New downtown business expected to open by February

RED OAK — A new downtown Red Oak business providing counseling services to families will be opening in late January or early February.

Karen Rodriguez, director and owner of Healthy Homes Family Services, says the company’s initial purpose was to provide outpatient services to children with a mental health diagnosis.

“Our goal is to keep kids in the home and mainstream school and out of long term treatment centers and group homes,” Rodriguez said.

For example, Rodriguez said her staff can help a child and their parents work through issues in between in office visit to psychologists or therapists.

“If you go to see a therapist for depression, you have a therapy session to deal with the depression, but the therapist tells you I want you to do ABC assignment before your next session,” she said. “We help you work through that in the home setting.”

Founded in 2006, the Avoca-based company also has a satellite office in Grinnell, and has since expanded its services, including family mediation.

“When a family is going through a divorce and a custody in the legal process, that legal process can leave the family in worse situation than before the family goes to court,” Rodriguez said.

As a result, families are required to go through a third party mediation to work out issues before stepping inside a courtroom.

“The neutral third party is trained to help two parents come together and mediate out a parenting plan that is in the best interest of the child and works best for them and helps transition them from being a married couple that doesn’t get along to separate parents who are co-parenting the children they have,” Rodriguez explained.

Other services offered by the company include anger management courses, family team meetings and group therapy.

The business will be located at 206 E. Reed, a building owned by Earl and Cynthia Bangston. It is currently being remodeled and once the work is completed, Rodriguez expects to open soon thereafter.

“We are planning on having an open house in the February time frame,” she said.

She said they started looking at a third office in September.

“We are very excited about coming to Red Oak,” Rodriguez said. “The reaction was so pleasant to bringing a business to town. We felt the town was going to be real supportive and helpful.”

She said that hasn’t been the case in every town she considered.

“Instead of looking at us a source of new jobs and bringing in new business, it was more like ‘how much can we get out of the folks.’”

And while Rodriguez has no plans of closing the Grinnell or Avoca offices, she half expects Red Oak’s to become the busiest.

“Based on conversations we have had on referral sources down there, we anticipate being more busy there than in our main office,” she said.

Initially, the company will employ about 5 licensed therapists, but Rodriguez expects to expand soon, including hiring front office staff.