Colors of Austin Counseling

Many therapists who hold marginalized identities (BIPOC, LGBTQ+ etc.) want to provide services to their own communities, who have historically been barred from access to resources. However, they are often unable to help in the long term because of the inequities and microaggressions they experience and the fundamental structure of the healthcare and insurance system. Research shows that the mental health field is incredibly homogenous, where 86% of Psychologists and 67% of Masters-level Social Workers in the U.S. identify as White and 84% of Masters-level Social Workers in the U.S. identify as heterosexual. A number of factors may contribute to this lack of diversity such as the documented incidence of microaggressions and overt aggressions therapists with marginalized identities experience in mental health settings and the unsustainably high caseloads that tend to fall disproportionately to therapists of color at nonprofit organizations. Additionally, many therapists with marginalized identities burn out at nonprofits due to insufficient compensation and research shows that they tend to carry higher amounts of educational debt than therapists with privileged identities.

Ultimately, the harm experienced by therapists with marginalized identities, the challenges to longevity they experience, and the homogeneity of the mental health profession impacts clients. Clients from communities who have historically been systematically marginalized (Black, Indigenous, and other people of color;, LGBTQ+ folks; and other communities who have historically been barred from access to resources) already experience a higher incidence of mental health challenges and an increased risk of trauma for individuals from these groups. Many individuals from these communities already struggle to find a therapist due to the financial and cultural barriers inherent in their marginalizations. The burnout of therapists with marginalized identities adds to these barriers by reducing the number of therapists in the field that these clients can see who can understand their experiences and provide culturally-affirming care.

Colors of Austin Counseling’s equity-focused model has been developed and implemented over the last 4 years. This model involves:

1. Creatively funding therapy for clients who otherwise would not have access to care

2. Providing cultural-affirming, racial trauma-informed therapy from diverse therapists

3. Paying therapists with marginalized identities at industry-standard rates

4. Providing multiple supportive workplace offerings such as Affinity Groups, restorative offerings, a Diversity-Equity, and Inclusion-focused consultation group, and professional development trainings focused on equity to support therapist well-being and support them in uncovering and deconstructing implicit bias

Colors of Austin Counseling’s equity-focused model utilizes two main forms of technology which are both crucial to its success:

1. Therapists use SimplePractice which is a multi-functional HIPAA-compliant electronic health record platform which has a built-in double-encrypted video teletherapy function. This platform allows Colors of Austin’s team of therapists to conduct all of their documentation and mental health service provision virtually and in compliance with all relevant laws and licensing boards. Being able to offer video teletherapy significantly increases the ability of clients from under-resourced communities being able to access mental health because it removes transportation barriers.

2. Our equity initiatives (in particular our Affinity Group offerings and DEI-focused professional development offerings) rely on video conferencing platforms such as Zoom and Google Meet because a lack of diversity in the mental health field means that there may be few therapists holding a particular marginalized identity living in a geographical location. Affinity groups must then be held among therapists who live in different geographical communities in order to recruit enough participants for a meaningful discussion. Additionally, hosting DEI-focused professional development offerings allows our practice to reach more people.

This solution is currently being piloted and we would like to study this solution to obtain data on how exactly our model is improving well-being and longevity for therapists with marginalized identities and if this is subsequently impacting therapy outcomes. As we begin to share our model with the mental health community with the intention of shifting the way mental healthcare settings are structured to better support and protect therapists with marginalized identities, this data will be crucial in allowing us to construct a convincing argument. This project will help us impact our field by providing evidence in support of our unique solution, tackling the problems of diversity and representation among the mental health therapist community.

There are multiple target communities that will directly benefit from this solution. First, community members in Austin, TX without access to mental health services will benefit as this solution would allow us to develop more funding partnerships to provide accessible services. Individuals with marginalized identities (Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color, LGBTQ+ communities, etc.) are more likely to experience mental health challenges and experience higher rates of trauma and are currently underserved due to financial barriers, implicit bias, and a lack of diversity in the field of mental health. If successful, the Austin-area mental health community would shift towards prioritizing diversity and therapists participating in our equity initiatives would be identifying and working through their biases, thus leading to more culturally-grounded care and so clients with marginalized identities would benefit from culturally-affirming services. Therapists with marginalized identities and lived experience would also directly benefit because this solution would combat the multiple barriers that exist in their work. They are currently being underserved due to disproportionately high caseloads, inequitable pay in the nonprofits, macro and micro workplace aggressions which all lead to higher incidences of burnout.

