SOUTH HILLS & ROBINSON, PA · TELEHEALTH STATEWIDE

Haley Childers, MSW, LSW

  • Licensed Social Worker
  • Supervised by Tess Inman, LPC
  • MSW · West Virginia University
  • Palliative, Hospice & Grief
  • Accepting New Clients

“If you are going through a difficult time in your life, now is the time to call.”

Haley Childers is a Licensed Social Worker seeing clients at CPA Counseling’s South Hills and Robinson Township offices and by secure telehealth across Pennsylvania. She works with children from age six through seniors, individually, as couples, and as families — on grief and loss, serious illness, caregiver burnout, life transitions, family conflict, anxiety, and self-esteem.

No program commitments
Most major plans accepted
Ages 6 and up · couples & families
Telehealth available statewide
In practice 15 years

WHO HALEY WORKS WITH

Who she’s for

Haley works across the widest range in the practice — children from six, teens, young adults, adults, seniors, couples, and whole families. Grief, serious illness, and caregiver burnout are her specialties, and couples work and children are where her other passion sits.

1

Families facing a serious illness.

Haley helped develop the first and only inpatient palliative care program at St Clair Hospital and was its first social worker for about five years. Most of her career before private practice was hospital social work and hospice, and those philosophies remain an integral part of how she practices now.

2

Caregivers who are running out.

Caregiver burnout is a stated specialty, not an afterthought. The exhaustion, the guilt about the exhaustion, the decisions nobody prepared you to make, and the grief that starts before anyone has died.

3

Couples, and children from six.

Alongside the grief and illness work, Haley has a particular passion for couples therapy and for working with children aged six and up. Self-esteem, family conflict, OCD, anxiety, life transitions and burnout all sit here too.

why work with Haley

Now is the time to call

Haley opens with that line and means it literally. Most of what she works with — a diagnosis, a death, a parent who needs more than you can give — is the kind of thing people absorb quietly for months before asking anyone for help. There is no threshold you have to reach first.

Where she came from

Haley earned her Master of Social Work in Morgantown in 2011 and began as a medical social worker. She spent around five years as the first social worker in St Clair Hospital’s inpatient palliative care program, which she helped build, then stepped back during covid to be at home with her daughter. She returned through per diem therapy work and is now in private practice, where she has expanded well beyond where she started.

How she actually works

Haley helps people explore the fears, worries, and uncertainties about their present and their future — and then works to identify and build on the strengths already there. Together you learn the old patterns and the destructive ways of thinking, and build new pathways toward change that lasts.

What she brings to it

Hospital and hospice work teaches a particular steadiness — sitting with people on the worst day of their life without flinching and without rushing them. She brings that to everything now, whether the room holds a couple, a six-year-old, or a family facing a diagnosis.

HOW HALEY WORKS

Eleven approaches, chosen for you

Eleven approaches, selected for the person in the room. What suits a six-year-old is not what suits a couple, and neither is what suits someone who has just had a diagnosis explained to them.

  • CBT
  • TF-CBT
  • Gottman Method
  • IFS
  • Family Systems
  • Psychodynamic
  • Motivational Interviewing
  • Mindfulness
  • Solution-Focused
  • Person-Centered
  • Strengths-Based

1

When it is grief or illness

Haley’s special interest is secondary palliative care, hospice, and grief. That covers anticipatory grief, the grief that follows, and the particular disorientation of a serious diagnosis — your own or someone else’s — reorganizing a future you had already planned around.

2

When it runs through the family

Family systems and Gottman Method work for conflict, difficult decision-making, and the patterns that harden when a household is under sustained strain. Haley can see the couple, the family, or the individual depending on where the work actually belongs.

3

When the pattern is the problem

CBT, psychodynamic, and Internal Family Systems work on the old patterns and destructive ways of thinking — learning them first, which is the part most people skip, then building new pathways that hold up under pressure.

CONDITIONS TREATED

What Haley treats – who Haley sees

  • Grief & Loss
  • Caregiver Stress
  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Trauma
  • Marriage & Couples
  • Family Issues
  • Emotional Abuse
  • Life Transitions
  • OCD
  • Self-Esteem
  • Chronic Pain
  • Workplace Stress
  • Self-Esteem
  • Anger Management
  • Adults
  • Children (under 12)
  • Teens & Adolescents
  • Young Adults
  • Couples
  • Families
  • Individuals
  • Women
  • Men
  • Seniors
  • College Students

For families facing illness

When illness arrives, it arrives for everyone

A serious diagnosis lands on a whole household, not one person. The one who is ill, the one doing the caring, the adult children disagreeing about what happens next, the six-year-old nobody is quite sure what to tell. Haley has sat with all of those, and she can see them together or separately, whichever the family actually needs.

“I look forward to being a part of your journey.”

CARE PHILOSOPHY

Strengths first. Then the patterns.

