Blog

Welcome to Our New Website

Written by David Kellner

Thank you for visiting our new blog! We are grateful that you have sifted the web and have landed here. We are hopeful that this blog will serve as a way for you to get to know us as a practice and as clinicians and can become a resource for you and your family.

Our story begins in early 2005 with a quiet, living room conversation. At that point, David Kellner, the founder of Solace, had spent most of his adult life serving teens and children as a volunteer and staff person, and was looking for opportunities to engage the community in more meaningful ways. In weighing potential options with Rebecca, his wife, he opted to return to school to pursue a degree in counseling psychology.

During his schooling experience, David interned at a non-profit in Annapolis, serving the local community. It was here, being among the few males willing to do the work, that David’s schedule quickly filled with children and adolescents. He was delighted and discovered his passion for counseling younger people. Upon graduation, David remained a part-time therapist while serving three years as a school counselor at a local private school, continuing to develop and hone his craft while learning from the children and teens that he served.

After some time, David transitioned to working full-time as a therapist in the non-profit sector at the site where he completed his internship several years earlier. After one years time, he was promoted to Assistant Director and then, ultimately to Executive Director. While, unfortunately due to financial insolvency, the non-profit had to close its doors, David’s heart for Annapolis and the children and teens within it remained.

David launched Solace Family Counseling in June of 2016, with the vision of connecting with other therapists that understand the value of working with children and teens and see child and teen therapy as a critical need within the community. He wanted to emphasize the unique role that trauma has in shaping the experience of children and teens and was hopeful to provide healing and hope through compassionate and skilled therapists.

David now has the privilege of working with three amazing women who share in that passion and consistently work as a team to more effectively engage children, teens and young adults who have suffered from trauma and other mental, emotional and relational wounds. As a team, we have spurred one another in growth as we work to unlock the pain and challenges that face today’s youth and build opportunities from that hardship. We are committed to a trauma-informed approach and lean heavily into the therapeutic relationship to foster growth and resilience.

We are so glad to journey with you and hope to provide you with useful information within this blog. We want to explore topics that are relevant to your experiences as a parent, child or teen and give you useful tools for navigating the often complex space of childhood and adolescence. We want to provide thoughts that inform your approach to trauma, anxiety, depression and even behavioral concerns with your child. We hope to provide teens and children thoughts that will challenge their growth and invite them to embrace the unique opportunities that exist in childhood and adolescence.

If you feel like we might be helpful in navigating your family’s challenges, please reach out to us through the Contact page on the website and we would love to help you determine your next steps. Or, if you would like, you can reach out and give us any thoughts you might have. Thanks for spending time with us and we look forward to our work together!

Published: March 21, 2022