“Emerge” non-profit counseling center offers support to teens
CAPTION: The non-profit counseling center “Emerge” provides counseling services for Davis adolescents.
By Lauren Lee,
BlueDevilHUB.com Staff-
The Emerge Center for Social and Emotional Learning is a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing the accessibility of social and emotional services for teens in the Davis and Sacramento areas.
The organization was founded by Psychotherapist Lawrence Shwecky in 2017.
“When I came to Davis and opened up a private practice, I was interested in working with teens […] but I found there wasn’t a lot of good resources for adolescents on the social-emotional level,” Schwecky said.
Emerge focuses on providing a wide range of social and emotional support services for young people. It offers support in multiple forms such as counseling, workshops, groups, activities and mentorships.
“We have some good therapists in town but not enough of them and not enough variation in social-emotional support services. Part of my reason for starting Emerge was to develop more resources or the Davis Community,” Shwecky said.
Shwecky notes that adolescents from across the Davis region have joined Emerge since youth oriented social and emotional services like Emerge are not offered in other cities.
“For a lot of teens it’s not necessarily comfortable for them to sit in a room one on one for an hour with a therapist talking. For some teens, it’s fine, but for a lot of teens they need something else. It’s going to help them grow but won’t always look like [traditional] therapy,” Shwecky said.
The Emerge office is across the street from Davis High. However, Emerge’s services are currently offered strictly online.
Emerge offers free virtual workshops every month for teens. Upcoming events include “Family technology planning” on March 18 and “Managing academic stress” on April 22. Although Emerge is a non-profit organization, some services like therapy may be subject to charge.
Additionally, The Davis Joint Unified School District also offers social-emotional support for students in the form of counselor meetings. 24-hour support is available on Teen Line: 530-753-0797, and Crisis Text Line: Text “HOME” to 741741.
