When Bethany University closed its doors this summer, not every professor moved out of town.
Rather than mourn after losing her job as a professor and head of the university counseling center that she founded three years ago, Julie Carboni hatched an idea to form a nonprofit counseling center to serve the community.
The center, which Carboni and her team have named Place of Refuge, will function as a full-service counseling center that offers adjusted-rate fees.
“We want it to be a safe place (where) underserved people with needs could come,” Carboni said.
The center is housed behind Scotts Valley Market at 6001 Butler Lane, in the same building as Bethany’s former psychology master’s program, which Simpson University agreed to take over in mid-August with full accreditation following Bethany’s closure.
The two-year master’s program remains intact and has 31 students, with a capacity of 40.
“For our students to wait out the accreditation was a miracle unto itself,” Carboni said.
Having them close at hand is a boon for the counseling center, Carboni said. All the second-year students are required to have traineeships in the community, and some will work at the counseling center.
In fact, Place of Refuge was founded partly with financial help from former Bethany students who supplied the $1,000 needed to file for the chapter’s nonprofit 501c3 status, which was approved recently.
The center’s four counseling rooms are furnished with couches and chairs from the former center near Bethany’s campus, as well as assorted pieces Carboni has purchased from second-hand stores.
Dee Marx-Kelly has joined Carboni as vice president of Place of Refuge.
“I think it’s a great time to start a nonprofit with the services we have,” Marx-Kelly said, noting the many services the county has cut amidst ongoing budget woes.
“We’ll try not to turn people away,” she said.
The center will offer counseling for couples, children, individuals, families and groups. Specific areas in clued psycho-educational classes, parenting, anger management, eating disorder groups, teen groups, depression, anxiety and the like.
Carboni said the center has a psychiatrist on its board of directors, who will offer some services at the center. She hopes to partner with the local schools to offer services to the community.
The staff includes Carboni, Marx-Kelly and registered interns Linda McCaffrey, Andrew Pflueger, Angela Holleman and Jenny Moore-Trainer.
“We almost weren’t able to pull this off,” Carboni said of the transition from university center to nonprofit.
“They (Bethany leadership) just kind of closed the door when everything blew apart,” Carboni said. “It was ‘can we do it?’ And everything just came together.”
n For information: Place of Refuge, 854-7263.
