Spotlight Series

Guest Name: Lyndsey Proctor

Credentials: LCSW

All right, welcome, Lindsay. I’m so thankful to have you on here for our Spotlight Series for the Best in Utah Public Health Edition. And I’m going to first read your bio here for the audience, and then we’ll jump in right into all the fun questions we have for you.

Okay, thanks.

Okay, Lindsay Proctor, LCSW, is the founder and executive director of Serenity Recovery and Wellness. Lindsay has worked with women in many different capacities all throughout her career as a social worker.

While working with women, Lindsay saw a specific need to help moms that were pregnant and postpartum with their mental health. Lindsay’s program is designed to be able to meet each client’s needs with the appropriate therapeutic support the client may need. Each client’s mental health needs are unique, so Lindsay built her program to meet each person’s needs by offering all different levels of care in different therapy settings.

Amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing. I’m so excited to dive into these questions. So right off the bat, what made you decide to be a social worker and get into mental health within this realm of pregnancy postpartum?

Yeah, well, thank you for having me.

This is exciting. I’m glad you’re doing this. Well, so I think, you know, mental health was always a, I was drawn to it.

A lot of times, I think it’s typical to have this field introduced to you, maybe by like a personal experience or like a family experience that you experienced. And I, you know, I was first introduced to a through the experience of my brother and him going through recovery. And I loved how they helped him and, you know, seeing his journey through life and just such a major impact that therapists had on his life was huge.

But I think specifically for maternal mental health was a lot due to my own experience with having children. And, you know, I don’t speak widely about it just because I like the focus to be on clients. But of course, I think a lot of us in this specific field with maternal mental health has some personal experience.

And it was on my second child that I, it had started to be introduced to us. And I was working in a hospital setting. And I had him, he was probably almost a year old.

And I had watched a documentary with some of my my co workers. And it was very like, Oh, wow, I think that this is what I was maybe experiencing. And it was I was really relating to it.

And at that point had, you know, probably didn’t experience a lot of support through that time through the healthcare system. And just kind of white knuckled it myself, you know, and probably didn’t create probably came about about because I’m a therapist, and you’re just like, you should know these things a little bit, right. But it was very eye opening, not only for my personal experience, but also how we were not treating them well in the hospital setting specific to the hospital I was working out.

But just kind of across the country. You know, I know in in on our floor, we wouldn’t allow them to nurse, it actually is kind of mortifying for me to think back on this experience when I was working there. I mean, it was, it was probably about nine years ago.

And we wouldn’t let them nurse, we wouldn’t let the babies come onto the floor. Just very different than how we do it now. But they had given me an opportunity to kind of help grow their maternal mental health kind of programming.

And I did that for about a year and a half. And then, you know, kind of wanted to step aside and do something a little bit more focused on how I would want my experience as a mom to look like in that setting. And I really just wanted a center that like had a kitchen full of food and, and chairs that were comfortable, not because the hospital wasn’t willing to do that, but they’re just really limited in what they can do, just because, you know, kind of the things oversee them.

And, and so it just really felt like it was a good setting outside of a hospital, where I could bring in baby chairs, and they’re so worried about contamination and cloth. And, you know, and I didn’t, you know, not that we don’t keep, we keep it clean, but I didn’t have to be held down by some of those things. Yes, I really wanted a husband component to it and that individual therapy component to it.

And just the restrictions in that setting wouldn’t allow it. And so that is where I kind of segued and decided I wanted to go about this, how I wanted it to look and, and what I would want as a mom. So it’s always personal story, right? Like that’s the story.

And you probably don’t know this. I don’t know if you know this about me or not. But that’s like where reborn came out of too, is like, I had mental health issues postpartum with my first with anxiety depression.

And I was like, I have to do something like that. And so that catapulted and shifted my career to go into pelvic health and like, be part of that and be part of that change. So like, it’s always personal, right?

Yes, especially, I think, specific to this, I think, you know, it just like sparks a little thing underneath you.

This isn’t, you know, like lights a fire and you’re like, righteously angry. So that was me anyway. I didn’t know that.
Yeah. Okay. So what makes you different? What makes you and your company different in the way you do things?

