Lindsay Edwards, MA, LPC, BC-DMT, signed a lease on Monday to move Arts in Counseling to Cheltenham Township.
Edwards will join Kelly McMonagle Matthews, DMD MSD, at her newly purchased building: 400 Greenwood Avenue, the former Wyncote Public School which is being preserved and converted to a practitioner space. Edwards’ practice will be on the first floor next to McMonagle Matthews’ practice, Wyncote Orthodontics.
An Abington resident since 2018, Edwards said she will begin seeing clients in January. The last two months of 2026 will be used to build out the new space.
“I’m so thrilled for this transition. I wanted to end up in a space that provided for full expression of all creative arts therapies modalities, as well as evolve into my vision of an intergenerational creative health practices that span community and population health,” she said.
Edwards and McMonagle Matthews first met through an elevateHER event last year. McMonagle Matthews had just bought the Wyncote building, and the two found a good deal of overlap in terms of their practices.
“I have experience with implementing creative arts therapies into dentistry and medical settings, so I’m excited for the possibilities to operate collaboratively with Wyncote Orthodontics. She sees a lot of families and youth, and I find creative arts therapies to be very successful with adolescents and teens who are reluctant to talk about their struggles,” Edwards said. “Our approaches give them multiple ways to express themselves. We can build trust through doing something together, without requiring them to put everything into words before they’re ready.”
“I also want the schoolhouse setting to continue to educate. In addition to community trainings, eventually I’d like Masters-level mental health students to train amongst us, and professional creative arts therapists to have a home for continuing education,” Edwards said.
For the expansion, Arts in Counseling is currently hiring clinical creative arts therapists and is inviting project, service and partnership proposals as she figures out what the community wants and needs. Edwards said she often looks to Australia and the United Kingdon for mental health innovation.
“I care about destigmatized accessibility for mental health”, she says. “One model that has impressive outcomes and is gaining traction in the U.S. is ‘social prescribing’.”
Edwards said “medical providers, or say contracted Universities, refer clients to Arts in Counseling for a curated prescription that matches the client’s interests (making art, nature walks, volunteering, playing pick-up-basketball with a neighborhood club) and then we connect them to our local partner organization(s) that are offering this service. We administer mental health assessments before and after to track outcomes.”
Edwards’ version is currently in development.
“I will be connecting with regional, national and international organizations who are underway with this infrastructure to learn about best practices,” she said.
Edwards emphasized her perspective that everyone is creative, but that we tend to conflate creativity with artistic ability.
“We’re still operating in Hatboro through the end of December,” she said. “Thankfully, it’s not a far commute so our clients are willing to make the move with us!”
For more on Arts in Counseling, you can visit their website and Instagram page.
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Photo: Lindsay Edwards