Wrapping up our Boulder County Crisis Counseling program
On December 30, 2021, thousands of lives were changed irrevocably when the Marshall Fire swept through the Boulder area and decimated entire neighborhoods. Since that first day, JFS has responded to the community’s needs in the aftermath of this devastating tragedy, including providing mental health support thanks to a partnership between the Community Foundation Boulder County, Red Cross, Boulder County Health and Human Services, and our agency.
JFS administered the Boulder County Crisis Counseling (BCCC) mental health program, funded through the Community Foundation of Boulder County’s Wildfire Recovery Fund and the Red Cross. The program provided free counseling sessions using a model of private practice therapists who were on our BCCC panel. Before the Marshall Fire, the program had 70 providers on the panel. Since the fire and subsequent Straight-Line Wind events, we scaled the program up with the unprecedented support of our local mental health providers. We ultimately had more than 267 licensed private practice therapists who provided 1,091 individuals or households with therapy, totaling more than 9,800 sessions, to help combat trauma, depression, or anxiety associated with the fire.
While the program ended on December 31, 2024, the positive impact we made within the community will endure. One of the families who received our support shared how the program assisted them in their recovery.
“Thank you for the kindness and support of this program. We just returned to our rebuilt home a week ago. We have spent the last 1,050 days and nights dreaming of getting home again, and the BCCC therapy grants have been a sincere keystone in our ongoing recovery. We wish we had a more robust and loud way of expressing our gratitude to the entire JCC and JFS communities, and maybe one day we will. But for now, please share our email thanks to anyone that was a part of this process.
We are extremely thankful this week for making it home and welcoming our family from all over to spend Thanksgiving together again, at our house. Most importantly, our hearts and minds are in harmony with the community’s energy and support. We feel good in our bodies, we are healing our minds, and the therapists we engaged with through the BCCC, JCC, and JFS grants have been amazing lighthouses as we traversed an open, rough, and very dark sea.
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!”
—The Collins Family