Community Highlights: Meet Amanda Comage-Trower of Mental Heart Healing House / Ever After Institute

Today we’d like to introduce you to Amanda Comage-Trower.

Hi Amanda, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?

My journey began when I became a teen mother. At just 16 years old, I was a young military wife with one beautiful baby girl and two years later with two babies, learning firsthand what motherhood looked like through a very real and vulnerable lens. I worked wherever the military landed us and childcare washing dishes and serving as a daycare teacher’s aide, was best so I could keep my children close. Very early on, I realized I had a natural gift for supporting children who struggled or were grieving the most and calming overwhelmed parents. That desire to help became the foundation of my career.

During my very first birth, I witnessed something that changed me forever. I was placed in a hospital room with another mother whose baby had died. A thin curtain separated us, but not her grief. As I held my newborn and my family celebrated around me, she lay only a few feet away, sobbing alone for the child she would never take home. There was no privacy, no extended bonding, no comfort, just a woman grieving in silence while surrounded by my joy.

Seeing her pain, and the lack of compassionate care she received, opened my eyes to a deeper layer of maternal health. It shaped my belief that families deserve dignity and support not only during birth, but after the death of a child. It planted a lifelong calling to advocate for those whose voices are overlooked, and to honor babies who die with respect and tenderness, giving mothers privacy and extended bonding when it matters most.

In 1999, after giving birth to my fourth child, my life changed again. I repeatedly told the hospital staff about the pain I was in, but my concerns were dismissed. Three days later, I was admitted to the ICU—and five days after that, I was told I might not survive. My body was failing. I was placed in ice baths to lower my temperature, had scans and tubes down my throat to remove internal bleeding, and fought through an infection caused by the very place that should have protected me. My newborn was healthy, thankfully, but that experience deepened my passion for improving maternal care, and infant deaths especially for Black women.

From those early experiences, my work took on new meaning. I went on to revive struggling daycare centers, not by focusing on budgets, but by pouring heart into families and creating events that brought joy to children, parents, and entire communities. I later led the overnight shift at the Child Crisis Center in Arizona, worked as a Case Aide for the State of Arizona, directed the after-school program in Gilbert Arizona, then moved to Carmel Indiana and became a holistic therapist & play practitioner, and launched my first major dream: Mental Heart, a program for children navigating mental health challenges.

As my work evolved, so did my calling. Mental Heart has now grown into a grief and family transitions program that supports youth through whole bereavement concierge care and storytelling and the adult professionals who guide them. Ever After, my newest “baby,” is a training institute designed for first responders, funeral professionals, hospitals, schools, and anyone who works with grieving children or families experiencing major transitions, deployment, division, divorce, dying, or death. We plan to expand to offer our emergency therapeutic play ambulance and Grief Play Bus to take our spin on bereavement and community connections for healing on the road.

At the center of everything I do is a lifelong desire to make emotional wellness and grief feel less intimidating and more human. I’ve witnessed how grief, stress, and change can overwhelm young people and families and those who care for them. They often lack the time, words or tools to express what they feel. That understanding pushed me to create spaces that blends healing with creativity, play, and connection.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I didn’t arrive here overnight. I started small supporting other people’s businesses with the same love & dedication as if it were my own. Working in spaces where I was often undervalued but still showed up fully for the children and families. Volunteering, learning from my own experiences, failures and successful moments. Watching carefully to see what truly helps children and caregivers open up and never being afraid to change things as needed for my clients needs. Over time, I discovered that storytelling, movement, and hands-on activities and community connections are some of the safest and most engaging ways for people to explore their emotions.

Today, I’m proud to have built a healing approach rooted in Storytelling, community, creativity, and compassion. Every program, activity, and partnership I create is grounded in one belief: people deserve to feel seen, supported, and empowered as they move through their own stories of grief and family transitions.

We’ve been impressed with Mental Heart Healing House / Ever After Institute , but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
My organization, Mental Heart Healing House – Ever After Institute, exists to make grief support, emotional wellness, family transition care and professionals support accessible, creative, and deeply human. We specialize in supporting youth, families, and the professionals who walk beside them through some of life’s hardest moments divorce, division, deployments, diagnosis, dying, death or major transitions, and emotional overwhelm.

What makes us unique is our approach. We don’t believe grief and family healing is the same for everyone and it doesn’t have to be clinical, cold, or intimidating. Instead, we combine storytelling, movement, sensory activities, and play-based emotional processing to help children, adults and professionals express what they feel in ways that feel safe and natural. We provide specialized training for healers to focus on themselves first. Our first responders, funeral professionals, hospitals, schools, and community workers & anyone who works with grieving or transitioning families, need practical tools to stay mentally healthy and respond with compassion.

Our flagship strength is helping communities understand grief outside of the traditional “sadness only” narrative. We honor the full emotional experience: confusion, anger, fear, relief, guilt, hope, and everything in between. We focus on what families do next, how they reconnect, and how they move forward with dignity and support.

What sets us apart is our ability to blend creative healing with professional training, bridging both the emotional world of children and the practical needs of the adults who serve them. We are known for making tough conversations easier, turning overwhelming situations into teachable moments, and guiding communities toward healthier ways of responding to death and transition.

Brand-wise, I’m most proud that we center compassion, representation, and real-life understanding. Our programs were built from lived experience, cultural awareness, and a deep commitment to protecting the emotional lives of children. We don’t offer generic worksheets or one-size-fits-all advice we offer experiences, beautiful child made memorials, tools, and conversation models that families and professionals can use immediately.

What I want readers to know is that we are more than a program; it’s a safe place for grieving children and professionals to learn, heal, and connect. Our services include youth workshops, family grief transition Conceiger, professional trainings, creative emotional wellness curricula, community partnerships, and customized storytelling-based healing experiences.

Everything we do is guided by one belief: Grief and Mental health don’t have to be scary or boooooring, no one should navigate grief or major life transitions alone, and every family deserves support that meets them where they are, heart first.

How do you think about happiness?
Life in general. I am a child and visionary of God and I feel that is what completes me and helps me through every challenge in life. So my balance in life and making sure my relationship with God is number one makes everything else fall into place. My self care, family, work, business, friends all balanced and that’s what makes me happy. HAHA of course balance is my thing I’m a Libra 🙂 My blessings include being a blessed wife to John and a mama of 6 grown children and 9 grandbabies, amazing son in law, my parents, my best friend Angelique, my sister Lessie, Pops and my fur babies

Pricing:

• 100.00 per session for youth
• 200.00 for our month storytelling and community connections program
• 55.00 for professionals monthly
• Free 2 hours for youth support during family members dying or funeral
• FREE 2 hours for miscarriage support, abortion, adopted mom after birth

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/mentalhearthealinghouse
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mentalheart1/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mentalheartplay2heal/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-comage-trower-3922b3133/

Image Credits
Mental Heart Healing House LLC