About the practice
About Step by Step Support
Step By Step Support is a Mt. Washington counseling practice that has specialized in substance use disorders since 1999. The practice also works with anger, domestic violence, anxiety, depression, and family strain, from weekly counseling to an intensive outpatient program.
Meet the founder
Susan Rua
CADC · MSPC · LPC · Founder
Susan Rua is a professional therapist specializing in substance use disorders since 1999. She began in nursing, earned her Master’s in Professional Counseling at Carlow University, and has owned and directed sober living homes for more than a decade, seeing recovery from the clinical side and the lived-in side.
That experience shaped the practice she built in Mt. Washington: practical, direct, and free of judgment. Today she leads its counseling team, and clients are matched with the right counselor and the right level of care, from weekly sessions to an intensive outpatient program.
How she works
The approach
- Short, reachable goals
- Coping and life skills you can use
- Repairing strained relationships
Every person who walks in is carrying something different, so the work never follows a script. Susan and her counselors draw on several techniques and match them to the client. Often the substance, the anger, or the conflict is the surface of something deeper, and there is room to work on both.
In practice, that means short, reachable goals so progress feels real instead of overwhelming, coping and life skills clients can actually use, and repairing the relationships that got strained along the way.
Who comes in
Who we work with
Since 1999 the practice has grown well beyond where it started. Many clients are court-referred or come from forensic settings. That is a normal starting point here, and you are treated with the same respect as anyone else.
- Substance use disorder counseling
- Anxiety and depression
- Grief, trauma, and PTSD
- Co-occurring disorders
- Anger management
- Domestic violence recovery
- Couples, family, and co-dependency
- Court-referred and forensic clients
Credentials
Licensed, certified, and accredited
The practice is licensed in Pennsylvania, DDAP licensed, and BBB listed. Everything on this list is current and verifiable through the organizations below.
- Master's in Professional Counseling, Carlow University
- Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), Pennsylvania
- Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor (CADC)
- Associate's Degree in Nursing
- Owner and Director of sober living homes for 10+ years
Licensed and listed with
Recognition
As reported in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Susan’s frontline work with addiction and recovery has been part of the paper’s reporting for two decades.
The office
What walking in is like
The practice is on Bailey Avenue in Mt. Washington, a private, comfortable space that is easy to get to.
It is a calm place to sit down and talk, with no sense that you are being sized up. However you arrive, on your own or because someone asked you to, you are met the same way: as an adult, with respect, and without judgment.
- 20 Bailey Avenue, Suite 300, Pittsburgh, PA 15211
- Weekdays 9am to 5pm, Saturday by appointment
- Telehealth available when getting here is hard
- Get directions to the office
