For Amanda Gerdts, owner of Footnotes Counseling Service in Mankato, it’s all about the people.
“At Footnotes, we strive to be the ‘more’ that people need — to be the different that gets to make a difference,” Gerdts said in her speech at the first Footnotes Trauma Foundation fundraising event this past October.
What makes Footnotes different? Gerdts said that her team focuses less on skills and tools and more on core healing. Helping people feel really comfortable and safe, destigmatizing mental health and understanding the functions of trauma responses are keys. They also recognize that marriage is hard and, “Getting help to repair or strengthen a marriage is normal, healthy, good.”
While Footnotes does treat the full range of mental health needs with a Christian perspective, the group specializes in trauma and marriage. Gerdts gives a definition of trauma as “an event or events that are too big or hard for our brain and body to process and that information gets stuck, stored in its original form as unprocessed raw data, sensations and emotions in the nervous system.”
“Trauma work is hard,” Gerdts said. “We are dedicated to continuing to learn both from the emerging science and research as well as from one another and from each and every one of our clients how to make trauma recovery more approachable and less scary.”
Another feature that makes Footnotes “the different that gets to make a difference” is that they don’t work directly with insurance companies, which Gerdts said, “offers advantages working with high level and medical professionals whose impacts on getting well has a trickle effect into and throughout our incredible community.”
This fee-for-service approach also allows the Footnotes team to not overly focus on satisfying what insurance pays for, but instead offers the clinical freedom to put client care first. “We give less time and emphasis on diagnosis or a disorder-based view of the people we serve,” said Gerdts. “It’s also helpful for high-deductible health care plans.”
While Gerdts works hard to make Footnotes accessible to all, trauma has no socio-economic boundaries. Footnotes Trauma Foundation, the nonprofit arm of Footnotes Counseling Services, offers therapy scholarships for sexual abuse survivors and military veterans.
“We can do more good, serve more people, when we partner together,” said Gerdts.
Giving to Footnotes Trauma Foundation creates opportunities for individuals and businesses looking for tax-deductible, meaningful and effective ways to make a real difference in our community by sponsoring people who would not otherwise be able to afford this specialized trauma recovery care that Footnotes provides.
When people ask “What exactly do you do?” Gerdts explains she is a marriage and family therapist and specializes in complex trauma, sexual abuse and marital discord. The Footnotes team is made up of front office staff Terri Fries and Meg Trebesch, mental health practitioners Lori Letourneau and Megan McMahon, and certified yoga instructor Joann DeMerit. The foundation is led by their Board of Directors, Executive Director Brad Price and Mission Advancement Emeline Gullixson.
In addition to counseling services, Footnotes offers equine assisted therapy, working with horses, creatures that are naturally perceptive to human emotions, and are safe, stable and large. And, Breath en’ Motion, a trauma-informed treatment combining breath-based yoga movements, rhythm, mindfulness, strength, and relaxation, which helps people build a better embodied awareness (something damaged with life threat traumas) and supports the bio-physiology of healing.
“People do not need to be mental health clients of Footnotes to enjoy or benefit from equine assisted therapy or the Breath en’ Motion options,” Gerdts said.
“These services help speed up and ease the process of doing the difficult internal work that working on your mental health can be. Helping you address the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’ of the symptoms people face. Both services are unique in the Mankato community.”
Gerdts is aware that the work Footnotes does is important but at the same time very challenging.
“Full recovery from trauma is possible. Symptoms tell the story of what happened and how we survived what happened.
“There are really good reasons people are both eager and fearful of doing this work. But fully recovering is really real,” Gerdts said.