The Best Mental Health Business Decision Jessie Ogienko Made Wasn’t About Growth - Superpowers for Good: Empowering Changemakers for Social Impact via Regulated Investment Crowdfunding from the SuperCrowd. | Lyssna här

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Devin: What is your superpower?

Jessie: Problem solving.

A mental health practice cannot provide excellent care for clients if its therapists are burning out behind the scenes.

That insight has shaped the growth of Caladrius Therapy, where founder and CEO Jessie Ogienko has deliberately built a business model designed to help therapists take better care of themselves while serving their clients.

Jessie started Caladrius almost accidentally. After returning from maternity leave to find that much of her community mental health team had left, she started her own practice primarily to create the flexibility she needed as a mother. One hire became another, and eventually the solo practice grew to 25 staff members.

As the practice grew, Jessie made an expensive but intentional decision: move most therapists from contractor arrangements to salaried W-2 employment with benefits.

The decision was driven by what she saw happening to therapists who technically had flexibility but lacked the financial security to use it.

“They would lose a lot of money if they took time off,” Jessie told me. She wanted to create a structure that made it possible for therapists to actually rest and care for themselves.

The transition was costly. Jessie recalled that her CPA noticed revenue had grown without a comparable increase in profit. Her response was simple: “It’s intentional.”

That investment is beginning to pay off.

Jessie told me her team members are taking more time off and showing fewer signs of burnout. The practice is also attracting experienced clinicians who value the benefits. Better-supported therapists, she argues, can provide better care.

“The care you’re getting from a therapist who is seeing eight back-to-back sessions and not taking a lunch break is not the kind of quality care you’re gonna get from someone who’s got six sessions in a day, a nice lunch break support, you know, those kinds of things.”

I find that business philosophy compelling because it connects employee wellbeing directly to mission. Taking care of the people delivering the service is not a distraction from the social impact. It is part of the impact.

For organizations trying to create meaningful social change, that may be an important lesson: sustainable impact often begins by building a workplace where the people doing the work can thrive.

tl;dr:

Jessie grew Caladrius Therapy from a solo practice into a growing team while keeping accessible, quality care central.

She redesigned employment around salaries and benefits, helping therapists avoid burnout while improving the quality of client care.

Jessie continues serving clients who might otherwise struggle to access therapy, including people using Medicaid despite difficult economics.

Her superpower is problem solving, especially reframing challenges and finding solutions that better serve people and mission.

Her example shows how persistence, thoughtful leadership and questioning assumptions can turn practical challenges into opportunities for impact.

tl;dr:

Jessie grew Caladrius Therapy from a solo practice into a growing team while keeping accessible, quality care central.

She redesigned employment around salaries and benefits, helping therapists avoid burnout while improving the quality of client care.

Jessie continues serving clients who might otherwise struggle to access therapy, including people using Medicaid despite difficult economics.

Her superpower is problem solving, especially reframing challenges and finding solutions that better serve people and mission.

Her example shows how persistence, thoughtful leadership and questioning assumptions can turn practical challenges into opportunities for impact.

How to Develop Problem Solving As a Superpower

Jessie’s superpower is problem solving. She describes herself as someone who is always asking, “How could we do this better?” and “How could we improve this?” She does not simply accept existing processes because they are familiar. Instead, she looks for ways to make work easier, more effective and more useful. She also connects problem solving with persistence. “I think I also am just stubborn,” she says. In her therapy practice, that means continuing to look for an effective approach when one method fails rather than accepting that a client’s challenges are simply too difficult. In her business, it means stepping back from immediate operational problems and questioning whether the underlying problem has been defined correctly in the first place.

One of Jessie’s clearest examples came from a seemingly ordinary business problem: how to manage multiple therapy locations. The conventional approach was to operate several smaller offices, but Jessie discovered that the second location became “the stepchild,” without enough administrative support or leadership attention. Rather than trying to solve every small problem created by the arrangement, she stepped back and reconsidered the entire model. She ultimately moved toward one large location where staff could share offices, collaborate more easily and serve families with multiple appointments more conveniently. The solution addressed the larger goal instead of merely optimizing a flawed arrangement.

How to Develop the Superpower

Question the problem before solving it. Ask whether the problem you see is actually the problem you need to solve.

Identify the ultimate goal. Jessie asks, “What do you ultimately want to do?” Keep the desired outcome in view.

Step back three levels. Look at the broader system instead of immediately attacking the most visible symptom.

Challenge assumptions. Just because something is conventional or looks successful on paper does not mean it serves the goal.

Redefine the problem when necessary. Jessie emphasizes asking whether the problem can be framed differently.

Test, learn and adapt. When an approach does not work, do not simply stop. Try something different.

Keep the people affected by the solution in view. Jessie repeatedly returned to the experience of staff and clients as the real measure of success.

Persist. Her willingness to keep working through difficult problems is part of what makes her problem solving effective.

Jessie’s approach reminds me that good problem solving is not simply about finding clever answers. It is about understanding what really matters, questioning assumptions and having the persistence to keep looking until the solution serves the people and the mission.

By following Jessie’s example and advice, you can make problem solving a skill. With practice and effort, you could make it a superpower that enables you to do more good in the world.

Remember, however, that research into success suggests that building on your own superpowers is more important than creating new ones or overcoming weaknesses. You do you!

Guest Profile

Jessie Ogienko (she/her):

CEO / Founder, Caladrius Therapy

About Caladrius Therapy: Caladrius Therapy is a mission-driven mental health practice in Charlotte, NC, with a team of about 25 clinicians and staff. We specialize in trauma treatment, including EMDR, and run a DBT program for people who need more structure and support than weekly talk therapy can offer. Our work starts from a simple belief: good care shouldn’t depend on who you are or where you start, and the people delivering it deserve to be well supported too. That’s why we focus on training highly skilled clinicians and growing leaders in mental health, so more people get excellent care and the field gets stronger.

Website: caladriustherapy.com

Company Facebook Page: facebook.com/CaladriusTherapy

Instagram: @caladriustherapy

Biographical Information: Jessie Ogienko, LCSW, is the founder and CEO of Caladrius Therapy in Charlotte, NC. After earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology with honors from Emory University, she worked in psychology research at Emory, then did research with NYU at Bellevue Hospital. She supported foster care involved families at Graham Windham in New York before providing direct care at Mount Sinai’s adolescent health center. She went on to earn her Master of Social Work from the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College, then moved into community-based work in North Carolina, providing family-centered treatment and program supervision with Pinnacle Family Services and The MENTOR Network. In 2018 she started Caladrius Therapy as a solo practice.

Personal Facebook Profile: facebook.com/jessieogienko

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jessie-ogienko

Instagram: @jessieogienkolcsw

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