This solution allows therapists who hold marginalized identities to experience a greater sense of meaning and autonomy in their work, greater well-being, and higher pay. Ultimately, if successful, these changes would lead to therapists with marginalized identities performing therapy more effectively and staying in the field for longer. Additionally, therapy clients with marginalized identities would experience increased improvements in their mental health attributable to the cultural fit with their therapist and their therapist working through their own internalized bias.

Colors of Austin Counseling and our team of therapists is well-positioned to deliver this solution because we have already developed and begun implementing it. To specify, we already have a Director of Equity whose role it is to guide our social justice training  and create spaces for clinicians to discuss equity in therapy work. We currently host identity-based consultation groups for clinicians, intentional meetings for therapists to process racialized triggers and biases, hold one another accountable, and challenge one another with clinicians who hold similar identities. We also already have 12 partnerships with local organizations that fund therapy services for clients they refer to us who otherwise would not have access. Through these steps we are already impacting our field.

Colors of Austin Counseling has been intentional about building a team that is representative of the communities we serve. The majority of our team holds marginalized identities, has lived experience, and is part of the communities we are trying to serve. To be specific, most of our team identifies as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color) and the majority of our team identifies as LGBTQ+. Additionally, our entire Directors Team identifies as BIPOC. 

In developing our model, we have continually been informed by both therapists and clients with marginalized identities (BIPOC, LGBTQ+, migrants etc.) Our therapists have shared the intersecting factors that have led to their burnout in traditional mental health settings. Past, current, and prospective clients as well as community stakeholders from under-resourced communities have told us about the multiple barriers to accessing high-quality care from a culturally-competent therapist. We actively seek their feedback which informs the development of our model. Ultimately, we believe we are qualified to implement this solution because our model is grounded in the lived experience of our community and has proven to be successful. We are now ready to fine-tune and expand our impact.

Colors of Austin Counseling’s equity model is currently being implemented. Because we receive positive feedback from our team of mental health professionals, community partners and stakeholders, and our clients, we would like to share our model with other organizations working within mental health in order to expand our model’s impact. We would like support with monitoring and evaluation to better study our solution’s impact. Specifically, we want to learn if the ways we support our therapists with lived experiences is significantly impacting their well-being and if this ultimately impacts client outcomes. This data will eventually help us share our model with other organizations working within mental health to impact our field.

Additionally, we have found that supporting a team with lived experiences of systematic marginalization through supportive offerings, equity-focused trainings, and equitable compensation practices is costly. Our practice generates revenue by providing therapeutic services to clients and through our equity-focused offerings to the mental health community, but we have found that our fundraising efforts and grant applications have struggled. We would love support from Solve around how to best pitch to investors and grantors to continue meeting the needs of our team. We believe that support with monitoring and evaluation would also help us best tell our story and obtain funding support.

Colors of Austin Counseling has been intentional about building a team that is diverse, inclusive, and representative of the communities we serve. All members of our Directors Team are women who identify as Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) and one third of our Directors Team identifies as LGBTQ+. Our team is also comprised mostly of BIPOC mental health clinicians in that 14 identify as BIPOC (2 identify as Black, 12 as non-Black BIPOC) and 4 identify as White. In terms of diversity regarding gender and sexual identity, 9 of our team members identify as LGBTQ+. We are already very diverse and a core goal of our model is to support our diverse staff and shift the mental health field towards diversity, equity, and inclusion thus making mental health services more accessible to communities who face multiple access barriers.

Our practice’s approach to diversity and inclusion includes paying therapists with marginalized identities at industry-standard rates and providing multiple supportive offerings so that they experience well-being, a sense of meaning, and stay in the mental health field without burning out. We approach equity by providing identity-based affinity groups to meet the needs of therapists with different identities, recognizing that these needs are unique. We also approach equity by using a sliding scale determined by questions focused around privilege to subsidize offerings for individuals with marginalized identities and by creating partnerships to creatively fund services for those from under-resourced communities.