Meet Ali Schroer | LCSW, Founder & Executive Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Ali Schroer and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ali, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
When I look at the mental health landscape, I found that so many supports are on the reactive side of well-being. The response and reactive side to mental health is incredibly necessary as people face challenges, and is why I still have my private practice to support children and families at Schroer Counseling and Consulting. The proactive side of mental health, however, is a bit novel. I looked at my own private practice and thought, “there has to be a better way to get ahead of some of this. Can we arm people sooner with ways to support their own mental health and well-being using evidence-based practices and research?” That question led me to start Mental Scope Consulting.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Mental Scope Consulting is a corporate well-being consulting firm that focuses on using evidence-based therapeutic practices to provide proactive and reactive mental health support. We do this by partnering directly with the organization or law firm to ensure that our strategies and support align with the culture and demands of each organization. So far, I’m still yet to find another well-being or mental health firm like Mental Scope that uses both a tailored approach and works directly with the leaders or executive teams to ensure they have the skills they need. Well-being is a tricky space for many corporations because there is a dotted line (rather than a solid line) to retention, creativity, productivity, and the bottom line. What we continue to learn, however, is that the impact of that dotted line is huge and has a ripple effect throughout an organization.

When I started Mental Scope Consulting, I was honestly thinking it would just be an arm of my private practice here in the Denver area. Schroer Counseling and Consulting (the private practice I run) has always done workshops and trainings on mental health. When COVID hit, however, I was getting asked from all over the country about providing employees and professionals with mental health trainings and workshops. When the trend continued, I realized that my private practice would stay local while I would expand Mental Scope. It sounds silly but using research-backed strategies to apply to an organization just made sense to me – I really didn’t realize it was a novel concept until a year into my work with Mental Scope and companies kept asking for more and more of what we do. In that sense, I guess it was easy to start, but the road hasn’t been without its bumps. There is a layer of education that goes with understanding well-being in business and buy-in has its challenges. When I get the opportunity, I usually tell leaders that it is my job to take care of the minds of their colleagues/teams so that they can better attend to their work/clients – that usually helps! It also isn’t easy to balance being an entrepreneur of two companies and having a family with two young kids. I love being a parent and so finding the harmony between working and parenting, not to mention spending time with my awesome husband, isn’t always easy to do.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Denver has so many fun things to do! I love exploring the city so we would certainly try to scope out some new places Sunday – Go for a walk/run in Wash Park and stop by Wash Perk coffee shop for a snack and latte. Cruise around S. Pearl and Gaylord and have an early-ish dinner at Wash Park Grill.

Monday – Go for a local hike in the morning (The Bluffs maybe in Lone Tree), and pick up a Corvus Coffee. Head to Cherry Creek North for the afternoon after getting cleaned up and shop the mall and area for some good things – and for sure stop at Bonnie Brae ice cream for a snack to ensure the kids are still happy to!

Tuesday – Take. a roadtrip up to Evergreen for some great hiking and small town feel. Go to Evergreen Lake. Get back in time to see a show at the DCPA and grab a glass of wine and some dinner close by.

Wednesday – Enjoy a low key morning with coffee from LOST coffee in Littleton and then to go Woodhouse Day Spa for a day of relaxation. Make an easy dinner from Trader Joe’s or grab a pizza from Sazza in Greenwood Village.

Thursday – Catch a Rockies game (love them, even if they aren’t great this year) and get a Helton burger at the stadium. Grab some local beers at a few breweries to do a pub crawl.

Friday & Saturday – Head up to Winter Park and Granby area for some more hiking and paddle boarding on Lake Granby with the family. Grab a coffee at Rocky Mountain Roastery and if we can sneak it in, maybe a horseback ride too. Eat dinner at Brickhouse 40 in Granby.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
From the beginning of my career as a therapist, I have had two mentors that have been instrumental in my success. The first is my mom and fellow therapist, Dr. Suzie Lewis. My mom not only raised me to think of things from an emotional lens myself, but as a professional mentored me in fine-tuning my therapeutic skills and ensuring I stay up on evidence-based practices. The second mentor is Lauren Kerstein, LCSW. Lauren was a professor of mine at the University of Denver in the Graduate School of Social Work and hired me into her private practice. She has been a resource, friend and sounding board for many years both for my professional journey and clinical support. I’m so fortunate to have them both in my corner.

Website: https://www.mentalscopeconsulting.com

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ali-schroer/