We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Che (Hurt) Ward a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Che, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about how you went about setting up your own practice and if you have any advice for professionals who might be considering starting their own?

After completing my residency in 2015, I bounced between several agencies while studying for my Psychology Boards.  By the time I was fully licensed, my partner made the decision enlist in the Marine Corps and we eventually were relocated to California. Although I was born in California, I had come to consider Florida my home, so the relocation took some getting used to. Since we were living on base already, I took a position as a therapist serving active duty Navy sailors, Marines, retired veterans, and their families.  This new and exciting section of the population would later impact my decision to start my own business. Shortly after settling into my job, the world was introduced to the Carona virus COVID-19.  The onset of the pandemic helped many practitioners, including myself, make the transition to tele-medicine, or actually forced even the most reluctant of us to conform to a digital platform. Fast forward to 2021, and my husband receives orders, yet again, to a small, coastal town in North Carolina named Havelock, the home of Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point. As small town’s go it had charms and character but what it didn’t have, I later discovered was mental health professionals! 

Fortunately for me, I was assigned a transfer to a similar position at a nearby base and awaited a start date as I got familiar with my surroundings.  The more I learned about the lack of mental health providers locals, I felt a pull that I could only describe as Divine and knew that it was time for me to open a practice of my own.  Reluctantly, I turned down the position, but I knew I wouldn’t follow through if I had a safety net.  So, I took a leap of faith and decided it was time to do what I wanted to help people instead of trying to impact change within an established system. I prayed and did manifesting work for a week.  By the end of that week, I had a business plan and goal established and my husband and I decided we could use a chunk of our savings to invest in my dream. By the end of the next month, I was conducting telehealth sessions with clients in Florida while I awaiting licensure from North Carolina. Each month I gained new expenses and only added to them when that month’s income was sufficient to pay them off. Within 4 months, I was able to open an office and my head is still spinning at the way we have evolved.  Today, less than 2 years later, I have a full staff and two other therapists.  We are located adjacent to the air station and service both military families and the surrounding communities through therapy, community outreach events and groups, psychological assessment and resource location.  Many of the services we provide are free or subsidized through grants and other funding.  Word of mouth has been our biggest form of advertising and we feel fully supported by our community.

If I could provide another professional advice on starting their own business, it would be ‘Don’t wait! Plan, Pray, and Proceed!’  Utilize all of the resources available to you and do not be afraid to ask EVERYONE for help.  So many businesses and entrepreneurs want to help, but most are unaware of the help that is needed or what exactly they may be able to offer outside of advice and financing.  I have found that the more I ask the more abundantly is supplied to me. 

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

In a past life, I was an Interior Designer. I started by designing kids’ rooms in Connecticut. I’ve only recently become a military family, all my prior moves were because I enjoy adventure.  Later I moved to Ohio, where more customers would ask for my credentials, even after they professed a desire for my designs. I had no idea my pursuit for legitimacy would be the end of that career. Or at least the beginning of my next career. A major part of design is programming; the phase in which the designer must help their client determine if what they imagine is what they desire. For instance, a person may desire an all-white room, but their family and lifestyle would not sustain a crisp white aesthetic for very long. The designer would help them learn what it is they are trying to achieve, the mood, the representation, the function and realistically help them plan for the same result through more rational means, or at least change the locale of the white room to a place out of reach to all messy family members. My coursework in Psychology and Marketing further sparked my interest in getting into people’s heads and helping them solve puzzles which make their lives easier and more hopeful. I knew long before I earned my design degree that I’d be a Psychologist before it was all done. Helping people see hope through despair, resolve complex problems, determine life-changing choices, and simply express themselves beyond the social pull to conform is an amazing yet pains-taking career, and I absolutely enjoy it.  I can also say that I still utilize my design background by creating calming, safe spaces for our clients to heal and in the home my partner and I are remodeling.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

I have been an advocate for self-care long before it was trendy! I’ve taught other providers how to identify and prevent burnout. In this field, compassion fatigue is insidious and effects the provider, their clients, and those who have to take up the slack when sudden absences or resignations happen due to burn-out. There are several important things I’ve not only learned but emphasize with my staff. 1. There’s a reason the “I” is not in team. It takes a system for an individual to grow. Without being able to vent safely, laugh, play, and give/receive help, the isolation experienced in private practice can accelerate burnout in care-providers, especially private practice. 2.EVERYONE needs therapy. While I do not mandate therapy to my staff, I encourage it, freely talk about my own, normalize it and can be often heard saying, “Why would you want a therapist who doesn’t see the utility in therapy? You wouldn’t ask me where to get crabcakes if I said I dislike seafood!” That is not to say that all people need therapy at all times, but it would benefit all therapists from experiencing the seat in which the clients sit, from their perspective. 3. Appreciation takes the smallest effort and makes the largest impact. Showing gratitude in the workplace reminds us that all employees are essential. My staff and I shut down the office to clients once a month to do team-building, conduct meetings, focus on any outstanding projects or paperwork and best of all, wear whatever we roll out of bed in! One of the admins calls it pajama day because I am known for wearing a onesie and moccasins on our Clinical Pause days.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Word of mouth is the best advertising a Psychologist can have. There are so many limitations to solicitation in my field due to coercive nature of the work we do. Being unable to solicit clients ties our hands because most don’t often disclose, they are seeing a therapist. By helping clients to see that their own engagement in treatment impacts everyone in their system, we build trust and demonstrate the benefits of treatment even to those we do not directly touch. It is the rapport, the confidence, and the healing that reaps rewards when clients either tell others they should go to therapy, brag about their therapeutic relationship, or recommend our agency in on-line forums. We’ve also gained clients because we commit to giving back to our community by providing free support and skills groups to the community and subsidizing our services to those who have high rates or lacking insurance coverage. A recent occurrence which also added to our business exposure was partnership with our local Chamber of Commerce. We were introduced to a large array of resources, exposed to other businesses, and promoted on their forums as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.hurtandhealingbhw.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hurtandhealingbhw
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thehurtdr
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-che-hurt-043b28221/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/thehurtdr