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Before she was a counselor, Dr. Kristy Burton was a law enforcement officer. She graduated from Harding University with a degree in criminal justice in 2001 and went on to spend nearly two decades as an officer and instructor with Arkansas Community Corrections and U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services. She worked with people at the lowest, hardest, and most dangerous moments of their lives.
She watched what happened when the system held people accountable without offering treatment. She watched what happened when people received treatment without accountability. And she decided, gradually and then all at once, to build something different.
From the academy to the clinic
While still in law enforcement, Kristy earned her master's in community counseling from John Brown University in 2013. She kept going. In 2023 she completed her PhD in counselor education and supervision at the University of the Cumberlands, with a specialization in addictions. Along the way she built Arkansas Counseling & Wellness Services into what it is today: a three-office clinical practice with 17 counselors and interns, a statewide telehealth footprint, and a reputation in Arkansas's clinical community for doing the hard work well.
I believe healing happens when people are met with honesty, structure, and the kind of compassion that does not flinch. Every person on our team knows that.
An integrated care model
Our practice is built around the idea that most of the people who walk through our doors are carrying more than one thing. Trauma and addiction. Anxiety and a difficult marriage. Grief and a court date. Instead of forcing clients into narrow silos, we built a team of clinicians trained across disciplines, using evidence-based modalities that can be combined to meet the complexity of real life.
Our counselors are trained in EMDR, Brainspotting, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Emotionally Focused Therapy, Motivational Interviewing, Reality Therapy, parts work, play therapy, and person-centered approaches. We match clients with the clinician whose specialty fits the situation, and we build treatment plans that can evolve.
Three roles in one practice
Arkansas Counseling & Wellness Services does three things that most practices do not do under one roof:
- We see clients. Individuals, couples, families, adolescents, older adults, in-person at our Fayetteville, Bentonville, and North Little Rock offices or by secure telehealth across the state.
- We serve the courts. Our court-approved Domestic Violence Intervention Program, anger management class, substance abuse group, theft prevention class, and DOT SAP evaluations provide structured programming for judges, attorneys, probation officers, and employers who need documented completion.
- We train other counselors. The Hope Builders Clinical Training Collective is our NBCC-approved continuing education program (ACEP #7353), delivering ethics, trauma-informed care, motivational interviewing, and reflective supervision training to clinicians across the region.
Dr. Burton's credentials and service
Dr. Burton holds the credentials LPC-S, AADC, MAC, SAP, CS, and NCC. She is a board-certified supervisor in Arkansas for both mental health and addictions. She serves as President of the Arkansas Addiction Professionals Association, President-Elect of the Arkansas Counseling Association, and a board member for the Arkansas Substance Abuse Certification Board. She is a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT), one of a small number of MI coaches in the region, and she teaches at Ouachita Baptist University, mentoring the next generation of counselors.
What we believe about the work
We believe therapy is a privilege, not a transaction. We believe people can change, and that change is often slow and nonlinear. We believe accountability and compassion are not opposites. We believe evidence-based practice is the floor of what we owe clients, not the ceiling. And we believe that the first call to a counselor is often the hardest step a person will take, so we try to answer the phone.