Choosing the Right Setting for Your Therapy Career: Four Reasons Equilibria May Be a Great Fit for You

If you are a talented and compassionate therapist looking to work in an outpatient setting, Equilibria may be a great practice to consider. Clinicians often join Equilibria when they are feeling unfulfilled, burned out, or underappreciated at the current organization where they are working. To help you decide if Equilibria may be the right place for you, this article will go into detail about each aspect that sets Equilibria apart from other mental health agencies: clinical and professional development, leadership and administration, workplace culture, and community engagement.

Clinical and Professional Development

Equilibria values clinicians’ learning, growth, and ongoing improvement in clinicians skills. To continue to provide stellar clinical services, consultation and skill-building strategies for therapeutic work is imperative. There are various informal and formal opportunities for peer-to-peer consultation and supervision at Equilibria.

One option for professional growth and development is through membership in a Center of Excellence (CoE). A CoE is a group of clinicians who share the same interest in a clinical topic and are committed to gaining knowledge and improving their clinical skills in that specific area. Topics range from broad (e.g. Children and Adolescent Therapy, Addiction Recovery) to specific (e.g. ADHD, Reproductive Mental Health). Each CoE provides regular peer consultation, opportunities to share resources, and learning opportunities to increase the scope of knowledge about the Center’s specialty. Some clinicians join more than one!

Equilibria also offers a variety of different consultation groups outside of CoEs. The consultation group topics range from general topics (case consultations) to specific topics (psychodynamic therapy). Diversity amongst clinicians’ expertise, professional, and personal backgrounds adds to the richness of professional development within Equilibria.

Another professional development opportunity is deepening knowledge on types of therapy or therapeutic topics through continuing education(CE) trainings. Equilibria offers low-cost or free CEs, in which the employees have input on what continuing education topics would be most helpful or useful for their practice.

Leadership and Administration

First and foremost, leadership members are referred to as “the leadership team.” The leadership members take a team-based approach to various topics, which differs from many mental health practices. The leadership team works together through collaboration for decision making within the practice.

Second, unlike some other mental health practices, our leadership team members actively see clients in addition to their leadership roles. Keeping an active caseload allows leadership members to stay connected to the clinical heartbeat of the practice.

Third, members of the leadership team are attentive and responsive to clinician issues, especially for complex issues such as ethical dilemmas or administrative boundaries that require individual support. The leadership team responds quickly to inquiries by clinicians. There is a value placed on a clinician’s time, both personal and professional, and leadership aims to respond to questions and concerns in a timely manner to reflect that respect.

Fourth and certainly not the least, Equilibria has dedicated administrative team members who are responsive and timely while relaying important and sensitive information regarding the care of clients. The administrative team is there to support clinicians with anything from matching the right clinician to the right client, billing, credentialing, and insurance issues.

Workplace Culture

The culture at Equilibria is warm, supportive, and collaborative. At Equilibria, each clinician regardless of full-time, part-time, or independent contractor status, has the flexibility with the number of clients on their caseload, preferred populations and diagnoses they wish to work with, and their schedule. Equilibria has a diverse group of clinicians, which makes it likely that any client who comes for an intake at Equilibria will be matched with the right clinician for them.

Equilibria values a healthy life-work balance, and that is reflected in the offering of paid time off (PTO) for full-time, salaried clinicians. Most mental health practices do not offer PTO, and Equilibria is proud to offer this perk to full-time employees, in addition to other benefits such as health, dental, and vision insurance, as well as a retirement savings plan with employer-matching that vests immediately.

Equilibria is a medium-sized organization that has the benefits of both large and small mental health practices. The large practice benefits include having a wide selection of consultation groups and CE trainings, fellow clinicians with a comprehensive repertoire of clinical specialties and a diversity of lived experiences, and a variety of compensation models (salary, hourly, and independent contractors). The small practice benefits include good relationships with coworkers and leadership, inclusion of feedback in organization decisions, and clinicians to get to know each other well (via consultations, social events, and Centers of Excellence). We also pride ourselves on not being “corporate” or hierarchical.

Community Engagement

Community engagement is an often overlooked aspect when deciding where to work. At Equilibria, there are various ways therapists can stay engaged in the communities that they serve.

Equilibria is in-network with most major insurance companies, which allows therapists to be accessible to a wider population of potential clients. Being in-network with most major insurance companies allows the individual therapists to feel a sense of satisfaction from contributing to the accessibility of mental health services to various populations.

Another opportunity for clinicians to engage within the communities they serve at Equilibria is by attending community events. In addition to community events (which are voted on by each clinician at Equilibria), there are various training and speaking engagements to educate the community, for clinicians that are interested.

 

Equilibria is a dynamic practice. Equilibria offers clinical and professional development through various diverse opportunities to peer consultations through Centers of Excellence and general consult groups to low-cost or free CEs. The leadership team responds to queries in a timely manner, and is connected to the community and culture at Equilibria. The administrative staff excels at matching clinicians with the appropriate referrals, and quickly responds to billing and insurance issues. In terms of workplace culture, Equilibria enjoys  diversity amongst employees and client referrals, flexible schedules, a variety of benefits for employees, and the strengths of both large and small practices. As previously stated, community engagement is plentiful through offerings of practice-wide activities and being in network with most insurance companies.

We hope that after reading this article, you will consider joining the Equilibria team. You can find many of our job postings here.