Women’s Small Business Month Series – Kristi Estes & Jennifer Puckett of In Harmony Pediatric Therapy
Q&A Featuring Kristi Estes & Jennifer Puckett of In Harmony Pediatric Therapy
October celebrates Women’s Small Business month in the U.S. In partnership with Cherokee By Choice investor Georgia Power, COED is honoring Cherokee County’s numerous female entrepreneurs by sitting down with some of the county’s female business owners.
This week we’ll hear from Kristi Estes and Jennifer Puckett. Kristi and Jennifer opened In Harmony Pediatric Therapy in Cherokee County in 2008.
In Harmony Pediatric Therapy offers occupation, physical, speech-language and music therapy to children ages birth to adolescence in their 11,000 square foot facility. Kristi and Jennifer are proud to call Cherokee County home for their families and for their business.
Follow and share this series on our Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, @cherokeeoed, and read more articles here.
What inspired you to start your business?
Jennifer: We were both in-home therapists. Kristi was an OT, and I was a music therapist. We had a lot of overlapping kids on our caseloads. We got to know each other through that and through a mutual work-related friend who knew we were both looking for office space. We got together, met for dinner, hit it off and decided that we were going to open a clinic space.
Kristi: One of our biggest missions here, as parents ourselves, is we didn’t want to just be a therapy facility. We wanted to be a resource for families.
A lot of these parents come in and they have either just had a baby who was born with a disability or a child who recently got diagnosed – and their world is rocked. It is our goal not only to provide therapy, but to provide that resource for families to navigate this world of special needs, because it’s a very scary and overwhelming world.
At In Harmony Pediatric Therapy, we provide occupational physical speech and music therapy. We provide social skills groups, mostly through music therapy. We provide family resources; we do parent training sessions and parent educational sessions with different people in the community who cater to the world of special needs.
Jennifer: We also have adult day programs that bus in for music therapy groups, which is wonderful because we can provide a community outing and sometimes, you’ll find them walking on the outdoor track or using the Community Room.
How has being in Cherokee County helped grow your business?
Jennifer: I’m from Canton, so I knew that there was a great need in this area for a one-stop-shop for families to bring their children and get multiple therapies in one visit, and not have to drive back and forth to Atlanta, Cobb or elsewhere.
Kristi: The majority of our clients come from Cherokee County, but fortunately, we’re also in an amazing location here where we grab from Roswell, Alpharetta, Cartersville and other areas of Fulton, Cobb and Pickens counties.
Cherokee County obviously is the best place to be. Cherokee has the best resources, even for helping families, like Must Ministries. This county has such giving people.
Jennifer: It’s nice that there are so many familiar faces. Kristi and I worked really hard initially as treating therapists, and now more as managers, to run a business with the utmost care. 100% of what we do is care and serve; I think that radiates to the community. They see how much we care and how much we work to serve our families. In turn, they trust us with their children – which is a huge honor.
What can we as a community do to continue to support you?
Jennifer: I would say as far as music therapy goes, our biggest struggle is funding for families. There are certain insurance companies that reimburse for music therapy, but there are many that do not. In the state of Georgia, Medicaid does not cover music therapy. That is a huge frustration and hardship for our families.
We partner with a nonprofit called The Duet Project. It’s online, and you can give tax deductible donations, which is huge in funding music therapy. Music therapy doesn’t get utilized in patient care, despite its benefits, due to lack of funding; it’s just as beneficial as other therapies. Our kiddos grow and develop so much in music therapy sessions.
Kristi: I also think that having resources for kids with special needs outside of this clinic is important. We have so many kids that come here for their therapy, but we want to be able to let them go and say, “You’ve come here for years, you’ve developed these skills and now we want you to go out in the community and use them,” but there’s nowhere to go.
There needs to be more opportunities for kids and young adults with special needs. They need to be accepted in our community with jobs, camps, social programs and vocational tech programs.
We always love people to come to our office, too, because if you’re not in the world of special needs, it’s not on your radar. So, I encourage all people to learn about special needs.
I know whenever people come here, they leave and have a new understanding. It’s like when you buy a white Kia and suddenly there’s 1000 white Kias on the street, and you think, “How did I never see it before?” You never know when you’ll have a grandbaby, an aunt, an uncle, a cousin or neighbor that’s going to need our assistance.
What advice would you give to other small business owners in Cherokee County?
Jennifer: I like to encourage people and say, “It’s not always going to feel like this.”
Kristi has two kids and I have three children. When we were opening the clinic, we would put our kids to bed, and we would go to each other’s house until 11 – 12:30 at night doing paperwork. We put in the work then, and it has enabled us now to have flexibility to be the mothers we want to be.
You’re going to have to dig deep for a while, but if you set up your structure right it won’t always be like that.
Kristi: I would say my biggest piece of advice would be to treat people the way you want to be treated. We both treat people with utmost respect, and you get that respect back.
Also, put the right people in the right places. Find the right people to do a job and trust them. If you can’t give them a job to do and walk away, and know it’s getting done, then that’s not the right person to be in that position.
I think that over these 16 years, both of us have put the right people into the right place; now we can go to events in the community and know that this clinic is running beautifully.
Jennifer: I would add that we really try to develop a fun culture around here. Yesterday we had a retirement party. We’ve had three or four baby showers and wedding showers in the last six weeks. We did a social the other night where we played this super fun interactive game. We really try to have an encouraging culture – that makes people like to come to work.
October celebrates Women’s Small Business Month. How has being a woman impacted your decisions and experiences with your business?
Jennifer: Kristi and I have extreme empathy and care for our families. I think that’s a trait that, many men can have too, but is innate for most women. We care so deeply for our families, and that encourages us to always go the extra mile, and for our employees too.
I think when you see therapy clinics owned by business organizations, a lot of times they lose that personal touch. Our names are here. We care deeply about our reputation.
Kristi: I would probably just say the pride that Jen and I have. She was 26 and I was 27, and we decided to open In Harmony Pediatric Therapy.
We had no idea what we were doing, and we put our minds to it, and we did it. The first five years were horrible and we almost closed; there’s no money coming in, we did a lot wrong and it was during the 2008 crisis – but we set our mind to achieve something.
I feel like women, or at least these two women, put our minds to something and we weren’t going to fail. Here we are 16 years later, having a lot of extra gray hairs and a lot of wrinkles, but we did it and now we are a prominent facility in North Georgia.
To learn more about In Harmony Pediatric Therapy, visit their website.