EXCHANGE: Harmony Center offers support to Rockford LGBTs

Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

ROCKFORD, Ill. (AP) — In a residential yellow house with raspberry trim, the Harmony Center for Holistic Psychotherapy is helping fill a gap in mental health and social services of the Rock River Valley.

The center, which also offers the Spectrum of Rockford LGBT program, provides support and counseling for individuals, families, couples and groups — including those who identify as LGBT, also known as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.

It is staffed by Lisa Breisch and her wife, Kristy, who are bisexual women; Glenn Sample, a gay man; Diane Johns-Meyer, a lesbian woman; and Alessa Rosati and Tiffany Scott who are straight women.

Breisch and her team of counselors opened the Harmony Center in 2007.

"Rockford is 20 years behind the times," Breisch said. "I'm dedicated to the area of LGBT counseling because I've gone through my own struggles and I understand that it's really hard. Especially out here."

Breisch studied at the University of Illinois in Chicago and earned her doctorate in psychology at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology. In 1999, she moved to Rockford to intern at the Janet Wattles Center (now Rosecrance Rehabilitation Center), a community mental health organization.

"At that time, there was an organization called Diversity of Rockford," she said. "But it closed in 2007. They lost their money because there were a lot of funding cuts for mental health agencies in Illinois at that time."

Diversity of Rockford is one of numerous Rockford organizations for LGBT people that have folded over the years. Rockford PFLAG, which stands for Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, a free and volunteer-led group has faded as well. And when the organizers of Rockford PrideFest moved to a different state, no one took over.

Breisch has tried to connect with student groups at local high schools and at Rock Valley College, but she said leadership changes hands too often for consistent support.

"We work with other organizations like Equality Illinois, and a couple of other groups that are trying to form to get the ball rolling," Breisch said.

The center runs some small groups such as the Lesbian Women's Group, the LGBT Teens Group, the LGBT Grief Group and the LGBT Over 55 Group for $15 per session. The Gay Men's Group had its first meeting on July 21.

There are churches in the area that support LGBT rights. Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Rockford is led by a lesbian pastor. It offers a gay men's support group and a women's group. And Spring Creek United Church of Christ in Rockford has hosted LGBT events, including a chili supper.

Counselors at Harmony are committed to helping clients regardless of their spiritual beliefs.

"We don't have a gay flag flowing in front of the building," Breisch said. "We purposely try to be more discreet so that people who are newly coming out aren't going to feel like, 'Oh, you go to that place? That means you're gay.' "

Johns-Meyer, a 62-year-old self-proclaimed "rabid feminist" and graduate of Northern Illinois University with a master's in counseling, wishes the LGBT community in the Rockford region was better organized.

"I have a client from Savanna, and they drive almost two hours to get here," she said. "I had a client come from Island Lake, a couple from the Janesville (Wisconsin) area and some from Rock Falls. Outside of Chicago, I think we're kind of it."

Although the center does not currently have enough space for meetups, Johns-Meyer is working with her fellow counselors to round up volunteers to help clean the basement, which will provide a venue for events. Once completed, she hopes to teach English and Scottish country dancing. Traditionally, these are social dances in which couples dance together in a man-woman pair, but in Johns-Meyer's vision, pairs of any gender will be encouraged.

"It would be wonderful for LGBT groups to do it," she said. "That's kind of my goal, my dream."

Sample, 41, is a graduate of the American School of Professional Psychology in California with a doctorate in clinical psychology. He feels there's "a lot of segregation, a lot of racism, bigotry, one-sided opinions, not a lot of openness" in Rockford when it comes to the LGBT community.

Rosati, 31, is the intern. She graduated from Northeastern University with a bachelor's in psychology. She is a graduate student at the Adler School of Professional Psychotherapy in Chicago, working to complete her master's in couples and family therapy. She commutes to the center from Barrington every day.

"I wanted to work with clientele that identify as LGBT and learn more about that, and be able to help them with couples issues and family issues," Rosati said. "Here, I've noticed very little openness to a lot of things — race, sexual identity, that kind of thing."

Rosati co-leads some groups, such as the Gay Men's Group and the Gender Diversity Group, and hopes to lead the LGBT Teens Group in the future. In about four months, she will counsel individual clients as an intern therapist.

Scott, 29, is the receptionist. She started working at the center in June.

"My friends call me the 'rainbow warrior,' " she said. "I'm uber supportive and an ally."

Born and raised in Rockford, Scott is in her final semester at Rock Valley College and will then attend Rockford University. She would like to take gender studies courses, which Rock Valley does not offer.

"I'm that nice little friendly face to welcome them in," she said. "Especially if they're dealing with something bad, they're anxious, I give them a nice big 'Hi! Welcome!' and that relaxes them a bit."

"We're all human," she said. "Life's too short. Enough with the hate. Just let people love who they love, let them be happy."