Alicia Hans LCSW LLC

12/01/2025

Congratulations to Ms Alicia 🥳 on being nominated for the 2025 Young Professionals of Fond du Lac (YPF) Future Five Award!

This award is presented to five area young professionals ages 21-40 who are presently growing and excelling in their respective fields and will continue to positively influence the growth, prosperity, and quality of life in Fond du Lac County well into the future. The five award recipients will be announced next week!

Alicia Hans
Alicia Hans LCSW LLC

🌟 Honoring Future 5 Nominee: Alicia Hans! 🌟

Mental health support and awareness are vital to our community—and Alicia has dedicated their life and career to meeting those needs in Fond du Lac. Through volunteer work, school outreach, and entrepreneurship, Alicia exemplifies what a young professional can achieve to make a lasting impact.

From opening a counseling practice serving children, youth, and families to strengthening the health of our citizens, Alicia’s passion for community support is a priceless contribution. Fond du Lac is stronger because of leaders like Alicia!

👏 Join us in celebrating Alicia as a standout Future 5 nominee! Register for the YPF Holiday Party today to find out who our Future 5 are!
https://business.envisiongreaterfdl.com/events/Details/ypf-holiday-party-1507289?sourceTypeId=Website

11/27/2025

🧡 A Thanksgiving Reminder:

This week can bring up a lot of different emotions — gratitude, joy, stress, loneliness, grief, anxiety, nostalgia, or even guilt about not feeling “festive enough.” For some, it’s connection and gratitude.
For others, it’s grief, complicated family dynamics, stress, loneliness, or simply the pressure to “be okay.”

This Thanksgiving we want to normalize that the holidays are not universally easy. 🧡

Holidays, families, and memories can be complicated. If this week feels tender or heavy, please know there is nothing wrong with you — your feelings matter.

And as we move through the holiday, let’s also be mindful that those around us may be carrying emotions we can’t see. A little extra sensitivity and compassion can go a long way for someone who isn’t feeling their best.🧡

Whether this season brings connection, heaviness, a mix of both, or something entirely different — we want you to know you’re not alone. Your feelings matter, and taking care of yourself matters too.

Wishing you gentleness, grounding, and space to honor your emotional truth this week. 💛🦃

11/21/2025

🌈 Meet Our Monsters! 🎨🧟‍♀️🥸

We are absolutely LOVING the little Monster creations and messages we're receiving for our Monster Mural! 🤩

Monster Messages 💬 to take with you into the weekend:

1. "Today I'm feeling stressed, but I will be ok!" - 10 y.o.

2. "Don't forget to breathe and take a step back. You got this!" - 13 y.o.

Our Monster creations are showing us the ways in which kids are learning to identify, accept, and express emotions in healthy ways that help them feel brave, strong, and hopeful. 😍💚

Each creature masterpiece brings its own special colors, feelings, and messages of strength 💚 and reminds us that:

💙 Feelings come in all shapes and sizes - and it's okay to feel lots of different things!
💚 Feelings are real, feelings are allowed, and feelings make us who we are. 🥰
🌟 Creativity can help us express what we're feeling inside, even if it's scary. 🫣
🫶 Everyone has "monster moments" and we don't have to face them alone. 🤗

We’re so proud of all the brave, creative kids who are helping us build something beautiful, one monster at a time. 🌈💫

Let us know if you and your kids want to participate and contribute to our Monster Mural. (Send us a message or comment on this post and we will connect with you).

Everyone is invited! 🥳 All Monsters Welcome here!

11/19/2025

📣 We’re Creating a Community Mural — And we need YOUR help! 🎨👾

As part of Ms. Leslie’s "Give Back" project initiative for her Internship class, she is creating a collaborative community mural that celebrates creativity, connection, authenticity, and mental health awareness — and we want YOU to be part of it. 💛

🎨The Idea:
Everyone who participates gets to design their own unique monster — a playful little creature that represents a part of themselves. Your monster might show how you’re feeling today, symbolize something you’ve overcome, or highlight a part of yourself you’re learning to embrace.

There’s no right or wrong way to create it. The magic of this project comes from showing up as your whole, authentic self.

