In 1977, the counselor who sat around kitchen tables with his original family "clients" was a single, never-been-married twenty-nine-year-old who felt like an awful lot was at stake in every session he conducted. He was attentive, earnest, and had an awful lot more to learn about the kinds of concerns our community's adults, youth and children bring to counseling practitioners.

It's now 2003, Alex Gonzalez is playing shortstop for the Cubbies, at least for the rest of the season, and I'm still a counselor at Counseling & Consulting Services. We've got a great bookkeeper, a couple of wonderfully talented receptionists; and more than a dozen energetic and talented counselors who know a lot more about serving sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, and partners than our company's original counselor did when he first started.

What my colleagues do have in common with me, besides not being able to hit a split finger fastball, is an abiding respect for the strength and courage it takes to ask for assistance to become a better family member. They are a wonderfully talented group of counselors who know about helping folks to identify and achieve the kinds of goals that make family life a precious part of the human experience. Serving as a bridge to your family's success, we have focused on resources for family members in this First Edition of our quarterly CCS Webzine.

Counseling & Consulting Services will publish four quarterly issues of our informative webzine over the next year. Each issue will provide you and your family with useful information on how you can help your family become healthier, and how we may provide you with services that honor your family's needs for professional strategies, efficiency, and financial value. Our team is very excited to offer support to our community families, as our own families share many of the same experiences, challenges, and aspirations as yours.

I welcome you to this First Edition of the CCS Webzine, and it is our intention to create an opportunity for us to reach you with information, education, and support. Each issue will grow as we go, and we are very excited to create a source that informs, educates, inspires, and supports the local families and professional colleagues we rely on to make our community the best it can be. In this issue, our own Neal Burgis, Ph.D., teaches you how to recognize stress and manage some of its symptoms. Kim M. Biery writes an honest account of the losses involved when we lose a parent, and she hopes to talk with readers who have had their own experiences with loss. We've also provided some helpful information that will help parents TODAY as they crash through the back-to-school rush, and we've shared some strategies that will help you and your kids have a great school year. Make sure you read the information by staff member Ellen Ross-Jue, a Reiki Master who provides information about Reiki therapy and the incredible ways it's helping people to heal. There will be more information soon about all the services we provide, so make sure to bookmark us as one of your favorite sites for valuable, up-to-date clinical information. We will provide information from a variety of resources, including articles written by our own clinicians or professional colleagues whom we'll invite to act as guest contributors. Our site also provides you with the opportunity for instant access to our staff for help with situations that require more immediate support.

Please let us know what you think about our First Edition and how it speaks to you. I hope that you find something here that's helpful to you, your family, or the families of others you support or serve. As for preparing you to play shortstop for the Cubs.... Sorry, can't help you.

With regards and appreciation,
Dave Harvey