‘Bloom with Jennifer Glaser’

Highlands Resident Aims to Help Support Teens, Adults and Families Cope Through COVID-19 With Newly Opened Private Practice

By LILY TINOCO | Reporter

As a result of observing the ways the youth have suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic, Highlands resident Jennifer Glaser shared that she felt compelled to open her own practice and offer therapeutic skills to assist children and their families.

Glaser is a licensed marriage and family therapist. She started helping children and adolescents in 2002, providing counseling for elementary, middle and high school students throughout Los Angeles and San Diego.

She said she enjoys providing support for this particular age group because they are fun, interesting and rewarding to work with, as they are always evolving, transitioning and changing.

“I think it’s an opportunity to provide coping skills and a foundation that they can take with them into adulthood,” Glaser said to the Palisadian-Post. “That was really important to me—helping provide those skills to help them succeed mentally and emotionally into adulthood.”

But she said the COVID-19 pandemic introduced a new set of challenges. She was not particularly planning on opening her private practice on this timeline, but what influenced Glaser to make the decision was seeing the impact of the pandemic on her three children and the people around her.

“Our youth are struggling during the pandemic with social isolation, lack of motivation, depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, excessive video game and social media use, Zoom burnout, and loneliness,” Glaser shared. “I just saw such a great impact on our youth by … this new unprecedented situation, and it really inspired me to open up and try to help, and provide assistance and support.”

Glaser said she made the decision to open her practice in November, but wanted to wait until she was fully vaccinated to help individuals in person. She officially opened her practice in February of this year, is fully vaccinated and open to seeing individuals.

In order to help keep people comfortable, Glaser added she would be happy to go on a beach walk or meet individuals in the park as alternative ways to meet with them and be outdoors.

She said it is vital to offer the youth a safe, contained space to express their emotions and feelings outside of their regular environment during this time period “when many of their support systems are not currently available that they normally would have by attending school in person or from a more regular situation.”

“We have to evolve and create new ways of coping since our existing ways aren’t necessarily accessible,” she shared. “Reaching out for help during this time is courageous, and therapy can provide a safe outlet to express emotions and feelings that act as barriers to success, improve coping skills and develop strategies for resilience and confidence.

“Therapy can also provide support for students and families that will be faced with issues pertaining to re-acclimating and adjusting to in-person schooling.”

Her final words of advice to others during this time period are to be kind to yourself.

“Understand we are experiencing unprecedented circumstances and many of us are having to take on multiple new roles,” Glaser concluded. “It’s best not to add more to your plate, just focus on what’s most important and be OK with not sweating the small stuff.”

For more information or to reach Glaser, visit bloomwithjennifer.com.