Dr. Jennifer Hatchett Stover, a licensed professional counselor, nationally certified counselor, certified school counselor, and registered yoga teacher, is here for the culture making sure Black people, especially youth, receive the mental health support needed for the ongoing traumas befalling Blacks.
With a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and a master’s degree in teaching education from Texas Woman’s University, Hatchett Stover went on to earn her master’s degree in counseling from Prairie View A&M University and a doctorate in counselor education and supervision from Sam Houston State University.
Hatchett Stover brings with her more than 17 years of service in public education supporting the mental health and crisis needs of students and families. She also has experience as a clinician and specializes in working with adolescents and young adults, with an emphasis on trauma, behavior, and multicultural issues.
The Defender spoke with Hatchett Stover, owner of Counseling in Color, about her dedication to serving her community, and sharing knowledge and tools to empower healing, wellness, and success for others.
DEFENDER: Counseling in color. What’s up with the name?
HATCHETT STOVER: One of the trainings I went to as a nationally certified counselor, talked about reaching different marginalized populations outside of the traditional counseling setting. So, what I wanted to create was counseling in a different or outside the norm capacity. I try to incorporate different types of healing practices that are authentic to a lot of cultures, specifically my culture and the African American community, and wanted it to be non-restrictive. Many times we go to counselors and we think about this therapy box. And I really wanted to reach communities and think outside the box. So, within my practice we do yoga, we incorporate other types of healing practices, and spirituality. I didn’t want it to be this bland experience. So, that’s where color came from. I wanted to do it in living color, but that name was already taken.
DEFENDER: Can you speak to the importance of the mind, body, and spirit health dynamic?
HATCHETT STOVER: I’m a survivor of trauma and one of the things that I have learned is that trauma does a lot of damage to the body, specifically the vagus nerve. One of the things we have done first centuries ago is work on healing the spirit, the mind, and the body. So, yoga for me incorporates all of that. And it is very important to heal the body as well as the mind, and of course, we also know the spirit. One of my clients actually said we can do a whole lot of relaxation. We go to spas and that helps the body relax. But what we need is rest. And in order for us to be at rest, the body needs to be at rest, the spirit needs to be at rest, and the mind needs to be at rest. Mindfulness practices and yoga practice help us learn how to rest our body, how to get your body to regulate on its own without it feeling dysregulated. Your heart rate is going a hundred miles an hour, your blood pressure, all of those things are affected and can be affected by trauma. So, it’s really important to incorporate some of those practices that actually reverse some of the damage that has been caused through generations of experiences within the community.
DEFENDER: Why is supporting the mental health and crisis needs of students and families so important, especially today?
HATCHETT STOVER: There’s so much that is changing in our world right now. And then just access is limited. But thinking about students and families, not just Black people or marginalized populations, but our world is in crisis. Thinking about what we’ve been exposed to over the last, I would say 10 years, has been just not phenomenal in a great way. It’s impacted our societies, our children, our parents, social media. There’s so much rupture happening within our world right now that mental health crisis work is beyond necessary.
DEFENDER: What is it about you that said, I need to do this heavy lift and focus on trauma and these multicultural issues?
HATCHETT STOVER: There’s not a whole lot of people that look like me that are working with trauma. And if I can go back to my experiences through childhood, there wasn’t a Black counselor, even a high school counselor. I didn’t meet a Black teacher until high school. It’s necessary for our kids, and our families, to hear to be educated by people that look like them. And that is probably the main reason why I do what I do: to help people like my mom, to help people like my family, my cousins, siblings, etc.