In her own words, Haley has extensive experience working with individuals and families navigating life transitions, family conflict, difficult decision-making, serious health issues, grief and loss, and caregiver burnout — with clients ranging from children aged six and up, through younger adults, to the older community.

Her work starts with exploring the fears, worries, and uncertainties you are carrying about your present and your future — then identifying and building on the strengths that are already there. The order matters. People arrive at a hard stretch convinced they have nothing left, and that is almost never accurate.

From there it is pattern work: learning the old ways of thinking that have stopped serving you, naming them accurately, and building new pathways toward change that actually lasts.

Cultural awareness is crucial in her therapeutic work — what a family does with grief, illness, or a difficult decision is shaped by where they come from. She is originally from a small town in West Virginia and has had a passion for helping her community and family for as long as she can recall. She moved to Pittsburgh soon after earning her Master of Social Work in Morgantown in 2011, and has built her practice here since.

Going into private practice has been a blessing, she says, because of how many lives you get to touch. She looks forward to being part of yours.

ABOUT HALEY

Steady, wherever it starts

If you are going through a difficult time in your life, now is the time to call. You or someone you know may have lost a loved one, or be overwhelmed with work, home, or school-related stressors and in need of time to focus on your own needs.

Haley Childers has extensive experience working with individuals and families navigating life transitions, family conflict, difficult decision-making, serious health issues, grief and loss, and caregiver burnout. Her client population ranges from children age six and up, through younger adults, to the older community. Cultural awareness is crucial in her therapeutic work.

She is originally from a small town in West Virginia and has had a passion for helping her community and family for as long as she can recall. She moved to Pittsburgh soon after graduating with her Master of Social Work in Morgantown in 2011, and has a special interest in secondary palliative care, hospice, and grief.

Haley is a mother of two daughters, seven and ten. Evenings tend to involve cheerleading, football games, and walking the dog, Ollie — plus two guinea pigs, Shadow and Grace, rescued over the holidays. Going into private practice has been a blessing, she says, because of how many lives you get to touch. She looks forward to being part of yours.

CREDENTIALS & TRAINING

DEGREE

MSW · 2011

West Virginia University

CERTIFICATIONS

LSW · Supervised by Tess Inman, LPC, NCC

ALSO TRAINED

Secondary Palliative Care · Hospice · Gottman Method

FOCUS

Grief & Loss · Caregiver Burnout · Ages 6 and Up

IN PRACTICE

Since 2011 · MSW Morgantown

OFFICES

South Hills & Robinson · Telehealth

Most major plans accepted

15

Years in Practice

South Hills & Robinson

✦

Palliative, Hospice & Grief

Rare in outpatient practice

∞

Personalized Care Plans

No program commitments required

CONDITION GUIDE

Therapy guides from Haley Childers

  • Patient Zero

    Mental Health

    What Taylor Swift Teaches Us About Parasocial Connection

    Why millions feel they truly know someone they’ve never met — the psychology of parasocial connection, when it’s comforting, and when it’s telling you something.

  • woman lost in thinking about to do items shown on the image

    Anxiety

    When Anxiety Starts Making the Rules

    Anxiety rarely announces itself as anxiety — it arrives as good judgment, feeling like being careful, responsible, or thinking ahead, and by the time you notice, it may have been making your decisions for years. OCD is mostly internal: intrusive thoughts, mental checking, rumination, reassurance-seeking. Both respond well to treatment.

  • Accessibility

    Information

    CPA Counseling Accessibility Statement

    Our commitment to an accessible website — WCAG 2.1 AA, keyboard operability, high contrast — and a direct contact if you encounter any barrier.

COMMON QUESTIONS

Questions about working with Haley Childers

What new clients ask most often before their first session.

Haley is a Licensed Social Worker specializing in grief, chronic and advanced illness, and caregiver burnout. She also works with couples, children from age six, life transitions, family conflict, difficult decision-making, anxiety, depression, trauma, chronic pain, and self-esteem — with individuals, couples, and families. She has a special interest in secondary palliative care and hospice.

It means support for people and families living with a serious illness, alongside the medical care rather than instead of it. That covers the patient, the family making decisions, and the person doing the caring — including anticipatory grief, which starts well before anyone dies and often has nowhere to go. Most of this support exists inside hospitals and very little of it outside. Haley offers it in outpatient practice.

Grief, chronic and advanced illness, and caregiver burnout are her specialties. Alongside those she has a particular passion for couples therapy and for children aged six and up, and works with anxiety, self-esteem, family conflict, OCD, life transitions, burnout, and complicated grief. Her clients range from children of six through to the older community.

Yes. Haley is accepting new clients at the South Hills and Robinson Township offices and through telehealth across Pennsylvania. She accepts most major insurance plans. Request an appointment online or call 412-439-1416 and our intake coordinator will help you get scheduled.