Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in health and wellness but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Dr. Clifton Hicks, Founder of Urban-Based Adventures, located in Daly City, CA, USA.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
Urban-based Adventures UBA has provided an array of comprehensive mental health services for over a decade to treat a broad range of symptoms and behaviors related to early childhood exposure to trauma and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). UBA combines outdoor rock climbing with psychotherapy to treat trauma and ACEs through our innovative and unique bio/psycho/social/eco treatment approach called Adventure-based Psychotherapy. To extend and expand our impact, UBA offers a variety of Clinical Training Programs.
Our Clinical Training Programs are designed for those interested in working with children, youth, and their families living in urban communities and developing similar programs using UBA's innovative bio/psycho/social/eco treatment approach. Finally, UBA offers Telehealth Mental Health Services to address a range of adult psychiatric disorders and symptoms associated with early childhood exposure to trauma and ACEs, including post-traumatic stress disorder, learning disabilities, ADHD, depression, and anxiety.
Tell us about yourself
Somewhere around 50,000 years ago, a group of San People took their first steps and walked out of Africa, venturing into unknown places across the globe and giving birth to adventure. Since then, we have relied on this spirit of adventure in our genetic inheritance to advance and improve virtually every aspect of our lives.
Unaware of the potential dangers, I took my first steps across a very busy Washington Street in Boston at the tender age of four. It was my first real adventure, and all I can remember was feeling very happy and content in the world. My mother, however, did not share my enthusiasm.
Despite her nervousness, my mother somehow understood that nurturing my spirit of adventure was better than dampening it. She enrolled me in a summer camp in New Hampshire. Camp Hale is designed for inner-city youth and run by Boston's United South End Settlements. Camp Hale encouraged my spirit of adventure in the outdoors, lifting my mother of this tremendous burden, much to her relief. The greatest benefit was the relationships and bonds forged with people and nature during those formative years, which are as real and fresh to me today as they were when they first began.
When Dennis Moran asked me to co-lead a rock climbing group with him years later, it was an easy sell. As Outreach Counselors in Weymouth, Massachusetts, we took youths climbing at the Quincy Quarries and in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. There I saw how rock climbing was more than just a unique outdoor activity — it fostered healthy relationships and individual development. That was in 1988. Since then, I've merged my passion for being in nature with the joy of outdoor rock climbing and my training as a clinical social worker to create Urban-based Adventures (UBA). I have since extended and expanded the UBA experience to children, youth, and families living in the San Francisco Bay Area to treat trauma and ACEs.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
My greatest achievement is ensuring that more than 400 children, teens, and their families who reside in an urban community have access to and use the natural environment, allowing them to heal and pursue an overall sense of health and well-being without restriction or interference.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
Knowing that trauma and adverse childhood experiences (ACES) are pervasive and that you will never be able to fully satisfy the social and emotional needs of children, youth, and their families who are suffering from trauma is the hardest part of running a mental health business.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
The top 3 tips I would give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business in mental health:
- Find something that you enjoy doing.
- Ground it in theory, e.g., trauma, attachment, relational, etc.
- Share it with others.
Is there anything else you'd like to share?
Storytelling has always been a natural and safe way to teach children important lessons and ideas. My daughter and I decided to write and illustrate a book together to help children heal after trauma. With large colorful pictures and a fun cadence, "Let Me Be Me, Helping Children Heal After Trauma" allows children to see themselves in a meaningful story that instills hope.
Let Me Be Me, Helping Children Heal After Trauma book by Dr. Clifton Hicks is now available! Purchase on Amazon.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://ubatraumatherapy.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clifton-hicks-97647626/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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