Tina Kinnan

About Tina:

Hi, My name is Tina Kinnan. I am the owner of Simply Teens Outpatient, a licensed clinical mental health counselor supervisor (LCMHC-S) and a certified trauma and resilience practitioner (CTRP-C). 

The beginning….

I started my counseling career while in graduate school in January of 2002. I worked at a teen substance abuse treatment center in Hamilton, OH. My job was to follow each teen from residential to IOP and out into the community. I loved it. I usually worked with teens for about 6-8 months and really got to know them and what tools were effective for them in both maintaining sobriety and their mental health. I got an inside look at the workings of higher levels of care and the juvenile justice system. 

After receiving my masters in rehabilitation counseling: chemical dependency with the Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counseling (LCMHC) track, I began working with a community mental health agency in the county schools in the Dayton area with 5-8th grade. I intimately learned the workings of public school and separate facilities. I became familiar with IEP, 401 plans, and how to advocate for my young clients. 

During the summers, I would help facilitate a summer program for kids who were receiving case management at the agency. I would run 6- three hour groups a week and go on field trips. This gave me a lot of experience with younger kids and skills to manage kids both in group settings and also having 40 at risk kids out in public. 

In 2011 I made the transition to private practice. It was a drastic change from community mental health. I missed many of my school clients, and I was excited to practice with a wider variety of clients. I got a whole new set of skills in private practice. I treated families and kids as young as two years old and got the opportunity to work with adults (which I really enjoyed) and added in more of a family component with the pre/teens I got to meet. 

In 2014 I made the decision to move to NC from Ohio and picked up my practice and moved. Although it was scary to move, it was worth it. I feel so fortunate to be in such a great area and live where people actually want to be(no one gets excited about going on vacation to Dayton, OH). It took a while to get my license transferred over to NC from Ohio and I got a much needed break in that time period. 

I hit the ground running once I was paneled with insurance and got full enough that my dream of starting a group practice could come into play. I hired my first person in 2016. We officially changed out name to Simply Thrive Therapeutic Associates in 2017 and have grown from just the two of us to now over 25 therapists .

And I am a parent….

After having my kids, twin boys Archer and Rowan in 2016, I got a dose of how hard parenting really is. It is really easy as a parent to become overwhelmed both physically and emotionally when you have kids of any age. It is easy to get stuck in their stuff or be so overworked that you lose touch with each other. And how easy the power struggle can be to get into. I have had to do my own personal work to learn to keep myself regulated when I am upset so I can teach them when they get upset. I think parenting is the hardest job I’ve ever had (followed by a close second to billing at Simply Teens).

A great idea…..

While I was working on the group practice, the one thing I noticed in the area was the big gap in care for teens. THere is support on the outpatient level and there is hospitalization. There is not a lot of support between these extremes. Click here for our full story.

I thought I would casually start an IOP (and naively how easy it would be) for teens to fix this gap in care. When the pandemic hit, we all went home and I had time to work first on the curriculum and getting the training we needed to ensure we are trained so we are able to treat people the best way possible.What I found was the nervous system was the place to start. Click here for information on our program.

Then Sharon, our director of operations at Simply Thrive and I started our journey to acquire state licensure.I will tell you it has been a journey!!! For us it has been incredibly helpful to have the guidance of the state (and now CARF). We can confidently say that we have an environment of safety for our teens and their families. Our building is educationally rated to ensure safety. It is inspected frequently. We have policies and procedures to ensure that we are doing our job to the best of our abilities

August 2022 we had our CARF surveyor assess us for accreditation with their program. The reason we need CARF is to accept most insurances, and it holds us to the highest standards. CARF and Simply Teens, I have learned through this process, have a lot in common. We strive to do our best and consistently learn from situations as they come up. With CARF and state, we have a plan for most situations. For more information on CARF and State, click here.

Coming full circle….

Over the last 20 years, my experience has led me to be able to create and nurture this program to help eliminate barriers for quality mental health. My experiences have created an environment of support for teens and their families to help alleviate teen challenges at the core.

Although it came from one person’s idea, it has turned into the passion of a team. We have a team of interns, therapists and a  clinical director who are passionate about Teens.