In 2015, Carmen Rathert and Jessi Frencken leased a small office space in Clinton Corners, the shopping complex on East Ohio. There, along with a third therapist, they offered speech, occupational and physical therapy services for children.
The expense of opening the business wasn’t great, Carmen said, so she told herself it wouldn’t be a big deal if it didn’t work out.
The first week they opened, she did nine speech evaluations, and thought: “Wow, this is going to work.”
That turned out to be something of an understatement. By 2018, they had outgrown the 1,000 square-foot office on Ohio and moved into a 3,300 square-foot space in the north end of Jefferson Commons on Second Street. In 2021, they opened a 5,500 square-foot therapy center in Knob Noster, and are now remodeling a former coffee shop in the south end of Jefferson Commons.
In February, they are breaking ground on an Autism Center in the parking lot on the north side of the Commons. The new construction brings their total business space to 24,000 square feet, making The Pediatric Place one of the largest children’s therapy services in the state, Jessi said.
“This is a big leap,” Carmen said of the new building. “We started with three people.
“Now we have 43 employees.”
One of the hardest parts of starting the business was getting it credentialed, Carmen said — she spent half her day on the phone with insurance companies. They soon realized they needed to hire a secretary who could handle the billing. Now they draw employees from all over the region.
It was a need for physical therapy for one of her children that led Carmen to Jessi. Jessi, who is from Columbia, Mo., had moved to Clinton after she completed her master’s degree in pediatric physical therapy from the University of Missouri. She worked at Bothwell hospitals in Warsaw and Windsor, she said, then in 2008, decided to open her own pediatric physical therapy business, traveling to people’s homes to provide services.
Carmen grew up in Clinton — her mother is Hope Seider, who taught 5th grade and Title 1 Reading in Clinton. Carmen graduated from Clinton High School in 1999, earned a master’s degree in pediatric speech pathology at the University of Central Missouri, and moved back to Clinton, where she offered speech therapy, naming her business Chatterbox.
Jessi’s business was Child’s Play Therapy.
“In 2014, after she had been working with my son for about six months, I proposed teaming up,” Carmen said. “My wheels were turning.”
Their combined businesses filled a geographic gap in children’s therapy services, they said. Before they opened, there was nothing between Columbia, Mo., and Kansas City, they said.
Even when they applied for insurance, the person on the phone kept asking, “Where are you?” with the emphasis on the “where?” as if she couldn’t picture it in the hinterlands of Missouri.
There was also a gap between children’s therapy needs and what is provided by the state. For parents with very young children that didn’t qualify for state programs, there was nowhere to go, Carmen said. Often, the alternative was to wait until the child was three years old and get help through the school, she said.
But in most situations, earlier is better. The Pediatric Place’s multi-disciplinary approach also means that there are a variety of professionals watching the young clients who come through the doors. The Pediatric Place currently offers six types of therapy, and many subspecialties, Jessi said, including treatment for dyslexia. They offer therapeutic horse-riding through the Barn in Leeton, aquatic therapy and keep a list of future needs, Carmen said, which they keep adding to one at a time.
“Our mission statement is to help as many kids as we can,” Jessi said.
When the Autism Center opens next fall, it will offer ABA — Applied Behavioral Analysis — Therapy. The new building, which will resemble their therapy center in Knob Noster, will have two preschool classroom settings, to prepare children to attend regular preschool. There will also be 12 individual treatment rooms, a kitchen for feeding and swallowing therapies, and a 3,000 square-foot gym and an outdoor play area for developing motor skills, Jessi said.
“The therapy most in demand is that encompassing language, swallowing and overall communication,” Carmen said.
The new building will also have a conference room for parent training and support groups.
The new space on the south end of Jefferson Commons will be used for autism treatment as soon as remodeling is complete in a few weeks, she said. There is a waiting list, they said. One ABA therapist is already on staff and Carmen and Jessi are looking for someone to fill a second position. They partner with Compass Health, which has a psychologist who diagnoses autism.
They host clinical (graduate) students year-round from UCM, Jessi said, as well as from Rockhurst, UM, MSU and several other universities, and undergraduate interns from UCM. They also do career programs at UCM and Clinton schools, offer observation opportunities for high school students considering pediatric therapy as a career, and have information booths at community health fairs and health department programs for new parents in Clinton and at Whiteman Air Force Base.
“Anywhere we go, we give parents and grandparents an opportunity to talk about their concerns,” Jessi said.
Before Christmas, they offered a week of activities — crafts, a Christmas movie, snacks — for the young clients and their siblings. Even the waiting area is kid-friendly, with a castle-shaped chalkboard on one wall.
One of their occupational therapists organized a program to offer haircuts once a month for children with sensory processing issues, meaning they have difficulty coping with sensory stimuli. They’ve even had adults with sensory issues get their hair cut, Carmen said. The stylists donate their time, and do the haircut wherever the child is comfortable, even if that’s sitting on the floor, Carmen said.
“It lessens the stress for both the child and the parent if everybody is not anticipating a melt-down,” she said.
Having a business partner helps ease the stress of the business growing so large in so short a time, Carmen said, noting that their families are also very supportive. While the business has been more successful than they imagined when they first rented an office on Ohio — they both thought it would give them more time to spend with family — Carmen and Jessi continue to look for expansion opportunities in areas of Missouri that need their services, so that parents don’t have to drive far to get the help their children need.
“Our goal is to ease the burden on people,”Jessi said.
The Pediatric Place is located at 210 S. Second St, Clinton, Mo. 64735. Call 660-885-2394 or go to thepediatricplacellc.com.
