NORTH WEBSTER - Turning Point Counseling Center has helped people deal with their struggles and life’s challenges for 10 years as of January.
Having reached the point where the 501(c)3 not-for-profit counseling center needed more space, Turning Point Inc. had a ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday morning with the North Webster-Tippecanoe Township Chamber of Commerce for their new location at the corner of Washington and Blaine streets in North Webster. Their official opening date is planned for July 8.

    A child’s play therapy room is part of Turning Point Inc.’s new location at the corner of Washington and Blaine streets in North Webster. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

The building, at 501 W. Washington St., formerly housed the township offices, EMS services, the Lions Club and Chamber. While the North Webster Food Pantry is still located on the east end of the building, and the old ambulance bays are there, the building itself has been remodeled. It now includes nine potential offices, a privacy room, a child’s play therapy room, areas for therapists and staff, separate restrooms for clients and staff and a small group room/staff meeting room.
Jeff Boyer, lead pastor at North Webster Church of God and Turning Point Counseling Center board member, explained, “Turning Point Counseling started as a vision of North Webster Church of God. As a pastor, we saw so many needs within our own church, and we knew that there were just as many outside in our community.”
While he’s not formally trained in counseling, he said they knew they needed to do something so the church’s vision became launching Turning Point Counseling Center.
“Our goal and our vision is to bring health, hope and healing to the people of northeast Indiana, and we feel like we’re really making a mark in that. Right now, actually, we touch 19 counties in the state of Indiana. Even south of Indianapolis, we have people, whether doing online counseling or maybe they’re here for the summertime and they need counseling, and they come and they stay connected because they love their counselor. So it’s been a really good thing,” Boyer said.
Their counselors are wonderful, he stated, and they have a passion to help people and that’s what makes the counseling center work.

    Jeff Boyer, lead pastor at North Webster Church of God and Turning Point Counseling Center board member, speaks about the vision and work that went into the center’s new location before a ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday morning with the North Webster-Tippecanoe Township Chamber of Commerce. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

Turning Point celebrated its first decade in January. “It’s an unfortunate thing that there’s such a demand in growth that we were out of space, so the church, with vision, bought this building and Turning Point is renovating it, and the church is leasing the building to them and we’re going to move from 1,200 square foot to roughly 6,000 square feet,” Boyer said.
They have three full-time and three part-time counselors, he said. The new facility will give them the potential to increase that to nine counselors.
“We’re going to pace ourselves and go slowly, with the growth that we have, but the bottom line is we just had a waiting list that was way too long and just unacceptable. We need people to be able to get in sooner, so that’s our hope. Will we be able to accomplish that? We’ll see, but it’s just everywhere. People have to wait three months sometime just to see a counselor, and we don’t want that to be the case here, so we’re going to do everything we can to put a dent in that,” Boyer said.
Anne Lawson, Turning Point Inc. chief operating officer, said the counselors will see autistic children, and people dealing with anxiety and depression. They assist people dealing with drugs, alcohol and other addictions. One counselor is EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) certified, which is a specialized training for trauma. Jonna Buller does pre-marital counseling. Amanda Herendeen works with a lot of children.
Other counselors with Turning Point include Mary Beth Getty, Carolyn Glock, Jonathan Homes, Kari Jenkins and Sena Kaufman.
“We try to have our counselors be universal, but we do like to see them with specializations and things, that way we can hit the community,” she said.
If a person needs counseling services, Lawson said they can call the office at 574-834-1393 or visit the website at www.myturningpt.com and they’ll work with them if they have insurance, are self-pay or on a sliding-fee scale.
“We’ve done quite a few pro bonos with people who just can’t afford it but really need it,” she said. “And that’s really our focus, helping those who need it the most who maybe can’t afford counseling somewhere else or something like along those lines. So we really try to focus on just helping.”
Typically, Turning Point’s hours are 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays, but if someone is in need of services earlier or later, they try to accommodate that person’s needs.
In mental health, Lawson said it’s better to treat it at the time of the event and not have to wait “because these events evolve and change.”
She also commented, “Everybody involved in this project has a heart for it, and we all believe in the mission, and we’re just going to do our best to help those who need it.”
Boyer said if people want to give to mental health and the Turning Point Counseling Center, “We have an endowment. The whole point of that is to help people who maybe can’t afford counseling, to scholarship them. All of our counselors are required to do some pro bonos. We don’t want anyone to be turned away because they can’t afford it.”
He said Lawson is the person who makes that happen for Turning Point.
“We don’t want anybody to have a stigma about that or money, so we’ll figure it out together. But, if people want to give to that, any money they give to that endowment, that’s what it’ll go toward. That and like grief recovery and divorce care programs we have,” Boyer said.
Along with Boyer, other members of the board of directors include Alan Frank, Richard Owen, Randy Warren and Jackie Brown, chairwoman.
“When we first started investigating how to start a counseling center, the original board members were Dr. Carl Addison, Russell Anderson, Dan Miles and myself. Basically, we just started interviewing other counseling centers, seeing what we thought they did well, maybe what they could have improved and just found our way with what we wanted to do,” Boyer said. “This project, though, I want to give a lot of credit to Jackie Brown, and also Daryl Haessig. Daryl Haessig is the chairman of the board of elders at the Church of God in North Webster. He also oversaw the building project here with DJ Construction, as well as Jackie Brown overseeing as the chairman of the board.”
For more information, visit the website at www.myturningpt.com/.