Today we’d like to introduce you to Jen Wewers.
Hi Jen, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I’ve always felt alive in spaces where people are navigating real life—moments of change, vulnerability, or growth. During my years in New York City, I worked as an assistant chaplain at Bellevue Hospital, taught high school at a Catholic girls’ school, and spent time in a day rehabilitation program supporting people living with severe mental illness and housing instability. Those experiences taught me a lot about listening, honoring people’s stories, and staying present when there aren’t easy answers.
Over time, my work grew into nonprofit leadership, fundraising, coaching, and even retreat facilitation. I found myself exploring themes like grief, gratitude, identity, creativity, and how people move through change in honest and hopeful ways. Looking back, much of my work has centered around being with people in seasons of change and helping create spaces where healing can take root.
In 2023, I became the Executive Director of Prairie Sky Counseling Center, a new nonprofit mental health organization in Kansas City committed to high-quality, holistic, and accessible care. We focus on care of the whole person: body, mind, spirit, and community. It feels like the place where many parts of my path – care, leadership, collaboration, and community-building – have come together.
Personally, I’m a KCK native who fell in love with New York City during grad school and stayed for 13 years before returning home nearly two decades ago. I’m a native gardener, mom to a 25-year-old son, and I live with two rescue dogs who track in mud (lots of mud), joy, and opportunities to practice humility. I try to lead the way I garden with curiosity, a sense of humor, a willingness to fail and replant, and a commitment to keep tending what matters.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I don’t think anyone’s road is truly smooth. At least not if we’re growing. In my late twenties, I studied at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Surrounded by brilliant minds, I often stayed quiet, unsure if my voice belonged in the room. My beloved professor, Dr. James Cone, challenged that silence. He urged me to speak up, to risk vulnerability, and to use my voice in pursuit of justice. That experience taught me that real growth begins in discomfort, and that courage and fear often share the same breath.
Years later, in my forties, I entered one of the hardest seasons of my life when both of my parents and my stepdaughter died within two years. Grief has a way of bringing us fully into the present. It strips away pretense and lays us bare. During that time, I kept returning to Mary Oliver’s question:
“Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
Those words became both a call and a compass. I realized I was in a job that didn’t allow me to bring all my strengths and passions together in a unifying purpose. That season of sorrow invited me to realign, to imagine work that would let me lead with authenticity and care.
Today, I see my path to Prairie Sky Counseling Center as a continuation of those lessons. Dr. Cone’s call to speak truth with courage and Mary Oliver’s invitation to live intentionally still anchor me. They remind me that healing, personal and collective, rarely happens without fear—but when we meet it with courage and compassion, growth becomes possible.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Prairie Sky Counseling Center?
Prairie Sky Counseling Center began as a shared hope held by founders Alice Carrott and Al Eidson, who believed Kansas City needed a place where people could access compassionate, high-quality mental health care, regardless of income. With the support of Village Presbyterian Church and its members, that hope became reality when we opened in the fall of 2023.
Prairie Sky is an innovative nonprofit model for community-based mental health care. We partner with diverse faith communities and nonprofits across the metro to place licensed therapists where people already live and gather—our partners provide the space, and we provide the clinicians. This approach expands access and allows us to focus on what matters most: making care truly accessible.
Our team of licensed counselors, social workers, and marriage and family therapists offer holistic and relationship-centered care for teens, adults, couples, and families. People come to us for many reasons: grief, anxiety, depression, life transitions, or simply a desire to grow in self-understanding and connection. We recognize that spirituality and religion can shape people’s lives in both supportive and painful ways, and we train our clinicians to hold that space when it’s meaningful to the client. Above all, we aim to create a place where people can show up fully as they are and be met with compassion and respect.
Those of us who live on the prairie learn to watch the sky: its ever-changing nature, how storms pass and light returns. That rhythm of change is a living metaphor for healing. Like the prairie, we believe growth happens through relationships with ourselves, others, and the wider community, where connection and possibility take root.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
For me, success at Prairie Sky means staying true to our mission. It looks like people genuinely healing, care staying financially accessible, donors inspired by the impact of their support, and our clinicians supported and energized rather than depleted.
When Prairie Sky helps build a more compassionate and connected Kansas City, that is success. We see it not just in our counseling rooms, but in the lives people carry back into their homes, workplaces, diverse faith communities, and neighborhoods. If we remain a place where clients and staff alike can grow, find belonging, and be well, then I know we are fulfilling our purpose.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.prairieskycc.org/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PrairieSkyCounseling
- LinkedIn: prairieskycounseling
- Twitter: prairieskycounseling
Image Credits
The only image credits I want to make sure are correct are the prairie photo and the headshot of our Exec Direc. The image credit for the landscape photo is Tommy Brison, Blue Springs, MO. I have added VoyageKC as a licensee for that photo and confirmed it can be used. It’s the inspiration for our brand and logo. The photo credit for the headshot photo is Joy Baker, Overland Park, KS.
