We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kara Kohnen. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kara below.
Alright, Kara thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Have you ever experienced a times when your entire field felt like it was taking a U-Turn?
In 2020, we experienced some huge transitions in the mental health field. Prior to 2020, there were a few early adapters of Telehealth in Mental Health, but as a Marriage and Family Therapist who loved to be in the room with my patients, you could not have talked me into trying it in 2019. When the world shut down and lost our critical access to provide patients with care, the silver lining was the ability to pilot Telehealth on a big scale really quickly. I was all in for helping my patients anyway possible during that time. And all at once, all my colleagues were as well. It was an overwhelming pivot, but we did it! As time went on and pandemic fear decreased in society at large and screen fatigue set in, there was also a high need to return to in person care. I actually decided to grow our physical locations at time when therapists at large were not renewing their office leases. We hired some associates who had never seen a client in person in 2022 as their programs and traineeships were all online. Now, it’s something that sets us apart from our fully virtual colleagues as a service that is highly valued by our communities. It is special to know and be a part of healing our local communities and knowing first hand the local impact we provide that can’t be substituted with distance and video conferencing. While video conferences are amazing for access to care and convenience, it cannot totally replace the human connection of being in a room together. This remains a critical piece as well for our patients who are young or at high risk. At Grow Through Life Counseling, we now have the best of both worlds in the convenience of offering Telehealth when this is appropriate and allows for access to care to more people while still being able to offer in person care locally in both San Diego County and Riverside County. We remain passionate about and committed to training associate therapists and often with in person supervision onsite as well. We see the value of this level of support. Another big industry wide event as a result of the events of 2020 is a a reduction of societal stigma around getting mental health care and having a therapist as positive support. We have seen a huge increase in the utilization and acceptance of mental health care and support. We are so happy to see this shift and people openly communicating about seeking help and how therapy has helped them.
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?
Grow Through Life Counseling provides outpatient counseling for children, teens, adults, couples and families in person in 9 locations throughout San Diego County and Riverside County. We also provide Telehealth throughout California. We have a great team of skilled and diverse clinicians.
What Sets Us Apart from other private practices in outpatient mental health:
At Grow Through Life Counseling, as a new patient you will speak with a real human being when you call our intake line! This will be an opportunity for us to make sure we are the right clinician for you and for you to get all of your questions answered prior to scheduling your first appointment.
All patients have a phone extension for voicemail and email address to reach your therapist directly.
We never nickel/dime for administrative tasks and provide school absence notes for free – just let us know you need one.
When you come to treatment at Grow Through Life Counseling, you will be meeting in a warm, family friendly space in which all ages of children are welcome. Our rooms are big enough to have all family members join and we welcome extended family as well.
We hear other therapists don’t call people back. We will call you back every time within 24 hours or the next business day. If we don’t pick up, it is likely we are in session and make every effort to return your call in a timely way. At times, we are in session until 8pm so we will wait until the next day so as to not call you too late in the evening. If a team member is not available for any reason, another will reach out to you instead.
We are in network with Magellan, Sharp Health Plan, Aetna, Cigna/Evernorth and Tricare West. More plans coming soon! We’ll check your benefits and let you know what the cost to you will be. If you have another insurance plan and you’d like to use it, we provide you with superbills at no cost once per month. We take HSA directly in most cases as well.
We give all patients a portal link to request future appointments up to 3 month in advance to accommodate your busy family schedule. and once you are a patient you will be able to log in at your convenience and request future appointments, modify and reschedule as needed and see all upcoming appointments.
We offer after school and weekend options to serve you at the times that work for you and your family
We use technology to provide electronic records, patient portals and a virtual receptionist so your provider knows when you arrive!
We currently offer nine in person locations: Mission Valley, Santee, Eastlake Chula Vista, Sorrento Valley, La Mesa, Oceanside, Scripps Ranch, Murrieta and Temecula
We now offer Telehealth for all of California. (Per BBS of CA, you must be located in CA at the time of the service.)
We recognize the most important part of your care is the relationship you have with your provider and welcome feedback at any time.
We operate at the highest ethical and legal standards with uncompromising integrity.
We are a locally owned small business run and lead by a expert clinical team of therapists who care about improving our community and providing great employment options for our local therapists too.
We are excited to announce we are hiring licensed therapists: LMFT, LPCC and LCSW’s throughout the organization to help us with patient referrals. We have part time to full time roles. Please email your resume to: [email protected] to apply.
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
We have a proven reputation of providing quality psychotherapy for 12+ years and the best referrals come from our happy patients and their families. We have met many of our colleagues providing care as well and are a resource for them. We also participate in community networking and support other small businesses which has created strategic relationships for ongoing referrals. We are an exhibitor at the UCSD Early Childhood Mental Health Conference. As experts in the care of youth and families, we also connect with pediatricians, coaches and school administrators to ensure they know about us as a community resource. We enjoy supporting non-profit organizations in our communities as well. Further, we have increase accessibility for patient care by partnering with insurance plans as in network providers. We are open to receiving insurance referrals as well. We have a great website and blog which allows the community to reach out for support and see our latest updates. New patients can either call our intake team 619-549-0329 ext 0 to speak with intake staff or fill out the form on our website www.growthroughlifecounseling.com to get started or to learn more about the practice and employment opportunities.
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
We do so many great things! We have mentor program for the first 90 days of employment ensuring our new clinicians are getting supported and trained as they meet new patients and get accustomed to our systems. Our mentors have been with the practice for many years and are able to guide and support our newly hired team. Each of our locations has a clinical leader who provides support for all the care of their locations for all clinicians. We have a quarterly employee survey which is followed up by a Town hall all practice meeting. We also take time to celebrate all of our staff’s win’s, growth and accomplishments at this meeting. Any feedback, questions or concerns from the survey are addressed as this meeting. We also celebrate all the success, wins and growth throughout the organization at this quarterly meeting. We have a dedicated support team member whose role is “People and Culture”. She is integral in the hiring and onboarding process as well as continuously checking in on office morale and ensuring the offices have what they need to succeed and ensure a positive culture. We also do social events by location and all practice social times to connect and enjoy the team. We believe trust safety, transparency, communication and feedback all contribute to maintaining high morale. Oh, and the snacks too.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.growthroughlifecounseling.com
- Instagram: @growthroughlifecounseling
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/growthroughlifecounsel
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/grow-through-life-counseling/
