About Our Work

Meeting an Urgent Need:
Access to Equitable Care

While mental health is an important need for all individuals, members of underserved groups have unique needs and face additional challenges in getting equitable access to the support they need to thrive.

For BIPOC individuals, daily experience often includes direct experience with overt and covert racism, microaggressions, and navigating exclusionary or harmful systems. Racism and discrimination can often lead to additional stress, anxiety, and trauma - all contributing factors to deep mental health burdens.

For LGBTQ+ individuals, daily life can include facing discrimination, navigating negative stereotypes, or dealing with threats or actual violence directed at them because of their sexuality or gender identity. They are often the target of political and legal aggression as some challenge their rights and equality. As an additional challenge when seeking care, these individuals may face cases in which health care providers deny care, address them using harsh language, or blame sexual orientation or gender identity as the cause of illness.

Our third priority group is people living with chronic illness and/or chronic pain. Along with the continual physical pain they endure, people living with these conditions have additional burdens on their mental health, energy levels, and ability to function in different areas of life (e.g., work, parenting). Additionally, an individual’s daily experiences are often invisible to those around them, which can lead to feelings of isolation and alienation, in particular when others doubt or deny these experiences. Adequate medical care, including mental healthcare, is expensive often challenging to access, and for many people it can be a difficult and lengthy process to determine the causes of and appropriate treatment for the chronic pain or chronic illness.