For 45 years, the Counseling & Education Center has been part of the fabric of the Grand Valley. We started as a seed of a vision – two licensed counselors who believed that quality mental health care should be available to everyone, not just those who could afford it.
That belief still drives everything we do. CEC is a nonprofit counseling center serving children as young as 3, teens, adults, families, and aging residents navigating whatever life is throwing at them right now. We offer sliding scale fees, accept Medicaid and most private insurance, and turn no one away based on ability to pay.
Real support. Real people. Right here in the Grand Valley.
A future where all people can attain mental wellbeing through access to professional, affordable counseling services, leading to a healthier community.
The Counseling and Education Center enriches our community by providing professional, affordable counseling services to all.
We believe cost should never stand between someone and getting help. That is why we operate on a sliding scale and work with every client to find a fee that fits. Access to quality care should not depend on your income.
We believe everyone deserves the same quality of care, full stop. It does not matter who you are, where you come from, what you believe, or how you are paying. You get the same skilled, attentive support as anyone else who walks through our door.
We believe that feeling safe is the starting point for healing. Everything we do, from how we set up our spaces to how our therapists show up, is built around creating real physical and emotional safety for every person we serve.
We believe in doing right by the people we serve. Our therapists hold themselves to the highest ethical standards in the field, not because they have to, but because it is the only way to do this work with integrity.
We believe that good therapy meets you where you are. Every person who comes to CEC is the expert on their own life. Our therapists stay curious, stay humble, and adapt to what each individual actually needs rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach.
We believe that healing one person changes the whole community. When we show up for each other, the effects ripple out into families, workplaces, and neighborhoods. That is not just a nice idea. It is what 45 years of work in the Grand Valley has taught us.
CEC is staffed by a diverse community of dedicated, caring professionals who enrich our community by providing professional, affordable counseling services to families and individuals in need.
That dandelion has been with us ever since. It shows up in our old newsletters, in the art on our walls, and in a paperweight that Colleen, our office administrator of 19 years, has kept on her desk through all of it. She will never forget the little girl in foster care who picked it up every single time she came in for play therapy.
Small. Resilient. Rooted. That is CEC.
CEC was founded in 1981 by Sister Faye Huelsmann and Sister Pat Lewter, two licensed professional counselors with a shared vision and not much else. They applied for an $18,000 grant from the St. Joseph Foundation to open an affordable counseling center for individuals and families in the Grand Valley. When the grant came through, they packed up and moved to Grand Junction.
They set up a tent at a local campground. Every morning they headed out looking for work to support themselves while they got the center off the ground. When they needed a place to stay, Sister Faye had a whole prepared speech ready. Sister Pat knocked on the door of a local Franciscan convent and said:
The Franciscans said yes. CEC opened in January 1982 under the name Center for Enriched Communications. The sisters kept their day jobs until the center could support itself.
In 1998, CEC merged with Individual and Family Counseling, another local nonprofit, and became the Counseling & Education Center.
The name changed. The mission did not.
Today CEC operates out of our primary Patterson Road location and a temporary home at the Business Incubator in Orchard Mesa while we renovate our permanent Orchard Mesa space.
In 2025 alone we served a record 505 clients across 6,725 therapy sessions: children, teens, adults, families, and aging residents.
The mission that started in a campground tent has never wavered.
CEC is still here, still growing, and still showing up for the Grand Valley.
