Welcome back to The Scaling Therapy Practice with James Marland! In this episode, James interviews a special guest, Leo Debroeck, who shares valuable insights about the Counselor's Choice Award and other effective ways to scale your therapy practice. Get ready to learn about making your practice more distinguished, increasing revenue through continuing education courses, and the importance of taking action.

Leo DeBroeck is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Child Mental Health Specialist in Washington State. He is the president and founder of Counselor's Choice Award, LLC which reviews and promotes scientifically validated counseling products, therapeutic tools, and books. He has written several children's therapy books, which are self-published and available on Amazon.com, for use in therapy settings addressing grief, self-confidence, addiction, neglect, abuse, and others. He also has a difficult time summarizing himself in 3-5 sentences for James to read as an introduction.

Leo Debroeck started the Counselor's Choice Award after realizing that he can be the one to make a difference in the field of therapy. He explains, "There's always somebody saying, 'Oh, somebody should go take care of that. Somebody should write therapy books.' I said, 'Yeah, somebody' and then I started doing it. Now I'm seven books later."

Leo and his coworkers saw a need for an improved system to vet therapy tools and products, so they created the Counselor's Choice Award. Their goal is to ensure that all products and tools advertised are legitimate and reviewed by licensed mental health therapists. Leo explains, "We base all of our work on the scientific model, like how an academic journal peer-review works."

The Counselor's Choice Award offers three major ways to help therapists scale their practice:

Therapists can submit their therapy products, books, or tools for review, and if approved, receive the Counselor's Choice Award logo to showcase their recognition. Leo emphasizes, "We want to recognize therapists who are running a good practice and meeting certain standards."

Leo and his team have started offering free continuing education credits for approved courses. This enables therapists to create online courses, which can be an additional revenue stream and allow them to share their expertise with a broader audience.

The Counselor's Choice Award can help private practices and group practices become more distinguished and reputable by meeting specific criteria. This recognition can attract more clients and therapists to join their team.

Leo advises therapists not to wait for someone else to take action. He shares, "If you're trying to grow your practice, I'm a therapist looking at what place to join after I've gotten my license. I'm gonna be looking for one that's also more distinguished, one that's got some kind of recognition besides just that we're licensed."