We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jennifer Pope. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jennifer below.

Jennifer , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the backstory of how you established your own practice.

As a young social worker, I always knew I wanted to have my own private practice. After working for several organizations I believed that I could provide services to clients with my own unique approach. I began to speak with other colleagues that have opened practices and researched the necessary steps to do so. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any how to or manual that shows you the steps of how to start a private practice so I learned a lot along the way with many mistakes. The biggest challenge was securing initial funding needed to start the business. Like most entrepreneurs, I worked a full time job that assisted in opening my practice. Once I was able to save and identity funding, the major hurdle was finding office space at an affordable rate. Commerical real estate can be very expensive. Looking back on opening my practice I believe I could have benefited greatly by having a mentor or participating in an incubator program. The valuable resources, experience and lesson of both could have saved me a lot of time and capital. My advice to any young professional considering opening a business is to get a mentor. Research programs available for up and coming entrepreneurs and network within the programs to find a mentor. Also study other companies that you admire in business. But most importantly, understanding business is not a race but a marathon. Rome wasn’t built in a day, take your time and ask for help when needed.

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?

I am the founder, CEO, and Chief Clinical Therapist of J. Pope & Associates, LLC, a private mental health group practice located in Baltimore, MD. Im also the Executive Director of The Pope’s Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on lowering the stigma of mental health in urban areas. I began my passion for mental health while attending Dunbar High school. After graduating from Dunbar , I attended Morgan State University graduatingwith my Bachelor of Science in Psychology in 2006. Continuing my desires to become a clinician in the mental health field, I attended University of Maryland, Baltimore School of Social Work receiving my Masters of Social Work with a concentration in Mental Health in 2012. I am a Licensed Certified Social Worker-Clinical and a BSWB approved clinical supervisor. I also hold a Certificate in Advanced Trauma Therapy and I’m EMDR trained. My desire to make mental health more approachable & tangible along with my self guided grief journey after the loss of my father, inspired me to write the mental health workbook, Music Is My Therapy. My passion drives me to continue to serve the community in my professional efforts to lowering mental health stigma, provide clinical services to underserved communities, and encourage everyone to achieve their optimum level of wellness. Im dedicated to helping others heal in real life tangible ways that will improve their daily living as they become the best version of themselves. I’m most proud of managing to do it all while being a single mother of two amazing sons.

Can you open up about how you managed the initial funding?

I always knew I wanted to be a business owner. It wasn’t until I attended graduate school that I realized that business would be a mental health private practice. I was able to use my income from the full time job to behind saving for my business. The registrations, applications, deposits, etc came from my full time job. Once I made the decision to work my business full time, I began looking for funding for start ups but was unable to secure any capital. I made the decision and leap of faith to resign from my full time position and use my retirement to fund my first year of business expenses.

If you could go back in time, do you think you would have chosen a different profession or specialty?

I absolutely would choose the exact same profession. I truly believe this is not only my passion but the work I’m called to do. Every job I worked leading up to becoming an entrepreneur prepared my in different ways to walk this path. Even with all the hiccups, mistakes, barriers, and set backs I wouldn’t change a thing. I take great pride in my journey of entrepreneurship, it has molded me in invaluable ways that I don’t believe I would have experienced doing anything else. I love what I do and appreciate all that I’ve experienced so far. I look forward to doing so much more.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jpopeconnections.com
• Instagram: @j.popeconnections
• Facebook: @j.popeconnections

Image Credits
Mykia James, Photographer Kristen Hood, Make Up Artist