Cultivate<\/a> is rooted in a mission of accessibility and compassion. Jessy explains the Rooses are no strangers to life\u2019s turbulence and how this is fuelling their commitment to attainable care.<\/p>\nHere is my conversation with Jessy:<\/p>\n
Sarah Palmer: Some couples pick up crafts or travel. Was this your idea of a passion project?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jessy Roos: A little bit. We have always worked together. We\u2019ve been together for almost 20 years, and we have always worked together in some capacity, whether we were working for the same company or not. I know some people sort of look at that and go: \u2018That\u2019s a choice [working with your significant other].\u2019 It is, and it\u2019s not without its speed bumps. But overall, this is something that we are very passionate about. We really enjoy working together, so we\u2019re willing to deal with the conflict that comes up naturally.<\/p>\n
Every clinic is unique in the way that it comes up, whether it\u2019s a part of a larger group, or it\u2019s more \u2014 I don\u2019t want to call it a small business \u2014 but it must have had some challenges. How was that to overcome?<\/p>\n
I think the biggest part has been that I don\u2019t have a formal education in some of the things that I do, so there\u2019s been a significant learning curve for things like accounting, things like the leadership aspect of being able to have hard conversations. Those are things I developed over time and certainly through trial and error. My team has been really gracious about that. Aside from that, we have five kids together, so life has been very full, and we have done a lot of those years without full-time child care. We\u2019ve had a lot of loss and sort of familial mess happening over the last couple of years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When you\u2019re doing it with family, that comes inherently, right? It\u2019s hard to separate church and state that way.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s particularly difficult when we have family stuff. Full disclosure, we lost our youngest child in December, and that sort of blew our lives apart.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sorry.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yeah, and that sort of threatened to blow the business apart, because both the people who try to keep things running, especially Joel, in his role as clinical director. He needs to be available as a supervisor. That was a really significant thing for us to try to negotiate, where we were able to step back as much as we could and support our living kids and support our own grieving and all of these different things, while not abandoning our team. For all of the struggles that we\u2019ve had, we owe everything else to our team.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yeah, and I\u2019m sorry to hear that, but that\u2019s admirable. It does take a village, hey?<\/p>\n
You learn that the hard way when your child dies. I mean, our team was at our child\u2019s funeral, they were showing up with meals, cleaning our kitchen, and things like that. It\u2019s so special. I would not expect that from work colleagues.<\/p>\n
When you think about the traditional environment, at least, right?<\/p>\n
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Absolutely. There\u2019s obviously been struggles, significant ones, especially over the last year, but everything is so worth it because of the people that we work with.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now I\u2019m curious, how did you land on the name Cultivate?<\/p>\n
It dropped into my brain one day. I spent months working on the rebranding. I was a little bit loath to touch something that was on the nose in terms of growth and nature \u2014 I definitely didn\u2019t want to go in that direction. When Cultivate popped into my head, I was like, \u2018that\u2019s it!\u2019 Because that\u2019s not just growth as it happens \u2014 cultivation requires attention, effort, education, and support. It is a very intentional type of growth, as opposed to growth for the sake of it. It doesn\u2019t typically happen alone \u2014 it happens in a community with the support of multiple pieces.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If you were to say Cultivate\u2019s mission statement in one sentence, what would you say?<\/p>\n
Grow the life you want. It\u2019s about that intentional movement towards the life that you want. We try to frame ourselves as approachable professionals. I joke sometimes in interviews that we know our shit, and sometimes we swear about it \u2014 we\u2019re just normal people who are here to help.<\/p>\n
Absolutely, and then upon opening the clinic, what did you make a priority? Were there any gaps in the healthcare system that you were trying to fill?<\/p>\n
