Timothy Zercher 0:00

Lily, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Thank you for having me. Good morning.

Timothy Zercher 0:05

Absolutely. I want to start off with asking kind of what inspired you to enter the behavioral health field and then eventually launch Beyond Inclusion Therapy and I believe positive pathways as well.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Right. So my inspiration is actually very personal for me. I'm the mother of a daughter with significant disabilities. So she's a level three autistic. I actually have a background IT from Brazil, but just walking through her needs as a mother kind of led me to understand the needs of other families also have. So I kind of just dove in head-on into this field. And that's really what inspired me to create and found the own inclusion therapy and the positive pathway.

Timothy Zercher 0:50

I love that. I love that. I think that many people in behavioral health have have personal reasons to be here. I think that makes complete sense, and I'm sure it helps keep your passion through the the years that you've been in the field.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Right.

Timothy Zercher 1:03

So you've built two therapy businesses focused on inclusion and personalized care. What's been the biggest lesson that you've learned in growing these organizations while maintaining the quality of service that you do?

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Right. So that's a great question. Because so because this is so personal for me, I what I've wanted to do is to create a practice that delivers quality services, right? And growth means nothing if you compromise the quality of the care that you're providing to these families. What I've learned is they're hiring quality therapists, also investing in their development, creating a supportive working environment for them are definitely essential. You cannot have a practice, a successful practice at best, without taking care of the therapist that provide the services.

Timothy Zercher 1:56

Yeah, I love that. It makes complete sense. Throughout, I think, your whole career, you've emphasized cultural awareness and community partnerships in all of your practice. How has that helped you build trust with families and also, of course, grow your practice over time?

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Right. So that to me, again, everything that I do has so much of my heart and such a part of who I am in this business, right? It's just an extension of my family. So I'm from Brazil originally, and I live this journey like most families. So what I've noticed in the beginning of my journey as a mother was that I wasn't being hurt. And families, they don't want to just be treated, they want to be understood. And that find that cultural awareness is a great part of that, right? Understanding their cost, their customs, understanding their culture, understanding their religion and respecting that. So not just we have therapists from different parts of the world, we speak different languages, our community partnerships also allow us to connect with the families who might otherwise struggle to access services, right? So building trust, it starts with really understanding the communities we serve. You know, and then the interesting part is that a lot of these communities that we are serving now, I first initially joined as a parent. So some of these communities I've been a member of for many years.

Timothy Zercher 3:22

I love that. I think that makes complete sense. And I think that is that speaks to your whole mission as an actual parent now running a practice, which I think makes a lot of sense. And it's no wonder that you get such a good engagement from the community. Tell me a little bit about, if you don't mind, what's the hardest part of growing a teen in your experience?

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Right. So right now we have many challenges. I mean, when you're a small practice, I would say the number one is definitely attracting, retaining, qualified therapists. The demand for services is it's increased, it has increased lately, but there is a significant shortage in the workforce. Therapist burnout is also a major concern for us. High caseloads, documentation requirements. I would definitely say the administrative demands definitely take a toll when you have a small practice and you have a small team like mine. We are competing for a limited number of professionals. So that's the challenge. We have the demands when it comes to the service delivery. There are a lot of kids right now. Some wait lists have hundreds of kids waiting for services, but there's definitely a lower number of in the workforce right now when it comes to this market where we are.

Timothy Zercher 4:39

That makes complete sense. That makes complete sense. And I think it's a situation that people in multiple regions are facing. I know Arizona, but I know there's there's multiple. Since we are a marketing agency, we always had to ask some of the marketing type questions. First one is what works best for you right now, especially outside of word of mouth, when it comes to attracting talent and professionals to join the team.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Right. So that is a great question, right? And that's a challenge that we're still working towards. So the one thing that I did want to do and implement and make sure it was that we took our time growing, bringing therapists into our practice, onboarding them, training them, providing the support. So we've been, I would say, compared to some other practices, less aggressive and hiring an accounting therapist because of that, because we are so focused on the quality. But now moving forward, we are doing more outreach. We are participating in more community events. As a full practice, we've only been practicing for about a year. So I want to take time to understand the market, understand what needs to be done. But we are starting to develop our social media, we're starting to develop our marketing materials. And also the one thing that I'm very excited about is increasing and developing partnerships with universities, right? So not just we're getting therapists to have been in the field, but also training and providing the mentorship to the new ones who are coming.

Timothy Zercher 6:10

I love that. I think building out local partnerships is almost always one of the best ways to get fresh talent, especially. It can be very challenging to get experienced clinicians out of universities because you have to wait for so long, right, as they gain experience in the space. But that makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. And what is one marketing tactic or strategy that maybe you're not doing right now, but that you're evaluating?

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Definitely increasing in our social media presence. That's one of the things that we are actively looking for, talent services in that area. And it's more so that families can know that we exist. One of the things that we are very passionate about is all the services that we offer. And I think that a lot of families don't even know some of the different therapeutic modalities that we offer, which are very unique to our practice and to very few practices in Arizona, I would say. So we want to make sure that families are aware that they have those options and they can find us. So one of the things that we are actively exploring is perhaps increasing our social media presence and also understand the ROI, right? Whenever you're deciding which fair, which conference to attend, that's going to be very important that we understand which one is actually going to bring us that return as well. So we are just being very careful as we expand.

Timothy Zercher 7:35

That makes complete sense. And that's definitely a good idea. I think too many organizations spend, they make decisions based on, for lack of a better word, ego, feeling like they should look like this or they should have this because everybody else does, and then they don't evaluate that true ROI. Like what is it actually going to result in with in terms of revenue or team members? So it's very smart. That's where you're looking. Well, thank you so much, Lily. We really appreciate you joining us. We appreciate you taking time and we appreciate the work that you're doing for your community.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Well, thank you so much for the upward AV.

Timothy Zercher 8:05

Absolutely, absolutely.