Sure. We are unique in the way that we only treat maternal mental health. So we only treat women who are, you know, we’ve kind of come out of it a little bit, but we really were specific to that pregnancy and postpartum period. And, and, you know, we go pretty far in the postpartum period, you know, two, three years.

Yeah. We really try and accommodate. But we’re unique in that, that is all we see.

So we’re not, all the therapists are very trained and it’s, it’s very interesting to see when you work in something every single day, and it’s kind of always what’s on your mind. I really love that we, we kind of can key in on such a specific population. And I think it really helps with just our knowledge and, and knowing how to treat moms and making sure that we’re giving them the best care.

And, and I think that that’s really kind of what sets us apart is that we just were, we’re really keyed in on just working with moms and those issues that come along, you know, and it’s still a diverse amount of mental health issues, but that’s, that’s our area of focus, you know, and then we also have these different levels of care that are just beautiful and necessary for sometimes, you know, it’s not enough to come in just once a week or every other week, and we need more support. And so we offer that mom group setting where they can come in and be with other moms and it’s multiple times a week and they bring their babies and we have childcare and, and that just kind of what makes us unique. That’s not, you know, that’s not a requirement for our program.

We have, you know, the lower level where you can come in once a week, but there’s something really powerful about sitting with a mom who’s currently going through it and, and to feel really supported outside of just a therapist, you know, not that we’re not capable of supporting them, we are, but there’s just something really powerful.

Awesome. Okay. Who is an ideal fit for you? Obviously pregnancy postpartum moms. Is there any more specific things within that?

Oh, no. I mean that, that is really kind of our niche and we, we deal with the wide range of what comes up during that perinatal period.

And we do, we focus just on, we, the mom program, we have kind of two tracks. We have a general perinatal mental health group, and then we also have a really niche OCD and anxiety piece as well. And that’s, that’s a newer program to us.

It’s, it’s, we’ll be almost two years here in a few months. But that program is so awesome. I think we really saw a need to come out of, we were just doing the general piece and Ooh, this isn’t, this isn’t maybe what it needs to do with some of these, this more severe anxiety and OCD.

And, and so we, we broke them apart and it’s been really great.

So that’s awesome. I’m glad you touched on that, that extra program that you have.

Hey, what does the process look like to work with you? If we have patients or anyone who’s watching this, or they have a friend or family member that are like, Oh my gosh, wow. Like how do I get them to see you guys?

Yeah, they they’re welcome to give us a call just at our front desk and I can provide that for you afterwards if that’s easier. But also we get a lot of referrals from their doctors.

We have really good relationships in the community. But we’re, we’re definitely getting a lot more word of mouth and just calling us and getting that appointment set. It’s really helpful for us to know like, Hey, that mom program sounds amazing.

Or individual sounds, you know, if we, you’re not always going to know, and the therapist will help you with that as well. But if you do know, that can give us an idea of also who to place you with. But calling us, you can contact us through social media, get that a little bit.

And we also have a website where you can message us. So all of those things, it’s pretty easy to get into us.

Great. Awesome. Okay. What does recovery look like? And especially within like your realm and your service line of like perinatal mental health area, like just dive into that, whatever that means to you.

Well, I, I think of it more logically and like, what would our programming look like? And I can go over that or I can look at just, I can talk to you about like the process. Okay. A little bit of both.

I want a little, little slice of each. Well, I think of like the recovery and the treatment piece, which is the most important to us is, you know, we always like clients to remember that it’s not linear. You know, it does have, it’s, it’s ups and downs and, and we really try and come with a very holding perspective and validating where we’re not going to approach it.

And like you should exercise a little bit more, or you should be getting ready every morning. You know, a lot of times they’re getting that feedback from the people in their lives and it’s not ill intention necessarily. Right.

But we like to come in very much from a perspective of we’re here to support you and maybe lean you in those directions if that’s what you want to do. Right. And, but we’re going to, we’re going to hold you and support you through that.

