Mental health resource clinic expands into new Eau Claire-based facility

Rachel Kroeger

Staff

February 17, 2025

EAU CLAIRE – A husband-and-wife business-partner duo is excited to welcome their patients to the new Northern Woods Wellness LLC location at 1235 Menomonie St., Suite A in Eau Claire.

Timothy and Kali Foster – co-owners of Northern Woods Wellness (NWW) – said after opening their holistic mental health clinic in 2024, they outgrew their first location very quickly.

The couple said the need for mental health care in the Chippewa Valley was so great that by the end of their first year, the practice already required more providers.

“We opened up a little, one-office space in January 2024, and by the end of the year, we were already needing to bring on a colleague that Timothy had worked with before,” Kali said.

Timothy, a practicing outpatient therapist of roughly eight years, said after school, he moved to Madison with Kali and began searching for jobs – a more difficult task than he expected.

“It was just very hard to find a job for a young professional coming out into the mental health field,” he said. “It kind of got me thinking, too, just throughout the years as I was getting my license, that the training in our field for young counselors is not good, and I really wanted to be a part of changing that.”

Pre-COVID-19, Timothy said there was “minimal opportunity for anyone who’s a master’s-level clinician to be able to work up” the chain at larger health systems to promote increased access to mental health care.

Since the pandemic, Timothy said he realized the way mental health care is provided right now is very limited – “not just for our clinicians, but also for our clients.”

This issue, he said, was compounded by health system shutdowns in the Eau Claire area and West Central Wisconsin as a whole.

“(The region) was really impacted by the Prevea and HSHS shutdown that occurred around here,” he said. “It happened to be right at the time that we just started our clinic, and I’m glad we did, because we were able to provide mental health services.”

These compounding factors, Timothy said, led not only to the creation but an expansion of Northern Woods Wellness, as he and Kali started their business to help release the stigma surrounding mental health care.

“The reason we got into it was to really make mental health more tangible,” he said. “To make it something that’s more feasible, everyday, realistic and regular.”

Timothy said in both his and Kali’s lives there’s a “history of therapy.”

“It’s definitely a personal passion,” Kali said. “I have a nonprofit background, so I was seeing the direct influence of the need even before COVID in this area. So, we’re really passionate about the community here.”

Meeting clients ‘where they’re at’

Timothy said, just like himself, every mental health professional employed by NWW “is trauma-informed.”

“We’re a very trauma-informed, experiential clinic – mindful clinic – and that was the way we started,” he said. “It is shifting as we’re adding therapists, but in general, everyone we hire is trauma-informed. They’re very real and raw. They’re very experiential in their treatment. So the goal is to get you to feel, not to avoid – and that’s where the yoga and the mindfulness and all that comes in.”

Being trauma-informed, Timothy said, involves a lot more than “slapping a sticker on your window or webpage.”

“It means everything,” he said. “It’s an understanding. It means (you have to consider) how you decorate your office, how you do all that stuff. So, that is something that we’re very cognizant of  – trauma treatment and being trauma-informed.”

Kali said adding elements like personalized yoga and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) techniques enables NWW providers “to meet clients where they’re at.”

With the clinic’s recent expansion, Kali said they’ve been able to add two additional licensed providers to Timothy’s team, a master’s-level intern and Timothy’s mom – Linda – to their staff as the new yoga instructor.

According to NWW’s website (northernwoodswellnessllc.com), Linda Foster is a “highly experienced yoga instructor,” and currently maintains certification as an E-RYT500.

Kali said Linda is also certified by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society for yoga.

“My dad has MS,” Timothy said. “So, my mom really delved into yoga when I was younger to help her cope.”

Right now, Kali said she heads NWW’s administration responsibilities while she works toward her master’s in clinical mental health counseling.

She said she also obtained a personal development coaching certificate through the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and is now providing life coaching services to NWW’s patients as well – something that wasn’t feasible until the expansion.

“I’ve been waiting for the right time to add it,” she said. “I think yoga and life coaching are the big, new, fun changes.”

Accepting insurance

Timothy said he and Kali have been waiting to add the life coaching and personalized yoga services – focusing more on mental health services until now – because of the complications of insurance.

“We do take insurance,” he said. “A lot of private practices don’t take insurance, and those other things – like what Kali is doing with life coaching and with personalized yoga – those are very, very rarely, if ever, covered by insurance. So, that’s why we focused so heavily on mental health, because there’s just such a massive demand.”

On Northern Woods Wellness’ website, a prospective patient can find a list of all coverage plans the clinic accepts – making it easy for people to know whether or not their care would be covered there.

“We’re credentialed with more than a dozen different insurance companies, and we can add more,” Kali said. “If a lot of clients start showing up with a certain (plan), we can get credentialed with them, and then the providers also sometimes do a sliding scale for cash pay, just to help that accessibility.”

Timothy said he is “very cognizant of not becoming what I worked for before” – so when it comes to patients paying out of pocket, he ensures services remain accessible by keeping them affordable.

“I’m not trying to become a place that is charging a $300 cash pay rate per session,” he said. “We charge $125 (because) we’re trying to make it accessible and affordable.”

Experiential mental health care

Kali said NWW is not your average, cookie-cutter mental health clinic – as the clinic has an “experiential focus” on care.

“It (involves) engaging the client and emphasizing their emotions, their thoughts, their behaviors… and changing your style – using different theories based on the specific client in front of you,” she said.

This, Kali said, often involves practices or techniques that may appear unusual to the more traditional mental health care professional.

“Timothy has done appointments where he’ll go for a walk with a client outside if they’re going to benefit from not being in a closed room,” she said.

Timothy said though he was a young professional in the mental health field, he noticed a lot of “green” providers “go for the cognitive behavioral approach.”

“I can give them homework and stuff, but no one ever does it,” he said. “So, what I was thinking was making it practical, and that’s where the word tangible comes in. What can we do in your therapy right now that is going to translate into your life and make it something you want to do?”

This idea of incorporating mental health care into every aspect of someone’s life, Timothy said, is what makes his treatment techniques experiential.

“It’s more about integrating and checking in on yourself and everything, rather than just behavioral, one-and-done type of stuff,” he said. “We don’t just treat the symptoms… What we do is we work on belief systems. We don’t treat how people think. We don’t treat how people behave, because who are we to say that that’s wrong? We treat how people believe, and that’s what we can change – negative core beliefs.”

‘Chippewa Valley’s No. 1 mental health resource’

Kali said on top of the work she, Timothy and their team are doing for Northern Woods Wellness’ clients, they are looking to “utilize our expertise, time and energy to be a hub for the Chippewa Valley.”

“Even if someone had a question or wanted a referral, or if we don’t provide (a service they’re looking for) – we both have a lot of connections in town, in the health industry in particular,” she said. “So, if we can’t address something, we know a clinic that does.”

Timothy said Northern Woods Wellness is also open to philanthropic opportunities in the area – wanting to give back to their community in all facets, while prioritizing their main goal of making mental health care more accessible in Wisconsin’s West Central region.

“One of my goals – that I tell all my counselors, too – is that we want to be Chippewa Valley’s No. 1 mental health resource,” he said. “And I like the word resource, because we don’t necessarily just want to be a clinic. If you’re caught and say, ‘Hey, I don’t know where to go for this,’ give us a call. We’re going to try to help you.”

For more information on Northern Woods Wellness’s staff, services and more, visit its website or find them on social media.