🎨Why This Matters
This mural is about embracing every part of who we are — even the silly, messy, quirky, or tough parts. Together, our monsters become a colorful reminder of courage, authenticity, and community.

🎨How to Participate:
Stop by our office to choose a monster outline (or create your own!). We can also send templates via email or messenger! We have created 22 different monster templates to choose from! 😁

1️⃣ Color or design your monster however you’d like
2️⃣ Add a short message of hope, encouragement, or strength
3️⃣ Take a photo 📸 holding your creation, making sure to crop out or cover your own face to ensure your monster 👾 is center of attention (we can help!)
4️⃣ Add your photo to this post or share with us privately. We will reach out with a consent form to sign before we include your photo in our mural.

🖼️ Your piece will become part of a larger mural to display in our office that reminds us:
We all have our “monsters,” but we never have to face them alone.

We can’t wait to see your creations! 👀😍👾

Stay tuned — we’ll be sharing the finished mural soon! 💚

10/17/2025

🎃🧠 Food for Focus (Even During Halloween Season!)

With Halloween season in full swing 🎃, sweets and colorful treats are everywhere — and let’s be honest, it’s hard to resist!

For kids (and adults!) with ADHD, what we eat can significantly affects focus, energy, behavior, and mood. Emerging research continues to highlight the important connection between nutrition and ADHD symptom management. Balanced nutrition — rich in proteins, fruits, veggies, whole grains, and healthy fats — supports attention, emotional regulation, and overall brain function.

Meanwhile, sugar, processed snacks, and artificial dyes can make symptoms worse. 😵‍💫This is especially true for kids, whose capacity for self-regulation is slim to none.

🍬This Halloween season, the kids (and you, and me) may find it especially difficult to avoid extra temptations for sweets! Don’t be too hard on yourself if candy or colorful treats make their way into your home (or are a regular part of your child's daily diet🫣). Just be mindful that you are likely to see a few extra energy spikes, emotional ups and downs, or bedtime battles.

Small steps toward balance make a big difference. A few mindful meals, extra water, and good sleep can go a long way in keeping things on track. Progress, not perfection, matters most. 💛

We could all use some encouragement and suggestions for improving our health. This "Brain Food" 📸 Graphic from ADDitude is a great reminder for what foods help ADHD brains🧠 function best!

10/10/2025

🌍💚 World Mental Health Day 💚🌍
Today serves as a global reminder that mental health is essential to overall well-being—and that access to compassionate, quality care matters.

Our team of clinicians is dedicated to supporting children and families as they navigate life’s challenges with resilience and hope. We believe that caring for your mind and leaning in to mental health is an act of strength—not weakness.

Together, we can continue to reduce stigma, promote understanding, and make mental health care a shared priority.

Let’s keep showing up for each other and our youth—with empathy, curiosity, and kindness and normalize conversations about mental and emotional health. 💬💛

10/09/2025

We love our downstairs neighbor, New Directions Chiropractic 🌱💜 Balanced nervous system = healthier, happier kids (and families)! 😁

10/07/2025

🌿Office Update 🌿

We want to thank you for your patience with our team over the last few weeks as Ms. Alicia has been out sick, trying to take time to rest and recover. 💜 We know this has meant some delays and changes, and we truly appreciate your patience and understanding during this time.

As Ms. Alicia focuses on her health, we want to gently remind all of our families that taking care of yourself is an important part of caring for others too!

Here are a few simple ways we can all practice good health hygiene and self-care this season:

🌿 Wash your hands regularly, especially after coughing, sneezing, and before eating.

🌿 Cover coughs and sneezes using your elbow, or even into your clothing. Use lots of tissue. Wash hands or sanitze after!

🌿 Stay home and rest when you’re not feeling well. We can't stress this enough! We have a lot of traffic coming through our office and want to do our best to prevent the spread of illness. We will never charge a fee for canceling sessions due to illness. We want you to heal and we don't want to risk others getting sick.

🌿 Nourish your body with water+electrolytes, healthy foods, vitamins, and good sleep. We like Vitamin D + Zinc and Magnesium.

