Bringing high-quality care to everyone who needs it
BEST COUNSELING/THERAPY CENTER Chenal Family Therapy >>
Voted Best Counseling/Therapy Center in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s 2023 Best of the Best balloting, Chenal Family Therapy is a team of passionate, caring therapists that has grown to serve the state through almost 100 locations. Originally established as, in founder Ken Clark’s words, “a bougie, high-end boutique practice,” the scope of need led the company to branch out almost immediately.
Today, Chenal Family Therapy’s 225 employees conduct 3,000 appointments a week through 20 brick-and-mortar locations and in more than 75 Arkansas schools, Clark said, administering some 150,000 sessions of care per year. The lion’s share of these sessions come from smaller, outlying communities.
“Part of what we do is bring high-quality care to rural, working-class and even impoverished individuals and families,” he said. “Our biggest operation areas are not where you’d think they are. There’s just unbelievable demand in these smaller and rural areas.”
Conducting these sessions is the company’s cadre of licensed therapists, who all hold either master’s or doctoral degrees in their respective fields. Clark said that while diversity of people and approaches are valued in the Chenal Family Therapy system, all care must be rooted in sound medical practice.
“We heavily favor clinicians who are empirically based students of a certain modality,” Clark said. “I don’t really care what that field is, but it needs to be something that has statistical backing and weight behind it. We have the attitude of ‘bring your expertise, whatever it is, so long as it is data-driven.’”
Clark said another requirement of clinicians is to offer a measure of flexibility to better serve patients on their time, using the delivery system they prefer.
“We’re committed to working with all Arkansans, and that means them being able to access us,” he said. “We’re not just brick-and-mortar-based; roughly half of our business is over Zoom, post-COVID. Therefore, therapists have to have a high level of flexibility, as far as delivery of services.
“Making it possible for a working mom to steal away somewhere with her phone and do a 30-minute therapy session is a game changer.”
For everything the practice demands of its clinicians, it works just as hard to provide for their happiness and job satisfaction. Clark pointed to Chenal Family Therapy’s innovative structure as one big reason for the company’s success in attracting and retaining top-level employees.
“We are what we call a semiprivate practice model, where we give our therapists the opportunity to build their dream job,” Clark said. “People work the hours they want, we pay best in class, and we give immense amounts of support and autonomy.
“In this way, we take the best mental-health professionals and pair them with a business model that allows them to provide care to those who need it the most. That’s something that usually doesn’t match up; often therapists go into private practice, and only certain people can afford them. We’ve created a model where the best in the state are seeing the most needy in the state. We’re really proud of that.”