Cara Keplar
Since joining Healing Hearts Counseling in 2021, Cara has helped teens, adults, and couples navigate life transitions, grief, trauma, relationship challenges, and recovery with compassion, empathy, and practical support.
For more than fifteen years, Cara has supported individuals and families in the Peoria area through mental health, substance use, and recovery-related challenges with compassion, empathy, and practical guidance.
Cara is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a background in psychology, social work, mental health, and substance use services. She earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Bradley University and her master’s degree in social work from the University of Illinois.
Cara enjoys working with teens, adults, and couples. She is experienced in supporting clients through anxiety, depression, trauma, self-esteem concerns, grief and loss, caregiver stress, life transitions, end-of-life adjustment, and relationship challenges. She also works with individuals navigating substance use and recovery, using both abstinence-based and harm-reduction approaches depending on each client’s needs and goals.
Cara specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy, and she embraces a strengths-based approach. She believes that with support, empowerment, and compassionate care, people can move through difficult seasons and experience meaningful personal growth. Cara also values the connection among mind, body, and overall well-being, including the role lifestyle and nutrition play in mood and health.
Outside the office, Cara enjoys spending time with her two children and rescue cats. She loves finding beauty in the world, spending time outdoors, cooking, sharing meals with friends and family, traveling to new places, and attending concerts.