Today we’d like to introduce you to Catherine & Willie Wimbrey
Hi Catherine & Willie, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Catherine –
I struggled a lot in my early years and throughout most of my young adult life. It is through these struggles that I found myself developing a passion to help teen girls and women. Not knowing what to do as a career I chose the field of social work because I loved helping people. I found my healing in helping others heal. I realized that the struggles that I went through were similar to that of many teens and women were going through or have gone thorough similar experiences, and if I could make it through, then I could help others make it through theirs. — I was born in Liberia, came to America when I was 8 years old, became a victim of sexual abuse, became independent at the age of 17, and eventually made it through college. I remember reading the statistics of women who had my experiences in life and decided that I did not want to add to that data so I became very intentional about life. Through all of this, there was always someone to help me. So, I have always wanted to help young women as well. So, after working as a Social Worker, I felt led to become a school teacher and then a school counselor. During this time I become an Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in preparation to start my own Private Counseling Practice, I did not have the time, experience, or resources to start my own practice, so I worked in the private practice of a supervisor for the first 2 years. In 2021, my husband and I began researching legal and common practices in counseling and life coaching. We met with counselors and coaches about how they do things and asked them for feedback about our desires to start our own practice. Through this process we were able to put together a pretty solid plan for our business. In 2022, we started our own private practice with me as an LPC and my husband as a Life Coach (Licensed and Ordained Minister.) We did not have our own office space when we first began, so we had sessions in different places: private corners in restaurants, virtual, and paid our friends to let us use their office space per session. After 8 months of this, we started leasing our own office here in Mansfield, and we just signed another 2 year lease. Our business is rapidly growing and we see progress in our clients. Their progress is very rewarding for us to witness. We feel that we are definitely serving right where we are meant to be serving, and we love it! We serve individuals, couples, families, and groups. Approximately 90% of our clients are couples and teen girls.
Willie –
As a teenager I felt led to serve in church ministry and at the age of 18 years old, I began serving in the preaching ministry. Soon after, I began counseling people of all ages and began officiating weddings and funerals. A lot of what I shared with people was my own story of my childhood including my parents’ behaviors towards each other and towards my 2 brothers and myself — my mother ended up taking my 2 brothers and myself to live in a battered womens shelter in 3 different cities and 2 different states when I was 3 years old, and my brothers (age 2 and 5) and I were exposed to violence, alcoholism, and drugs during this time. In sharing my story, I related to a lot of people in Southeast Fort Worth. I became very involved in people’s lives during times of great joys and sorrows. During this same time, I became a Middle School teacher in public schools. As a teacher I grew very strong in building positive relationships with students, so I took this skill to the campus level by becoming an Assistant Principal and later a Principal. In these positions I learned to build positive and healthy relationships with students, staff, parents, and the community. As in ministry, in schools I also became very involved in the lives of people during times of great joys and sorrows. I regularly mediated conflicts between adults, advised adults on managing children at school and home, comforted and supported people through personal tragedies, and much more. As time went on, I grew more passionate about helping people understand their feelings, thoughts, desires, and conflicts good enough to articulate what they understand. At the same time, my wife and I decided to start our current business of counseling and coaching individuals, couples, and families.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
We planned so well ahead of time that our business has actually grown pretty smoothly. One obstacle we had was making time to meet with clients. We were both working full-time jobs and our 3 kids were involved in evening and weekend sports. So, we did not promote our business very much. Still, people contacted us for services. Because of this we were not making enough money to cover overhead fees for the first 6 months. Another obstacle that we faced was that we had to raise our fees for our clients when we started leasing our own office space. We had to figure out a way to do so without discouraging our clients. So, we gave a notice way ahead of time.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
We are a married couple who both come from a challenging childhood and have powerful testimonies. Our experiences equips us with patience, wisdom, and maturity for counseling and coaching others very well. When clients contact us for our free consultation, they tell us that they chose us because we are a married couple, one of us is an LPC and one of us is a Christian Minister, we both have experience working in public schools with small children and teens, they have seen our videos on our website which shows our friendly and down to earth personalities, and mostly they heard about us from someone else. So, knowing what they like about us gives us an idea of what approach will work best for them to feel safe with us. We approach each session with an individualized focus to serve the client/s with what they need at that time. We are great listeners and responders. We sincerely care about our clients and our clients clearly feel this. They feel important, significant, and affirmed. We focus on these needs when we’re working with clients toward their goals.
1. Counseling/Coaching: Individual, Couple, Family, Group, Adolescence
2. Coaching / Consultation: Educational, Vocational, Personal, Marriage, Parenting, Family, At-Risk Youth
3. Marriage Services: Premarital Counseling, Premarital Coaching, Wedding Officiating, Marriage Counseling, Marriage
4. Coaching: Mentoring Teens, Home Life, Personal Life, School Life, Life Goals, Peer Relationships
5. Public Speaking Events: Couples, Parenting, Youth, Young Adults, Educators
6. Talk Support Groups: Couples, Singles, Families, Teens, Young Adults
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
Make sure we enjoy the work we’re doing because if we do not sincerely enjoy it then we can get burned out quickly which will lower the quality of our services to our clients. Our clients deserve the best, so we must be our best during the sessions.
If we are tired or stretched too thin, we need to schedule better timing for sessions.
Pricing:
- $150 per individual person session
- $200 per couple session
- $200 per family session
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.wimbreyandwimbrey.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wimbreyandwimbrey/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WimbreyandWimbrey
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@WimbreyandWimbrey
Image Credits
Antonio Williams, Photographer
