Written by: Ruth V. Walker, PhD 

Published June 28, 2024

I'm thrilled to share highlights from my recent interview with Dr. Jessica Headley, a licensed professional counselor and co-founder of Wellness Grove. Because of how many students often share their goal of working in private practice and potentially owning a private practice themselves in the future, I asked Dr. Headley to share her experiences with us as a successful private practice owner. 

To give you a little background, Dr. Headley earned dual bachelor's degrees in psychology and sociology, a master's in community counseling, and a doctoral degree in counselor education and supervision, all from the University of Akron. She also holds a graduate certificate in gerontology and has completed specialized coursework in women’s studies. Before founding her private practice, she gained extensive experience working with diverse clients across hospital, college, and community mental health settings. Wellness Grove offers individual, couples, and family counseling sessions, both in person and virtually, as well as a variety of mental health and wellness programs to businesses, organizations, and fellow mental health providers. 

Can you tell us a little bit about your educational background and what led you to pursue this career in counseling?

Can you tell us a little bit about your educational background and what led you to pursue this career in counseling?

I started my interest in counseling in middle school. There is a diary somewhere in my collectibles that says I wanted to be a psychologist from a very young age and I actually never faltered on that path. When I was in high school, I had a desire to work in the VA system and work with veterans, because my dad is a disabled veteran. So I went to school, and I loved my sociology classes. I was a psych major and so I thought, 'You know what, I'm just going to do both.' So I did both tracks of courses. I honestly think that professional counseling is a beautiful blend of psychology and sociology together, because we're really looking at structures and we're looking at making a big social impact. It's more holistic in nature. And so that coursework just naturally lent itself to me pursuing a degree in community counseling at the master's level. During my experience in my master's program, I just had incredible mentorship from women leaders in the profession. They encouraged me to pursue a doctorate degree. Had I not had that encouragement, I probably would not be here today and my dissertation topic, which focuses on women's leadership development, probably would not have been written. So I really give a lot of gratitude, to all my mentors along the way, because there are so many opportunities where I probably would have stopped my education, but someone lifted me up and encouraged me to continue to pursue more. 

You were previously an assistant professor. Can you tell us a little bit of what inspired you to move to private practice and to start wellness growth?

Right before I started wellness Grove, as you mentioned, I was a tenure track professor. At the time COVID happened. One of the themes that we started to see a shift in the professional world of clinical care, was we started to see the introduction of telehealth, and we started to see a high influx of care because the needs started to rise rapidly. One of the things professionally that I saw was, we have a really high caseload, we're starting to get clinicians with burnout. The landscape is changing, because more and more people want telehealth, and community agencies are busting at the seams. It was kind of a wonderful opportunity to step in with the training that I have both educationally and clinically and say, I want to make an impact. I want to make a difference. Not only do I want to provide really good care for clients, but I want to create a setting for clinicians. I think sometimes - a lot of times - organizations or institutions will talk about the importance of client care. We provide a high level of care, we provide excellent clinical services, but what they forget to talk about is how the culture and how the structure also supports the clinicians. Because at the end of the day, if clinicians are not well, we're not going to give good services. For me, my philosophy is that both client care and clinician care are both front burners on the stove. Clinician care is not a back burner, and it shouldn't be secondary. We have to look at them equally. Otherwise, we're failing our clients, and our system remains broken.

What kind of education is typically needed for the role that you have as a private practice owner?

Most private practices are owned and operated by someone who's independently licensed, so they don't need supervision. However, you do see a trend now of master's level clinicians opening private practice and they have an outside supervisor. They may list this individuals name on their website and say, I'm the practice owner, I receive supervision from so and so. And they'll provide that information. Most established or notable practices are run by clinicians who are not only independently licensed but are seasoned in some respect. Normally, you'll see maybe five years of experience and you may see some other credentials or designations along with their standard licensure. You might see that they're a supervisor, or they specialize in some type of care, like maybe they're EMDR trained, or they have certification - perinatal mental health care - something like that. 

Can you tell us a little bit more about some of the things that happen behind the scenes owning a private practice that people might not be aware of?

I would say the biggest thing that I hear from any colleague, is the administrative tasks. They're always underestimated. So billing, calling clients. If a client doesn't come on, you need to call them back. Even checking the mail, checking accounts, processing taxes, all of those administrative things, a lot of people underestimate the amount of time that goes into that. If you're starting off, what most people do is, I call them "shingle practices." It's like I'm hanging my shingle and it's just me, you're responsible for all of that. 

On top of the administrative tasks, you have operational tasks. You're going to be taking out the garbage, you're going to be cleaning the facility. When something breaks, you've got to replace it. There's a lot of extra work that goes into operating a practice that you're not necessarily getting paid for. You're getting paid for your billable session, but not for all the administrative work. That's definitely something to consider when opening up practice. 

I would say the other thing is the importance of technology and being technologically savvy. Nowadays, most of the time marketing is done through Google. If you don't have good marketing skills, or you can't outsource that, it's likely that you're not going to show up at the top of a Google search and people may not find you right away. Of course, word of mouth is so important, and it can get you really far. But if you're just opening a practice, and you don't have good marketing in place, it's going to be a very slow growth, even in the midst of a crisis. Because while we have a high need for mental health services, most people now are finding their services online. If you're not online, and if you're not proactive about marketing, people just aren't going to naturally find you or they're going to lean toward an easily accessible service. 