We see two sides of things: the public-facing service provider side, and then we see the clinician professional side, in the therapy space, and the gaps that exist there. In the public-facing side, mental health was obviously historically neglected as part of universal health care. It\u2019s incredibly frustrating because there are so many piecemeal services available. There is no sort of continuity of care, and there\u2019s very little accessible long-term care.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It just makes sense to keep supporting people until they have reached their goals, until they have the tools they need to thrive, until they have processed their trauma, and they can go out into the world and be well and also be good for their communities. There\u2019s that ripple effect there.<\/p>\n
What sets Cultivate apart from other clinics in Calgary?<\/p>\n
One is the way that we treat our staff. I don\u2019t want to insinuate that other practices are somehow being big meanies or underpaying \u2014 they\u2019re doing what is typical and historically average in the industry. We\u2019re looking to say that might be what\u2019s average and regular to find, but we\u2019re not happy with that. We\u2019re always sort of looking at ways we can improve the clinician experience so that we get to keep these amazing people for a really long time. The stakes are too high to be coming in burned out, stressed, sick, lonely, or tired.<\/p>\n
The other thing is this pay-what-you-can program that we do. We\u2019ve been doing that since 2019, and since then, I think we\u2019re approaching $3 million worth of services given away to the community. So that\u2019s either free or subsidized. I guess it\u2019s traditionally called a \u2018sliding scale.\u2019 There is a fee schedule: it\u2019s $235, and we just say, please come in \u2014 without means testing, without having to grovel and beg and fill out a million forms \u2014 you just tell us what you need and how much you can comfortably pay for that, and we will do our absolute best to match you with the right person as quickly as we can.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For us, that\u2019s sort of deeply embedded in our values. We\u2019re not a non-profit, officially, so we are doing this without government grants, charity receipts, fundraising, anything like that. We are just making the numbers work and trying to keep the number of lower-fee sessions as high as possible. Again, I\u2019m going to swear here, but we say \u2018we have a no rich assholes at the top\u2019 rule. My Prius is parked out front \u2014 I\u2019ve got a 2012 Prius. We\u2019re not going on multiple vacations a year, we\u2019re not putting in a new kitchen. We are very focused on making sure that the money that comes through our doors is being redistributed back to the community, and also making sure that compensation stays high for our team.<\/p>\n
You mentioned that it\u2019s sort of like a sliding scale, but in a lot of ways, it\u2019s not. From my understanding, that\u2019s providing your proof of income, and then paying what you can from there, because you guys don\u2019t ask for proof of income?<\/p>\n
Our intake form is the same for everyone. So we keep it as minimal as possible, because my experience has been that financially accessible programs are often narrow in their focus. We have a checklist of those basics \u2014 anxiety, depression, relationship stress, work stress, chronic illness, disability, gender identity, sexuality. Then we just say this is the fee schedule, it\u2019s $235 an hour. We recognize that not everybody can make that work, so please consider your access to insurance funding, and just tell us what you can comfortably afford.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We believe that if we show a level of trust to our clients, they respond with honesty. We have a lower no-show rate than the industry average, because people take this seriously. It\u2019s really easy to be a little bit cynical and assume that people are going to take advantage and that people are going to lie, and I just don\u2019t see that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
How does affordable care, like what Cultivate offers, help the community as a whole?<\/p>\n
Myself, as an example, I deal with childhood trauma. I personally am neurodivergent, and I\u2019m also disabled, so I\u2019m hard of hearing, and I grew up with a sort of chaotic family unit. For me, access to therapy has helped me become a better parent, so that I\u2019m not repeating the things that my parents put upon my brother and me growing up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There\u2019s sort of that generational ripple effect where if you\u2019re increasing resourcing and the emotional resiliency, and you\u2019re reducing the amount of trauma that is being put onto the next generation, they\u2019re going to go and create a healthier next generation. You know, hurt people, hurt people. So if we\u2019re reducing the number of hurt people and we\u2019re helping the hurt people heal, we\u2019ll automatically create a softer, kinder, more respectful community where the priorities and values are well aligned for the flourishing and safety of humans.<\/p>\n
Editor\u2019s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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