Exploring Life & Business with Jen Burke of Rise Wellness Collaborative & Bloom and Rise

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jen Burke

Hi Jen , we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My career trajectory has been fairly windy, with a stint as a lawyer prior to moving into clinical social work. However, the tie through all of my career changes has been working with and advocating for children and families. Now, I work as a perinatal and infant mental health therapist. I met Aimee, a perinatal mental health therapist, several years ago while we worked together at a therapy practice in Ann Arbor. During Covid, Aimee and I decided to create our own business — Rise Wellness Collaborative, a comprehensive and collaborative mental health therapy practice situated in the Saline/Ann Arbor, Michigan area. The primary focus of Rise is addressing an often-neglected aspect of mental health—supporting pregnant women, new mothers, infants, and young children. Since 2021, when we opened, we’ve expanded to include 5 other therapists who provide therapy to a range of clients throughout the lifespan, allowing our practice to provide comprehensive support for families.

Two years after launching Rise Wellness Collaborative, Aimee and I also launched Bloom and Rise, a company that provides one-time and subscription boxes to support moms during the postpartum period and encourage development for babies during the first year of life. All of our boxes come with mental health resources crafted by us to provide support during this transitional period in life.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Yes and no! Launching our own business was a surprisingly smooth process but expanding our practice has included some growing pains, as we’ve navigated hiring, managing, and clinical work at the same time. Multitasking while also ensuring high-quality services and a supportive work environment for our employees has been rewarding, but also hard work. Launching our second business has also created lots of challenges as sales is new for both Aimee and I, but we strongly believe in getting support and community to as many moms and families as possible. That’s why we also have a community gifting station at Rise that provides formula, clothes, and other essentials for moms and babies in our community.

We’ve been impressed with Rise Wellness Collaborative & Bloom and Rise, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Rise Wellness Collaborative strives to provide an empathetic, transparent, and compassionate therapeutic environment for our clients. We work to celebrate differences and promote holistic wellbeing, through therapy, educational consultation and advocacy. We also provide community support, including our gifting station.

We specialize in perinatal, infant and early childhood therapy but we have expanded over time to include clinicians who work with populations across the lifespan in order to better meet the needs of our family and community. We pride ourselves on fostering an environment that is inclusive and supportive to all members of the community.

We know that finding mental health therapy can be a challenge for so many, and we try to set ourselves apart by providing personalizes services and referrals to clients. We want to remove the barriers to access needed services as much as possible. This is also what inspired us to launch Bloom and Rise – a way that we could show support to moms and babies outside of our therapy office.

Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
People can always support our mission by donating to our community gifting station. We also love to collaborate with other professionals, like speech therapists, occupational therapists, teachers, and doctors (among others) in order to provide the most holistic services to our clients and remove barriers to interdisciplinary care. We also collaborate with people via social media, particularly through our Bloom and Rise platform, to expand awareness of perinatal and infant mental health and build community across the US.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.risewellnesscollaborative.com and bloom-and-rise.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/risewellnesscollaborative and instagram.com/bloom.and.rise