I would say probably finances would be the last thing about being relatively flexible with your costs. Everyone should look at the industry standards of what that cost is going to be, and what the cost for your service should be based on your experience and your licensure. When you have really high costs, you're going to have high billable sessions, but it may not be accessible to the majority of people. If you have a majority of people come and you have a high no show rate, it might have been more beneficial to keep your costs high with clients who would have been more loyal and attending more frequently. There definitely is some balancing act. How am I going to set those rates and how am I going to survive? 

Knowing that when you open a private practice, traditionally, you're in the red when you open and so you're going to be in the red for months and not make an income. But that over time, that income is going to build, and it has the potential to grow.

What qualifications are you looking for when you're hiring counselors, social workers, psychologists, or therapists?

Outside of the internship program, we're always looking for a licensed professional that has either a master's degree or a doctoral degree. That terminal degree is really important for us, and they have to hold licensure. 

We're also making sure that that person has the skills to be successful in private practice. Every private practice is built a little different, but it's more autonomous. I like to have people who have really good rapport skills, they can establish relationships really fast and they have a good ethical mind. Normally, I'll ask like, 'Have you ever experienced an ethical dilemma? What was the dilemma? How did you respond? What's the outcome?' If they say, 'Oh, I've never had an ethical dilemma,' they probably had many ethical dilemmas that they didn't pick up on. 

One of the things that I remind people of is that no matter what your degree, what your licensure, what your training, or specialty area is, the most significant predictor of clients change process, and them having successful outcomes and treatment is the relationship. If you're not good at having relationships, and building rapport, you're not going to be successful in private practice.

What advice would you give to students who are currently in their undergrad career in thinking about that as a career path for themselves?

It is really important to get quality clinical experiences before you open a practice. I think an individual has to really think about what kind of private practice do I want to own right? If I want to own a private practice, I want to be a generalist. I'm going to see lots of different issues. I really want to get good experience and be prepared to see a lot of issues right. I might go into community mental health first, so that I'm getting an array of client presentations and I get to work with diverse individuals across the lifespan. 

If my vision was, I want to open a private practice and I want to specialize in perinatal mental health. Then I'm really going to want to make sure that during my undergraduate and my master's training that I'm getting experience working with pregnancy related issues. I might do some volunteering with some nonprofits, I might see if I can work at an OBGYN or get volunteer experiences, so that I can kind of see the entire landscape that a client would experience. I always say, think of your Disney World, and then work backwards. So if your Disney World is this, I want to open a private practice, and I want to focus on EMDR services on trauma. I want to work backward, I have to get certified and trauma and EMDR, right? I want to work backward; I need to have a supervisor that specializes in trauma so that I get really good feedback. I need to work backward; I need to be at a place that provides trauma services and that they're trauma informed. You really want to think, what's my Disney World and then kind of work backward and move through your steppingstones. 

It can be really helpful to work at a private practice before you own a private practice. It can also be really helpful to network with professionals in the field, who own private practices and ask the questions that you're asking me right now. Because there is a lot of wonderful things. But there's also challenges. When you close or you go on vacation, or you don't feel like going in that day, and you want a wellness day, there is no one else to cover you when you're the owner. You kind of have to know that there is a lot of responsibility that falls on your shoulders, but it's a wonderful responsibility to have. 

What do you think are the emerging trends in counseling that future professionals should be aware of? 

I would say that there are four trends. One trend would be rapid population aging. We are seeing an influx of older adults seeking services. In the past year, there has been a federal law that now Medicare needs to reimburse professional counselors, which has increased the access of older adults to counselors. We're seeing we're seeing an increase right now. Just in the last few weeks, I can think of three examples of clinicians that reached out. One clinician has a 90-year-old client, another one has a 92-year-old, and we have a 97-year-old. We are starting to see 90-year-old clients come in for services and truth be told our clinicians kind of say, 'Well, I'm not really quite sure what to do with a 90-year-old,' because it's not the traditional caseload that we would have. I think it's really important that people get trained in working with older adults, because we're starting to see that trend now and it's only going to grow. 

My second trend would be the integration of technology and telehealth. It is incredibly important to get telehealth training and to be abreast of all the technology advancements, especially if you want to be a private practice owner. You really have to be savvy with search engine optimization on your website or Google marketing campaigns. You also want to have technology as part of the services that you provide, whether that's telehealth on the phone telehealth on video or zoom. So getting that training, getting certified and telehealth services and learning how to integrate technology into clinical practice is going to be vital. 

Another trend that I see is specialized care. With specialized care, I have noticed more and more that clients will call and maybe they're struggling with OCD. They want a provider that specializes in OCD, not a generalist. Not just someone who's open and has availability, but someone who has specialty education and experience. So really figuring out along the way, no pressure, what your specialty areas are. If I want to add substance use to my area of specialty, I need to make sure that I know the prominent models of substance use and how to assess and diagnose and treat accordingly based on evidence-based practices. You can have many areas of specialty practice, but keeping up with those, making sure that you have continuing education in those because again, while rapport is very, very important, so is perceived competence and so you want to appear, and you want to be competent for good client care. 

The last area, I would say, is crisis. One of the things that we've noticed with COVID is that we are seeing increased rates of suicidal ideation among Americans. We're also seeing really, really high rates of self-injury, especially among adolescents. So making sure that you have the knowledge and skills and protocols to address safety issues, and that, you know, appropriate interventions to support individuals, is one of the trends that I'm seeing. 

Conclusion

To listen to the full interview, please follow the link to the podcast episode below! To learn more about Wellness Grove, visit their website!