Office: Fort Collins, Colorado
Counselor status: Clinical counseling intern (under licensed supervision)
Session formats: In-person and virtual (Colorado residents)
Populations served: Children and teens, adults, men, couples, families
Primary specialties: Christian counseling, grief and loss, premarital and couples counseling, life transitions, men's issues
Therapeutic approach: Faith-integrated, person-centered, narrative; Prepare/Enrich-trained for couples
Languages: English
Accepting new clients: Yes

About Kelly Vander Woude

Kelly Vander Woude believes that pain, illness, suffering, and circumstances do not define a person. They may be loud, they may shape a season, and they may show up in the room every week — but they don't tell the whole truth about who someone is. The starting point of Kelly's work with clients is the conviction that the full self is welcome in counseling: pain alongside laughter, grief alongside wonder, doubt alongside faith. From there, he believes, real movement becomes possible.

Kelly works with a wide range of clients, but he is particularly effective with people walking through grief and end-of-life questions, individuals and couples integrating faith with the rest of their lives, men working on the parts of themselves they were never taught to name, premarital and married couples laying or relaying foundations for their relationship, and teens and parents navigating the school years, identity, and family transitions. His tone is steady and unhurried. He listens carefully, he uses humor where it fits, and he doesn't pathologize what is often a reasonable human response to a hard situation.

Kelly's path to counseling is its own argument for the work he does. He once thought he was destined to become a police officer; when that door closed, he pursued youth ministry. In seminary at Fuller Theological Seminary, he found himself taking extra counseling courses simply because they resonated — but it wasn't until later that he understood why. He aimed next at becoming an Army chaplain; that path shifted, and he was ordained instead. The earlier dream of police work returned in a different form when he served as a volunteer police chaplain in Iowa for four years. Today, Kelly pastors a church in Fort Collins and is back to where the pull was strongest all along — clinical counseling. He is currently a candidate for a Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Calvin Theological Seminary and practicing as a clinical counseling intern under supervision.

Twenty-five years of unexpected turns have taught Kelly how to sit with people whose own plans have shifted on them — which is most people, eventually. Outside the office, he is a husband, a pastor, and the kind of guy whose hobby is making his own bacon and sausage. He mentions that not as a flourish but because he thinks clients deserve to know they're working with a real person, not a role.

Therapeutic Approaches

Kelly's approach reflects his dual training in theology and counseling. He works integratively rather than from a single school, drawing on the following:

• Faith-Integrated Counseling — for clients who want their counseling to engage with their faith life rather than work around it. Kelly is ordained in the Christian Reformed Church of North America and brings a Master of Divinity-level theological education to that integration.
• Person-Centered Care — the relational foundation of his sessions; clients lead, Kelly provides presence, structure, and reflection.
• Prepare/Enrich for Couples — Kelly has fifteen years of experience as a Prepare/Enrich facilitator, the evidence-based assessment and skills framework used in premarital and marriage counseling.
• Narrative and Pastoral Care Approaches — drawn from his ordained ministry and chaplaincy work; useful with clients processing grief, vocational transition, and identity.

Licensure & Professional Background

Professional Affiliations

• Ordained Minister, Christian Reformed Church of North America (CRCNA)
• Prepare/Enrich facilitator — fifteen years of experience
• Christian Reformed Church of North America (CRCNA)

Prior Experience

Before entering clinical counseling, Kelly served in youth ministry and ordained pastoral ministry, including four years as a volunteer police chaplain in Iowa. He currently pastors a church in Fort Collins, Colorado, alongside his counseling work. His combined background — theological education, fifteen years facilitating premarital and marriage assessments, and years of pastoral care across grief, crisis, and ordinary life — informs the way he holds the counseling room.

FAQ

Kelly is a counseling intern — what does that mean for working with him?

Kelly is a clinical counseling intern, which means he is completing his Master's in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and seeing clients under the supervision of a licensed clinician at Foundations Counseling. In practice, that means clients get the benefit of his theological training and pastoral experience combined with the active supervision of a senior licensed counselor. Many clients specifically choose to work with an intern for affordability or to support a counselor early in their licensed career.

Is Kelly a Christian counselor?

Yes. Kelly is an ordained minister in the Christian Reformed Church of North America, holds a Master of Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary, and currently pastors a church in Fort Collins. For clients who want their counseling to integrate with their faith — rather than be separate from it — Kelly offers genuine, deep faith-integrated care. He is also comfortable working with clients who do not share his faith tradition, and never imposes a particular religious framework on a client's process.

Does Kelly do premarital counseling?

Yes. Kelly has fifteen years of experience as a Prepare/Enrich facilitator, which is one of the most widely used evidence-based premarital and marriage assessment frameworks in the country. He works with engaged couples preparing for marriage, recently married couples building their foundation, and longer-married couples wanting to revisit communication, expectations, and shared meaning. His couples work is available to both faith-based and non-religious couples.

Does Kelly work with men and men's issues specifically?

Yes. Kelly works frequently with men navigating grief, vocational transition, fatherhood, faith doubt, anger, and the parts of themselves they were never given language for. As one of the practice's male clinicians with both pastoral and counseling training, he is a natural fit for men seeking a counselor who can sit with what is often unspoken without flinching or rushing.

Does Kelly offer virtual sessions?

Yes. Kelly sees clients in person at the Fort Collins office and offers virtual sessions to Colorado residents. Virtual sessions work well for clients with scheduling constraints, those outside immediate driving distance of Fort Collins, and people who find it easier to talk from home, including teens and busy parents.

Is Kelly accepting new clients?

Yes. Kelly is currently accepting new clients at the Fort Collins location. A free consultation is available through Foundations Counseling's Counselor Match Guarantee — a no-pressure way to see whether his approach fits before committing to regular sessions.