About Us

Evolution, innovation, and implementation are concepts that navigate the story of mobile counseling in New York State.  Mental health services have long been provided in private practices, community centers, schools, agencies, medical offices, and various types of traditional clinical environments. As time progressed, so did technology and society’s ways of managing the information, help, and guidance necessary to maintain emotional and mental stability.

In 2007, Director & Founder Ward Halverson, LCSW-R, M.Ed. returned home from combat as a company commander with the 25^th Infantry Division in Afghanistan, to open a private practice. He specialized in child and family therapy and the management of defiant children. Ward began to recognize a need to connect services to individuals and families more directly and effectively. He began the design of a delivery model for counseling services that was sustainable, scalable, and specific to homes, which could connect meaningful treatment to more individuals and families at a faster pace. A hub was needed to link those in need with immediate help and support, to coordinate a distributed network of licensed mental health providers.

In November of 2016, Cornerstone Herkimer opened as a limited liability company in the village of Herkimer, New York. With the knowledge and support of colleagues in the field, social workers, and powerful insurance carriers like Fidelis Care, by May of 2017 Ward and his team finished conceptualizing a novel approach to provide mental health services in Upstate New York. Mobile counseling as a new option was created. They were on the cusp of innovation, re-engineering the delivery model of mental health services to meet modern society’s growing need for urgent help and support, with built-in flexibility and the ability to grow within a family system. Independently contracted clinicians were needed who were comfortable with autonomy and committed to the community in which they lived, could flex their schedules, and shared a desire to implement a new kind of hybrid counseling model. Providers could pick and choose modalities: in-home, in the community, local office, telehealth, or any combination best suited to a family seeking services. The team networked and recruited to turn this concept - initially an idea discussed among colleagues - into a reality.

In January of 2019, Cornerstone began to rapidly expand their eclectic delivery model of connectivity services across Upstate New York, into 10 major regions stretching over more than 25 New York counties and closely affiliated with three other parallel mobile counseling companies. The worldwide pandemic led to even-faster growth. More than ever, communities needed the flexibility of this new hybrid model. By the end of 2020, mobile counseling had grown to a network of over 300 clinicians serving communities across all of New York State, excepting New York City and Long Island. The vision had become a reality.