A place where your culture is celebrated, your struggle is honored and your peace is supported.
Culturally Specific Counseling
Sankofa Counseling is a culturally specific counseling practice committed to serving Black, Brown, Trans/Nonbinary and LGBQAI individuals and families.
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Individual Counseling
We do not view counseling as a process dealing with diagnoses and symptoms. We utilize insight and action oriented approaches to support increased understanding of and empathy towards yourself, while also working to implement realistic changes that lead to increased quality of life and relationships.
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Parent & Family Based Counseling
We view interactions between parents/caregivers and children as an interplay between relationship, environment and biology. Our parenting and family based coaching includes education and support in each of these areas.
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Community Education & Training
We believe in the collective nature of our health. Change is not one-dimensional and therefore should not be treated as such. We endorse a model of wellness, where we understand that your triumphs and difficulties often may involve the intersection of several communities.
Sankofa is a cultural symbol of Ghana
It represents the understanding that our personal histories include a dance of both good and painful experiences, yet all are integral in forming who we are today. Sankofa translates to “go back, seek and retrieve it”. The people of Ghana believe that as time passes, so passes movement and knowledge; as we progress forward in life, the knowledge and lessons of the past must not be forgotten. Sankofa supports our present understanding of self and our movement into the future through exploring and extracting the wisdom that comes from reviewing our history and integrating what it holds.
The symbolism of the Sankofa bird captures this metaphor of self-integration well; it’s feet are firmly planted looking ahead, while its head reaches back, gently grabbing an egg with its beak. The egg, representing lessons/experiences of the past, cannot be held too burdensomely tight, or it may break from rigidity; however, this wisdom cannot be held forgetfully loose, or it may fall and be discarded. We must be aware of what our “eggs” may hold - then we are able to appreciate and interweave our experiences into a useful and balanced narrative that supports our feet becoming firmly planted in all that we are.
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We look forward to hearing from you.