And we also really try and bring on like a, oh, you know, other specialties and professions like yourself and Betty and bringing in those services or bringing in med management and coordinating with those other providers. And we have some good relationships with some, you know, psychiatric nurse practitioners and some psychiatrists and just making sure that component is there as well. Obviously that’s not a requirement for us either, but we do like to make sure that we’re kind of versed in how we get you access to those services.

And then our mom program, it’s, it’s about 10 to 12 weeks. I feel like I say that, but I don’t have many that finish before 12 weeks. Because the program becomes quite loved and I love this environment.

I feel supported. It becomes part of their kind of routine during that time. So most do finish out at 12 weeks.

They’ll, they’ll come three days a week. Well, it’s actually four days a week. So it’s three days during the day.

And then there’s a like a spouse program at night. And then they get an individual therapy session on top of it. It sounds hefty.
And I usually get a very like, you want me to do what, you know, and it is amazing how it just fits in and is so lovely. And the whole, yeah, the whole environment is lovely. You know, it’s chaos and kids are there, but we love it.

So it really kind of fits in once they kind of get over the hump of like, Oh, that’s a, that’s a commitment, you know? Right. Yeah. There’s no right or wrong answer here.

What’s something that most people don’t know that you think that they should know about either mental health or what you do or anything, any nugget that you can share with us?

Yeah. I think there’s still a pretty large understanding, misunderstanding of what like postpartum depression is. It’s gotten a lot better, right.

But often we’re not incredibly concerned about the safety of the baby. You know, the babies are usually like coming in and pristine care, right. And the mom is struggling.

And so that’s still kind of a misconception and some fear regarding that. And that’s just not our approach. And that’s what’s so nice about having someone trained in maternal mental health is we know where to kind of look and key in on what’s really kind of going on.

Something regarding our program is we offer childcare and that’s usually a really unique piece to us. So for that mom program, your older children can come up to five years old. We actually just kind of developed a little like learning program for them in there where they’re doing little crafts and singing.

And it’s been, it’s been really nice, but that sometimes goes under, that goes unseen about us. And it’s, it’s a pretty big deal in breaking down some of those barriers to care. Absolutely.

That’s great. That’s great. Okay.

Is there anything special you want to promote or any groups you have going on or educational things or anything at all?

Oh, we don’t currently have any like new groups going on. We probably will in the new year. Um, but, Oh, I think no, nothing new.

It’s not normal, normal, right? But we, we have availability for our mom program and there are, our OCD one gets pretty full, um, where sometimes there can be a little bit of a waiting list, but we really try to do our best. And if you are needing in need of urgent care, um, we will figure it out. Awesome.

Okay. Last question. My favorite question to ask is what do you want to be known for? That’s loaded.

I know, you know, I think, I think overall for the program, probably that we, we really care about the recovery of the mom. It really is just such pre the priority to the program. Um, I will always break down so many barriers to make sure our mom is taken care of, whether that’s, you know, finances are such a huge piece and we really try to figure that out for you and make sure insurance is involved.

We will advocate for you. And I think, I think personally, and as a program, I always want to be seen that I value the care over everything. And I think it’s, it’s why I’ve probably been around for, it will almost be eight years here and why the program has been successful because, you know, as much as like it’s a business and it needs to run, I, I just, that stuff comes second to making sure those moms get better.

And I think that it’s just important to stay focused in them. Awesome. Awesome.

Okay. Where can we find you? Website, social media, all the things. Yeah.

So, um, we’re low. We have a location in Riverton in Provo. Um, the best, our Instagram is so lovely.

One of our therapists, her name is Morgan runs it and is it’s so good. I read it sometimes. I’m just like, this is so amazing.

This is what I needed today.

Um, but I think my Instagram handle is, I think at serenity recovery wellness. It’s pretty easy to find us.

And then my website is serenity rw.com. And then to give us a call call our main office, which is

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Amazing. Thank you so much, Lindsay, for coming on our spotlight series.

This has been great to dive into some of these amazing things that you have going on. And thank you so much for the awesome stuff that you do to serve our community here in Utah.

Thank you so much.