Dear reader,
We are so excited that you’re here!
Over the past few months we’ve been working hard to build a website that fulfills our nonprofit’s mission–to make it easier for people to find affordable and culturally sensitive mental healthcare. This is a mission that our founding team members (Dani, Bridget, and I) have been passionate about for a long time. We feel fortunate to be able to pour our passion into this venture and to finally share it with you.
This is a soft launch of our site. That means that it’s not finished–on purpose. We value transparency and collaboration, so we want to build this site with you. Our final site will be the one that best serves your needs and without your feedback we can’t get there. So let’s hear it all! The good, the bad, and the broken links. Get in touch with us using our contact form. You can also email us and our DM‘s are always open.
What we’re doing
On this site, you’ll find two main initiatives: a national directory of affordable mental health services and our blog. Our directory has 11 different types of mental health services, searchable by location, so you can look through all of your options and find what’s best for you. Best of all, every service is either free or low-cost ($20 or less per session).
There’s nowhere else on the internet where you can find all of these services. Trust us, we’ve looked. Over the coming months, we’ll rapidly expand our directory with a focus on the regions where our founding team members live: NYC, Chicagoland, and the DMV. You can help us grow our directory by submitting a listing, even if it’s not in one of those 3 regions.
Our blog is where we’ll help you with all of the confusing and frustrating things that come with looking for mental healthcare. We’ll focus on helping you navigate the mental health system and finding therapists who are sensitive to your identity and background. Through our blog posts, we’ll tell you all we know as researchers and therapists in the mental health system so you can get the support you need with less stress along the way.
Why we’re doing it
Therapy4thePeople was started in May 2020 during one of the early peaks of the Covid-19 pandemic and (yet another) moment of racial reckoning in our country. It was a difficult time for so many, but especially for those in marginalized communities. As the inequities in our society were exposed, we saw how working class people of color, especially Black people, bore the brunt of these crises.
Even worse, the same people who were struggling to pay for basic needs, losing friends and family to Covid-19, risking their lives on the frontlines to keep society running– were the same exact people least likely to get mental health support to deal with it all. It felt immoral to continue with the status quo of our broken mental health system, so we decided to do our part to change it with Therapy4thePeople.
It’s now January 2021 and it seems like people aren’t talking as much about inequities and disparities in our systems. But they’re still there. They’ve been there for a long time and will take a long time to change. So we’re in it for the long haul. And at the heart of our work will always be our belief that everyone deserves access to mental healthcare, regardless of their income and regardless of their identity or background.
This is just the start for Therapy4thePeople. We’re excited to listen to your feedback and keep growing this year and beyond. 2021 is already off to a good start! Thank you for reading and for being part of our team.
Sincerely,
Ashley Castro
Executive Director, Therapy4thePeople