🌿Listen to your body - rest, rest, rest. 💜

If you have reached out to our office recently and have not received a response, please feel free to send a gentle (friendly😁) nudge or follow-up via email to aliciahans.lcsw@gmail.com. Or contact us through our website www.aliciahanslcswfdl.com.

Thank you for your grace and understanding, and stay healthy this season! 🎃

09/12/2025

Thank you Fond du Lac County for promoting mental health resources and information on your social media page this month! 💜🩵💛

Our team partners with Fondy Cares and ROOTS school-based programs to increase youth access to mental health services.

If you're hoping to connect your child with a therapist, though are concerned about transportation or scheduling conflicts, consider asking your school care team about the school-based mental health services available at your child's school. 💜

08/07/2025

Special News Bulletin 📣

Ms Madison is returning to our office September 2nd following her maternity leave - and we couldn’t be more excited!! 🥳

Back to School Season is in full swing. And while we are certainly sad to see the end of summer coming so soon, we are also very happy to have Ms Madison back in a few short weeks. :)

We also wish to express deep appreciation for Ms Leslie, who stepped into a Counseling Associate position this summer to provide services for Ms Madison's patients and extra support (and companionship) for Ms Alicia at the office. 💜

We are so grateful to have her on our team.

Join us in welcoming Ms Madison back this September! 🥰🥳

08/06/2025

We LOVE this advice from Synergetic Play Therapy Institute! 😎👏💙

Play. Play. Play!
Unstructured play is essential to your child's well-being. Play is how they process the world, how they develop emotional regulation, how they improve their fine motor and gross motor skills, how they have experiences that are worth flexing their linguistic skills about, how their sensory systems make sense of the world around them, how they experiment and reason and explore cause-and-effect and a bajillion other things.

08/04/2025

This summer🌞has been unprecedented in terms of addressing childhood mental health. When we typically see an ease of acuity and decreased need for services from June-August, we have instead seen an increased need for services*. 🥵💔

We have also seen a significant increase in families struggling to meet basic needs—like housing, food, transportation, medical services, and childcare - which, unfortunately though unsurprising, has a positive correlation with increased mental health needs.

Stressors associated with making ends meet undoubtedly affect the whole household, and impact kids’ sense of safety, emotional regulation, school performance, and overall well-being. (Think, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs**).

When basic needs are unmet, mental health suffers.😔😵

As a team of Social Workers, we understand that treating childhood mental health involves supporting the whole family - with compassion and without judgement. And sometimes that means spending time connecting families with community services and resources.

When we support families in meeting basic needs, healing becomes possible.

With this in mind, we want to share a few resources that we use regularly to support families.

🔅 211 Wisconsin is a one-stop, free, and confidential connection to the local services people need, such as utility assistance, housing, food, elder care, crisis intervention, alcohol and other drug recovery, and much more. Talk with a live person who will listen with compassion and help connect you with services that will help. Or use the Search database online to find services avaliable to help with your needs.

📞 Dial 211 (or 877-947-2211)
📱 Text your ZIP code to 898211
💬 Chat online
🔎 Search for services at https://wisconsin.communityos.org

Whether you're looking for food pantries, housing assistance, mental health supports, or crisis help—211 can guide you.

🔅 ADVOCAP,Inc Opportunity Center in Fond du Lac is a new, in-person, "one-stop-shop" where individuals and families can get assistance navigating the complex service systems that tend to quickly become overwhelming. Parents, you can bring your kids with you if you don't have childcare (we called and asked!). Just make sure to call ahead so they can be sure there are staff available to provide childcare if needed. 💜

You are not alone.
Help is out there.
And you deserve to receive it.

*Our clinic data demonstrating increased need for services at this clinic location:
May 1 - Aug 1 completed patient appointments
2023: 223 (waitlist at 0 by Aug 1, 2023)
2024: 211 (waitlist at 6 by Aug 1, 2024)
2025: 279 (waitlist of 20+ on Aug 1, 2024)

**Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Someone struggling with basic needs—like food, housing, or safety—is unable to prioritize or address other needs, such mental and emotional health, school/academics, building relationships, or personal growth and responsibility.).