Paragon Behavioral Health Services strives to build a model of excellence
Woman-owned business with culture of nurturing and fairness serves underserved, embraces diversity
Kryn McClain, and Paulina Colonna were colleagues at a Berks County counseling center when the unthinkable occurred.
“I came back from maternity leave and found out my position was being eliminated,” McClain said. “It was completely unexpected and really hard to deal with.”
After much contemplation and discussion, the women opted to strike out on their own.
“We decided to throw our hats into the ring and start our own business,” said McClain.
With a goal of building a company with a culture of nurturing, fairness, serving the underserved, embracing diversity and providing top-rate services to all clients, they founded Paragon Behavioral Health Services — a 100% womanowned business — in 2017. Five years later, the company has about 80 employees and three locations in two states.
“We wanted to flip the model and create a company where employees were treated well and paid well. We’ve been successful in doing that,” said McClain, DHA, LPC and president of Paragon Behavioral Health Services.
Their company, which is headquartered in Wyomissing and has offices in Ephrata, Lancaster County and Olean, New York, was recently certified as a Great Place to Work and accredited by Behavioral Health Center of Excellence (BHCOE), an international accrediting body for the field of applied behavior analysis.
“We’re really proud of those designations because we think they really solidify our philosophy and the reasons why we started the company,” said Colonna, LMFT, and vice president at Paragon Behavioral Health Services.
Serving Children with Autism
One of Paragon’s primary areas of focus is serving autistic children, a population Colonna said is underserved.
“We work with a wide array of autistic children in a variety of settings, focusing on attracting the very best team members we can find to serve them,” she said. “We saw the need among this population and continue working to fill it.”
A particular focus is providing autism assessments — a service that can be difficult for parents and guardians to access for their children. Paragon is one of only a few behavioral health services in Berks County to offer the assessments and is working to make them more affordable for those without insurance, according to Colonna. The practice also is waiting for approval to extend assessment services to clients who qualify for Medicaid.
Early testing and diagnosis are important, Colonna explained, as it enables services to begin earlier and yields better results.
“Early detection of autism is important, because the earlier treatment starts, the better,” she said.
In addition to assessment services, Paragon offers individual and group therapy for autistic children. The practice also recently began developing virtual reality (VR) software designed to teach independent living and applicable skills to clients with autism in a safe setting. For instance, a client could use a VR headset and software that walks him through the process of making macaroni and cheese. After some VR practice, the client would make the meal in a supervised kitchen setting.
“We’ve found this to be a successful technique for our clients,” McClain said.
Other Services
Paragon offers outpatient counseling services for adults, with telehealth counseling available for those who prefer it. The practice also serves individuals and families that require diagnostic evaluations for immigration purposes. Bilingual staff members are available to assist Spanish-speaking clients, and evaluations can be done remotely, when necessary or preferred. Because the cost of these evaluations can be prohibitive, Paragon works to keep its fees significantly lower than those of other practices.
Because Paragon has no board of directors, McClain and Colonna can easily make decisions concerning programs and policies based on input from employees and other factors.
“We don’t have a lot of red tape to go through, which enables us to act nimbly,” McClain said.
“We just look to get the highest quality programs up and running based on observed needs.”
Looking Ahead
McClain and Colonna will continue to seek out the highest quality employees, relying on their core values and company culture to attract people to the practice.
“We certainly prioritize our clients, but we do that by making sure our clinicians and staff members are well cared for,” McClain said. “We want every employee to feel meaningful and important, because they are.”
They expect to keep growing their autism programs, as the need for services for that population increases. Colonna noted that Paragon has a client list of about 120 members of the autism community, with a waiting list of 80 more.
And they’re confident that their outpatient and telehealth services will continue to expand as they hire additional clinicians with diverse language and cultural skills.
The women are proud of the practice they’ve built in only five years and looking forward to the future.
“Losing my job was pretty crushing at the time, but I’m glad now that it happened,” said McClain. “Paulina and I have brought a great team of people together to do some important work, and that’s been a really good thing.”