a good reputation with those groups.”
The center is a nonprofit organization funded through USU, donations and grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. However, Allgood said the clinic charges a fee based on the client’s ability to pay.
“One of the biggest differences between our clinic and the community psychology clinic is our students are required to assess and collect fees as part of their training, and the clinical psychology program does not have that requirement,” Allgood said. “So there are fees associated with coming here. We have a sliding fee scale, and if there are extenuating circumstances, people can negotiate their fees.”
Therapy sessions run on average for five to eight sessions. However, Openshaw said the sessions continue as long as the client needs the service. After 10 sessions, the case is re-evaluated to see how the client is meeting their goals.
We don’t want people to go without the service,” Openshaw said. “We would never turn somebody away because they couldn’t pay.”
“We are not benefiting. It’s the client that benefits,” Ure said.
Ure said the financial program is for anybody, whether it is students or people in the community.
“We have all different ranges of people,” Ure said.
Housing and home ownership workshops are offered every month, but other topics may be requested by contacting the financial counseling receptionist.
The Family Life Center is located at 493 N. 700 East in Logan. Financial counseling may be contacted by calling 797-7224, and marriage and family therapy can be reached at 797-7430. Students may also visit its Web sites at http://www.usu.edu/fchd/hfc.cfm or http://www.usu.edu/mft/clinic_services.cfm.
-T.Dixon@aggiemail.usu.edu