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The Bridge City Chamber of Commerce held a ribbon cutting to welcome ABC Counseling and Educational Services, LLC to its membership Dec. 30.

Owner Jill Hazlip-Freeman offers individual, couples, and marriage counseling as well as behavior modification for children, life mapping, goal setting, cognitive behavioral and grief therapy.

She works with special needs children to teach coping and social skills, as well as typically developing children.

Tutoring for kids up to 5th grade is also offered, as well as 1:1 help for reading comprehension, writing skills, and math.

Rates for all services are offered at a fraction of the typical cost and sliding scales and package pricing is also available.

Insurance processing will be available in the future.

ABC Counseling is a long term dream come true for this Beaumont native. Jill was born to Don and Barbara Chandler and has a younger sister, Jan. Growing up in a tight knit family with an emphasis on love, compassion, forgiveness and structure helped shape the future of the Chandler girls. Jill’s mother, Barbara, was a teacher, diagnostician, and school counselor for many years. She always believed it was inevitable that one of her girls would follow in her footsteps.

After a near fatal car accident in 1991, Jill’s future was forever changed. With serious physical and emotional injuries to recover from, it altered Jill’s career path. Having a very helpful counselor to assist in healing the emotional damage from the accident, Jill decided to go into the field of Psychology. Jill graduated from Lamar University with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology, minoring in Sociology in 1997. Soon thereafter, she began her journey in the field and worked as a case manager with mentally ill adults for the next 7 years.

In 2002, Jill completed her Master of Art’s degree in Professional Counseling and graduated from Lindenwood University in Saint Charles, MO at the top of her class with a 4.0 GPA. She continued to work in the case management field until the birth of her son in 2005. Becoming a mother greatly changed her life. Jill’s son, Lucas, is now 10 years old and severely autistic. After searching for a work schedule that would work with his, a teaching certification was completed in 2010. Jill taught 2nd grade at Lumberton Primary School and loved the job, but just felt she wanted to do more to help children and their families.

After a very long journey and road bumps along the way, she finally completed her 3,000 intern hours to become a Licensed Professional Counselor in 2014. Opening this business has been a very long term dream that has finally become a reality and she could not be happier. With a supportive husband, family, colleagues, and friends, her dream has become a reality. ABC Counseling combines all of Jill’s professional experience into one eclectic endeavor. To make an appointment or get more information on ABC Counseling and Educational Services, call Jill at 409 720-9251.