After working for over a decade in the mental health field and owning an independent private psychotherapy practice, Danielle Vogan was bombarded with the abundance of need for trauma informed mental health care in the West Hills area. With the intention of getting more specialized, quality mental health care to the surrounding community, she founded Favored Wellness Counseling and Consulting, LLC (FWCC) in 2017. She put the deposit down on her current office to expand into a group private practice just 10 days prior to the COVID-19 shutdown in 2020. Needless to say, Danielle faced many challenges while starting a business precisely when other businesses were shutting down, but she has continued to persevere and thrive in the midst of such difficult timing. At the time, she didn’t realize she was building a group that would come to serve the community impacts of such a devastating global trauma, but looking back, she feels the timing was serendipitous and a major part of God’s will for her life.
Danielle holds a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration, majoring in finance, from Robert Morris University, as well as a Master of Arts degree in Community Counseling, specializing in addictions, from Slippery Rock University. She is a Certified EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) Therapist and an EMDRIA-approved consultant-in-training, providing individual and group consultation to those in the midst of their EMDR training. She graduated with a 4.0 GPA and was honored as the Outstanding Graduate Student of her master’s program cohort. She did not originally intend to own a group private practice, but she has come to find that this is what she was meant to do, and exactly where her path had always been leading. Danielle has many personal and professional experiences working in the human services field and aims to support her community by increasing access to modalities that she, herself, has found so life-changing.
Danielle’s vision for FWCC was to build a team of like-minded, trauma-focused experts and to increase accessibility of quality services for those who have experienced mental health issues and/or trauma. Since therapists with this skill set were lacking in the West Hills of Pittsburgh, Danielle decided to build a group private practice where she could hire and train clinicians to meet the community needs with the best trauma modalities that exist. She provides in house EMDR trainings at FWCC to ensure that her team remains proficient in this specialized treatment that is difficult to find elsewhere. The increased need for services for all ages has been so immense that Danielle recently expanded the business to double in office space, now occupying the whole building at 1010 Brodhead Road in Moon Township. Locals may know the building as the one across the road from A Taste of Ita-Lee.
FWCC currently has a staff of 38, including 26 counselors, four counselor interns, three holistic practitioners and five administrative staff members. Favored Wellness is made up of professional counselors and social workers with specialized trauma training like EMDR therapy, as well as holistic wellness services like massage, nutrition, yoga and Reiki. In addition to EMDR, Favored Wellness provides therapy using modalities including cognitive behavior therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, family systems therapy, play therapy and sandtray therapy. The team at FWCC is comprised of a variety of clinicians, each of whom specialize in working with particular populations, including children and adolescents, couples, families and adults. Group therapy is also offered on different topics, including motherhood, ADHD and executive functioning, and dialectical behavior therapy skills. The practice accepts all major commercial insurances and Medicaid, and all of the clinicians also offer sliding scale self-pay services to those in need. Additionally, interns offer pro bono or donation-based services as a way to give back to the community.
As our community and world continue to grapple with the lingering effects of Covid-19 and increased distress caused by the political climate, mental health care is more important than ever, and the need continues to grow. The pandemic left most of us profoundly changed, and many mental health concerns have been brought to the forefront. Favored Wellness has seen a surge in need for clients of all ages; many are seeking help for relational issues, anxiety, effects of trauma, grief, addiction, and depression. More than anything, FWCC is honored to do its part in breaking the stigma around seeking mental health treatment in Southwestern PA, having served over 2050 clients, with 26,002 therapy sessions to date. In a way, the pandemic has normalized human suffering, and although we all may navigate hardship differently, we all likely need support from time to time. FWCC seeks to reinforce that there is no shame in reaching out for this support. The practice’s mission is to empower clients with the skills necessary to not only survive, but also to truly thrive. The ever-expanding team that Danielle has built is well-equipped to assist clients in addressing all types of mental health issues. If any of this resonates with your experience, or that of someone you love, please reach out to FWCC today to start or continue your healing journey at (412) 339-1782 or info@favoredwellness.com
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