Clinical Director, Outpatient Mental Health Services

This role is designed for an experienced clinical leader who wants to build something meaningful - driving growth, shaping culture, and enhancing patient care, not simply managing schedules or caseloads. The Clinical Director sets the standard for the clinic and leads through systems, supervision, and people development.

Compensation & Incentives

· Competitive base salary

· Performance-based annual bonus tied to clinic health, quality, and team outcomes

· Health, dental, vision insurance

· 401(k)

· Paid time off and paid company holidays

· Flexible hybrid work structure aligned with clinic and supervision needs designed to support sustainable leadership

· Comfortable and fully furnished clinic offices

About the Role

The Clinical Director is the senior clinical leader for a newly launched, locally owned outpatient mental health clinic. This role is designed for an experienced clinician-leader who wants to build culture, set clinical standards, and lead through people and systems-not carry a heavy caseload.

You will have full accountability for clinical quality, supervision, and therapist performance, while partnering closely with the Franchise Owner on sustainable growth and clinic operations.

Who This Role Is Ideal For

· A clinician who has led, or helped scale, an outpatient mental health clinic

· A supervisor who values accountability, structure, and clinician support

· A leader who wants meaningful influence without returning to a full caseload

· Someone energized by building a practice’s culture, systems/process, and sustainable operational & financial growth

Position Overview
As the Clinical Director, Outpatient Mental Health Services at Ellie Mental Health's new locally owned and operated clinic in the San Fernando Valley, you'll share our vision for improving and expanding access to quality mental health care and thrive in an environment driven by our core values of authenticity, humor, compassion, creativity, acceptance, and determination.

The Clinical Director leads a clinic of approximately 10–14 outpatient therapists, providing clinical leadership, supervision, and operational oversight while maintaining a light caseload (8–10 clients). Client care supports, rather than competes with, your leadership responsibilities. Your success will be measured by the strength of your team, clinical quality, compliance, and the overall operational and financial health of the clinic.

About Ellie Mental Health
Ellie Mental Health was founded in 2015 by Erin Pash, LMFT and Kyle Keller, LICSW when they opened the first Ellie clinic in Minneapolis. Since then, the Ellie Fam has continued to grow with multiple clinics in Minnesota and a growing number of locally owned and operated franchises across the country.

Ellie was proudly built on the mission to destigmatize mental health and remove barriers to care. By minimizing administrative burdens, we empower therapists to focus on what matters most: supporting their clients.

Reporting & Decision Ownership

· Clinical Director has full authority over clinical quality, supervision standards, therapist performance management, and patient care delivery

· Collaborative partnership with Franchise Owner on staffing plans, growth strategy, and financial sustainability

· Clinical judgment and supervision decisions are led by the Clinical Director, consistent with applicable law and professional standards

Key Responsibilities Include:

Clinical Leadership & Quality (Primary Accountability)

· Set and uphold clinical standards across the clinic, ensuring ethical, compliant, high-quality care

· Lead supervision strategy for licensed and pre-licensed clinicians in compliance with BBS requirements

· Serve as escalation point for complex clinical cases and ethical concerns

Supervision and Consultation

· Provide clinical supervision for licensed and pre-licensed clinicians in compliance with California BBS requirements

· Maintain accurate supervision documentation, hour tracking, and compliance records

· Lead individual supervision and peer consultation focused on quality, growth, and accountability

People Leadership & Team Development

· Hire, onboard, and develop a values-aligned, high-performing clinical team

· Coach clinicians through performance expectations, productivity standards, and professional development

· Address performance issues compassionately and decisively, including coaching plans, PIPs, and terminations as needed, in alignment with CA employment law and Ellie policies

Clinic Operations & Performance

· Partner with Franchise Owner and Ellie Mental Health corporate team, as needed, to ensure sustainable clinic performance through appropriate caseload expectations and clinician utilization

· Monitor clinic workflows to minimize administrative burden on clinicians

· Response promptly and professionally to client, clinician or stakeholder concerns

Clinic Outreach and Growth

· Lead community outreach and referral-building efforts in partnership with the Franchise Owner and consistent with guidance from Ellie Outreach Team

· Collaborate with Ellie Marketing and Outreach teams to support clinic visibility and reputation

Required Skills/Abilities

· Independently licensed in California (LCSW, LMFT, or LPCC)

· Demonstrated experience supervising licensed and pre-licensed clinicians

· Prior leadership experience in an outpatient mental health setting

· Strong working knowledge of California supervision and employment practices

· Proven ability to hire, develop, and retain high-performing clinical teams

· Comfortable managing risk and leading in a fast-paced growth environment with evolving priorities and high accountability

· Growth-minded and continuous improvement focused, with a genuine commitment to Ellie’s mission and values

