SCA CONNECTIONS September

SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010

letter from the president

Gila Fein MA, LMHCA

Happy end of summer to you all!

My name is Gila Fein and I am the incoming SCA President. With fall just around the corner I am eagerly anticipating our new SCA season.

A lot has been happening behind the scenes to get the new SCA website up and running. We are almost there! We have run into a few glitches that we didn't anticipate but are close to having all functions up and running. We will send out an announcement about the new site and some of its new features once the final pieces are in place. A special thank you to Jeffrey Morrison our Outgoing President for spearheading this project and the many hours that went into its development. This has been a huge project to take on as a volunteer. Please join me in thanking him for his efforts that went above and beyond what any of us expected.

Our next meeting is on September 17th at our new time, 9:15. Registration begins at 9:00. We've already got a great line up of speakers to kick off our new year. Don't miss the article below by Peter Hannah, our September presenter.

I am excited about our incoming leadership team - a nice mixture of talent, knowledge, fresh ideas and good humor. We have some new faces on the team. Please join me in welcoming Justin Pere and Holly Blue as Program Chairs, Eric Strom as Membership Chair, Elizabeth Heath as Secretary, and Marsha Skewis as our Newsletter Editor! John Tran will continue as Treasurer, Sarah Heath as Hospitality Chair, and Stephanie Bender as Web Liaison. Dennis McCarthy is joining us again in his new position as Vice President, and Jeffrey Morrison as Outgoing President.

I have a passion for community and look forward to bringing that passion to my position as SCA president. As a counselor in private practice, SCA has been a welcoming place for me to connect with other counselors and professionals in related fields, build my referral base, get referrals and continue to learn and grow as a practitioner. I welcome your ideas about how together we can create a welcoming, vibrant community that supports you in your practice in the coming year.

Gila Fein, MA, LMHCA
SCA President

Web Marketing for Therapists -- In Plain English

by Peter Hannah MS, MA, LMHC

Meta Tags. Keyword Density. Blogging. Tweeting. Link-building. Organic listings. Google Adwords. These terms, thrown about by techies when talking about web marketing, are like Latin to most counselors and therapists. Because of this, many counselors do nothing out of confusion, or spend lots of unnecessary time and money when trying to market their practices on the web.

It doesn't have to be this way. Using metaphors, analogies, and plain English, Peter Hannah will help you understand marketing your private practice on the Internet much more clearly than you have before. This workshop will cover both your website, and how to get people "to" your website - because you need both to make the phone ring with new clients.

You'll leave with not only a clearer concept of what web marketing is all about, but also with some action items to help you take the next step with marketing your private practice on the web. He'll help you separate the hype from the concrete steps you can take to promote the help and healing you bring to people's lives.

Peter Hannah, MS MA LMHC, is a licensed mental health counselor in private practice in Seattle since 2003. His specialty is working with so-called "Nice Guys", and he provides both individual psychotherapy and marriage counseling. Before becoming a therapist, Peter had a career in technology, including stints with IBM, a dot-bomb, a wireless company, and doing private consulting. He became a webmaster for a nationwide utility company in 1998, handling all aspects of the company's sites - technical, content, and graphic design.

Turning his web skills to his new counseling business, Peter was one of the early users of Google Adwords in Seattle, and one of the first therapists to pioneer using video clips on his website. Peter began consulting for other therapists, counselors and psychologists in 2005, and since then has helped hundreds of his colleagues nationwide. He has been a featured speaker for Casey Truffo's Therapist Leadership Conferences, and has also been highlighted in Psychotherapy Finances magazine.

You can find Peter's Seattle counseling practice on the web at www.ChangingForGood.com. His consulting website is www.YourGoogleGuy.com.