Kelly Ryan-Schmidt, LCSW

Our Therapy Center invites you to become a part of our growing and supportive community. At Step By Step Counseling Center, LLC, we see our clients from an integrated health, strengths-based perspective— Focused on mind, body, relationships and resources.

Our Veteran Therapist and Clinical Supervisor, has a special interest in creating partnerships with our clients to help them to achieve their own goals "Step By Step". She has worked in Human Services and Mental Health for over 20 years. Kelly is an approved TBRI (Trust Based Relational Interventions) Practitioner and Educator through training with Texas Christian University since 2011. Kelly is also a member of the Pennsylvania FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder) Task Force. Kelly has worked with specialists across the country to learn specialized techniques for treating trauma, mental health, family systems and difficult life experiences for both adults and children. She has lectured Nationally for many years and has taught as an Adjunct Professor in the University of Pittsburgh's MSW Program. She has been asked for several years to lecture to Pitt's first year medical students about treating traumatized children both physically and emotionally. She is the former Clinical Director of TRAC Services for Families (Previously Three Rivers Adoption Council) where she worked for 14 years helping children to return to their biological families, helping both biological and foster/ adoptive families heal from their own hurts and stories, and helping children and youth to successfully integrate into and stay with permanent families.

Kelly & her husband are adoptive parents of 4 special needs siblings from the foster care system. Kelly is a child of the early years of the Family Court System when it was learning how to manage the increase of divorcing couples and their children.

From Kelly:

I believe making sure clients are proactive & committed to their goals helps them to achieve their best & most satisfied life. It is important to look at the whole family system and the whole individual to find the right intervention to match their presenting concerns. Parents cannot take their children any further in their healing than what they have gone in their own healing. Raising hurt kiddos will take you to the edge and back but will also be the most rewarding experience of your life.

For Adults: it is never too late to heal! I have worked with many adults who have been struggling for many years with scars left by early childhood trauma, broken relationships and pain that affects their daily functioning and relationships. Through a trauma focused whole person approach, we can resolve old hurts to promote healthier relationships and functioning now and in the future.
-When we deny our stories, they define us. When we own our stories, we get to write the ending. --Brene Brown