· Comfortable using EHR systems and Microsoft 365

What Success Looks Like in the First 12-18 Months

· Fully staffed clinic to target capacity (10–14 clinicians) with strong clinical retention and engagement

· Consistent clinical quality and audit-ready compliance

· Positive client experiences driving referrals and community trust

· Smooth clinic operations that reduce clinician burnout

· A trusted, effective partnership with the Franchise Owner and Ellie Mental Health corporate team

Additional Responsibilities:

Hiring, Training, and Staff Management

· Provide all training for clinic new hires, ensuring all required Ellie Mental Health clinical and operational policies and procedures are taught and followed

· Assess ongoing development and training needs and conduct ongoing training as needed

· Hold staff compassionately accountable for meeting performance expectations

Client Care

· Evaluate mental health diagnosis, create, and implement a treatment plan, complete ongoing documentation including further diagnosis, treatment plan reviews, and case notes according to company policy

· Utilize creativity in interventions to help clients achieve and exceed goals

· Prepare and submit individual documentation for each session per company guidelines and protocol

· Coordinate services with case managers, families, work personnel, medical personnel, other Ellie staff, and school staff as needed

Organizational Leadership

· Collaborate with franchise owner and Ellie Corporate team to implement all required policies and procedures

· Identify opportunities to improve client care, quality, and effectiveness, and implement changes in collaboration with franchise owner

Equal Opportunity Employer and Franchise Disclosure

Independent franchisees are Equal Opportunity employers committed to diverse and inclusive workforces. Franchisees are independent business people and not employed by Ellie Family Services, PLLP, d/b/a “Ellie Mental Health”, Ellie MSO, LLC, or Ellie FAM LLC. Thus, each franchisee and each franchisee clinic is unique and the franchisee is alone responsible for all employment matters in their clinic, including the terms and conditions of employment for their employees, such as hiring, firing, discipline, supervision, staffing and scheduling. Depending on the clinic location you select, the job for which you apply may be in a clinic owned and operated by an independent franchisee, and not with the corporate-owned clinics, which are based in Minnesota. This means the franchisee, not Ellie Family Services, PLLP, is responsible for all employment matters at the clinic. If you are hired for the job, the franchisee will be your employer, not Ellie Family Services, PLLP or any of its affiliated entities. For franchisee clinic locations, please contact the franchisee organization directly to the extent you need assistance in completing forms or otherwise participating in that franchisee’s application process.

Ellie Mental Health is committed to a policy of Equal Employment Opportunity and will not discriminate against an applicant or employee on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, citizenship status, age, disability, veteran or military status, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, genetic information, or any other legally-recognized protected basis under federal, state or local laws, regulations or ordinances. Applicants with disabilities may be entitled to reasonable accommodation under the terms of the Americans with Disabilities Act and certain state or local laws. A reasonable accommodation is a change or adjustment to a job or work environment that will ensure an equal employment opportunity without imposing an undue hardship on the operation of the business.

Compensation: $115,000.00 - $135,000.00 per year

Seeking creative & collaborative humans with a passion for changing mental health care in fun and meaningful ways.

Don’t meet EVERY requirement?

Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. Ellie Mental Health is devoted to purposefully building an inclusive and diverse workplace where all of our humans can be their authentic selves! (Authenticity is one of our core values, after all…) If you’re excited about the chance to be a change-maker with us, but your past experience doesn’t perfectly align with every single qualification of the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. Our mental health jobs need dedicated individuals from every background who are willing to care for others. And who knows, you might just be the perfect candidate for another role!

Employee Experience

We take care of our people. It’s that simple. From investing in their financial future, to providing wages that shatter the ceiling in our industry to reasonable caseload expectations we ensure that our people are happy. Happy employees do better work and provide better client care! No matter what it is that you do in your mental health career at Ellie, our clients depend on us cultivating an environment where our employees can thrive so that they can thrive too!

Y’all, jobs in mental health are tough jobs with a high risk of emotional fatigue and burnout. At Ellie, we use all of our core values of humor, creativity, authenticity, acceptance, determination, and compassion not just out in our communities, but we turn them inwards too! Our employees have clear growth paths for advancing their careers.

We have created a culture that reminds us that our employees are our leaders!

Company Structure

Ellie is a socially responsible for-profit business, which allows us to be flexible and responsive to our community’s needs. Many mental health and wellness-focused companies are non-profits or government agencies, which rely on the general public, grants, or large donors for funding. This model often results in little creativity and lower compensation for employees, promoting a work culture that just makes people feel “blah.”

Feeling blah doesn’t help employees stay motivated, engaged, or even in their jobs for a very long time! So we created a new model: one that puts flexibility, innovative decision-making, creativity, and our people first, while remaining a socially conscious and responsible for-profit business focused on changing how we treat mental health.

In short, we’re just people helping people. Wanna join the herd?

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