Parenting can be hard.
We are here to help.

The Heart Leaf Center (THLC) was built on the principles of empowering children and families through mental health care and support in order to reach their fullest potential. We know life can be challenging — and raising children, though rewarding, is hard work.

Parents

We want to give parents the tools they need to help raise strong socially and emotionally healthy children, strengthening relationships so they can continue to support, learn, and grow together.

Learn More About Our Parent Support

Children

We want to give children the opportunities to learn about themselves, develop resiliency and problem-solving skills so they can navigate the obstacles that life throws at them.

Learn More About Play Therapy

Our Mission

Improving access to high quality play therapy mental health services for children and families through low-cost services and professional education.

The Problem

The CDC finds that only about 20% of children with mental, emotional, or behavioral disorders receive care from a specialized mental health care provider.

The past five years have seen a dramatic uptick in children and teens’ mental health issues, most notably depression and anxiety. The COVID-19 pandemic created an acute mental health crisis in the country due to isolation and increased stress. This translated into an increased need for mental health services, particularly play therapy services. Due to northern Virginia’s many military, low-income, and multi-cultural families, there is a higher percentage of families needing lower-cost services or providers who would accept their insurance.

Despite the efforts of many providers across northern Virginia, demand for lower-cost services is still not being met — which is why The Heart Leaf Center was founded in 2021 by two child play therapists who wanted to find a solution for the barriers to accessing mental healthcare they were witnessing in their private practice work.

The need for low cost, high quality mental health counseling for children and teens which is why The Heart Leaf Center was founded.

The Heart Leaf Solution

Play is the language of children and how they communicate.

Together, the founders saw a need to offer high-quality play-based counseling to children and families who could not otherwise afford mental health services. In addition, the creators envisioned a therapy center that would embrace new clinicians as they learned the practice of play therapy and offer continuing education opportunities for established therapists who needed these skills in their own offices. This would add more qualified therapists in the area, ready to help children and families, and therefore reduce long wait times for qualified play therapists. So, they decided to act when the community needed them most and established The Heart Leaf Center.

By offering services on a sliding scale fee based on family income and household size, The Heart Leaf Center seeks to eliminate the hurdles facing families, including costs, availability, language, transportation, and insurance. In addition, The Heart Leaf Center accepts Tricare and Medicaid to help increase accessibility to its beneficiaries, as historically, it can be difficult to find providers who accept these plans.
The Heart Leaf Center believes in helping the entire family. Parents, caretakers, and guardians are crucial to their child’s treatment plan. The Heart Leaf Center believes in involving the child’s school, community, and other professionals in the child’s life to ensure each child is supported in the best way possible.
The Heart Leaf Center offers a different and fun approach to treatment that is unlike “talk therapy” or school intervention which may provide only short-term counseling solutions. Instead, The Heart Leaf Center works with the whole family in a developmentally sensitive way to work through the challenges. We at The Heart Leaf Center love what we do, and we exist to help children and their families reach their fullest potential.