Welcome to Journey Services
What does Journey Services do?
Journey Services helps people and organizations navigate challenging journeys at the intersections of mental health, social justice, and equity & inclusion.
- General counseling and counselor supervision - increase the availability of affordable, quality therapy in one of four regions of Ohio ranked lowest for available mental health professionals. (Click here for Counseling info)
- Support and sustainability services for small, intersectional nonprofits - assist nonprofits working for minority, disability, gender, and LGBTQIA+ rights and equitable access to quality housing, nutrition, employment, education, and healthcare (Click here for Social Justice and Nonprofit Services info)
Journey Services Counseling
General Counseling
We provide quality, affordable individual, marriage, and family counseling that combines elements of trauma-informed therapy, along with Internal Family Systems, EMDR, DBT, and Gottman frameworks as needed.
Our therapists, Margaret Pennington and Kim Fotta, are LPCCs with extensive counseling experience in a wide range of client challenges.
To learn more about our counseling services or to request a free consultation, click the button below to go to the Journey Services Counseling site.
Counselor Supervision
Margaret Pennington, Journey Services' Co-Director for Mental Health Services, is also licensed in Ohio as a Supervisor. She works with LPCs to obtain their full Clinical licensure.
As she works with practicing counselors, she exposes them to issues of cultural competence, social justice, and minority, gender, and LGBTQIA+ rights.
We regularly interact with people from these communities who decry the lack of awareness and sensitivity they find from therapists. Our supervision work is helping to develop more inclusive therapists in our region.
For more information about Journey Services' Counselor Supervision or to request a free consultation, click the button to go to our Supervision page at Journey Services Counseling.
Social Justice & Nonprofit Services
Equity for All
Paul Pennington is Journey Services' Co-Director for Social Justice and Nonprofit Services. Recently our 3 teenage granddaughters asked him to join their tea party. It's quite a treat to be invited to sit at their table on their terms.
Our seven diverse grandkids make our concern for social justice personal. Statistically, our three granddaughters will earn less than their male siblings (gender inequities). Our black grandkids have experienced discrimination and racial slurs from children whose parents taught them that they are inferior because of the color of their skin (ethnic inequities). Our gender questioning grandkids live in a nation where LGBTQIA+ people are being used as religious and political punching bags, and where hundreds of laws are being passed to deny their equal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (LGBTQIA+ inequities).
We want to live in a region, a state, and a nation where all of our grandkids (no matter their gender, ethncity, or sexual orientation), can expect to be afforded the same rights, the same inclusion, the same acceptance in the communities where they live and in the places where they study or work.
Allyship and Advocacy
We are also engaged with this work because of our dear friends in intersectional minority, disability, and LGBTQIA+ communities. Some experience and have to overcome inequities on a daily basis; others have been rejected by their families for being who they were made to be.
Sometimes we just provide safe space, found family for people whose original family have disowned and rejected them. You will see us doing community outreach and marching on behalf of those we love and affirm. We facilitate support groups and work behind the scenes to help manage events for nonprofits we support.
We serve on several intersectional nonprofit boards and provide nonprofit support services in areas such as compliance, governance, financial management, and grantwriting.
Nonprofit Sustainability
- One challenging journey that we help people navigate involves nonprofit sustainability.
We collaborate with several intersectional nonprofits who:
- Work at the grassroots for minority, disability, gender, and LGBTQIA+ rights.
- Engage in vital efforts to ensure equitable access to quality housing, nutrition, employment, education, and healthcare.
Journey Services can't be actively engaged in all of these social justice causes. However, we have discovered a way that we can help ensure the sustainability of the small, often underfunded, grassroots nonprofits working on the frontlines of these efforts.
- These nonprofits often miss compliance elements around State Incorporation, State Registration to Solicit Funds, or IRS Exempt Organization status.
- Those compliance gaps can lead to an organization being shut down or having its tax-exempt status revoked.
- Funders and nonprofit leaders tell us funding requests are declined because of these compliance gaps.
We believe that the essential, vital grassroots work of these nonprofits should not be left to chance. We want to level the playing field so that these intersectional nonprofits don't face higher closure rates and inequitable funding for their vital services.
Our Partners and Collaborators
Journey Services works extensively on behalf of the intersectional work of TreeHouse Cincinnati and its root organizations, Black Power Initiative, Cincinnati Sisters, GLSEN, and PFLAG Cincinnati. We are a participating member of Community Shares of Greater Cincinnati, OneSource Center for Nonprofit Excellence, and Pro Bono Partnership of Ohio.
For more information about Journey Services, click the badge below to check out our GuideStar profile.
