Today we’d like to introduce you to Tamira Dunn. Them and their team share their story with us below:
My business partners, Mia Matthews, Terry Cornish and myself all share a passion for community service and public health. Each of us have our own story of pain and loss that ultimately brought us together for one common goal; to serve the community. In 2020, it started with one simple group chat that brought everyone together with the idea of opening our own Psychiatric Rehabilitation Program. Having worked with a PRP before and having a professional background in mental health and human service, we knew it would be a lot of work but we were up for the challenge. We wanted change for our community and we were confident that we could make that happen. From there we started doing our research on what area we wanted to be housed in, building relationships with potential partners, and meeting with a consultant. While the pandemic had us isolated from friends and family, we took advantage of that time to put our all into starting this business.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
With any business, one of the biggest challenges is startup money. Being able to operate a business before it opens takes a lot of money. There was also the struggle of delayed approvals and being a new business learning all of the systems. Because we had a consultant, it made things a little smoother on our end. Through those challenges, we stayed hopeful and relied on our sisterhood to keep things going.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
DMC Empowering Health Services is a Psychiatric Rehabilitation Program for children and adults. Our biggest goal is to help individuals to thrive at their highest potential. We provide therapeutic mentoring services to individuals that need supportive services. We are an extension to the therapy services that clients receive; whereas, we work with helping the individual to accomplish the goals set forth in their plan. Our work includes interactive groups focusing on self-care, bullying, peer pressure, goal setting, money management, community resources, repairing relationships, and more. Our clients are connected with a one-on-one coordinator that meets with them monthly.
One of the unique things about our program is that one of our specific focus areas is on teenage moms. We are probably the only PRP program that has a direct focus on working with that population.
Risk-taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Starting a business from scratch is a huge risk! I would say the three of us are huge risk takers because we used our savings and even money from our bi-weekly earnings to start the business. We did that and there was no guarantee that our program would be licensed. We had heard so much about the state shutting down programs that we were unsure of how our application would go.
Contact Info:
- Email: dmcehealthservices@gmail.com
- Instagram: @dmcehealthservices
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/dmcehealthservices
