Two years ago, we made a decision to focus solely on our mission of providing LGBTQ+ culturally competent mental health services—both in person and via Telemedicine. With a community more in need than ever before, we put an emphasis on hiring the best and brightest therapists who believe in the important work we do at Persad. We currently have 17 full time therapists on our team—more than we’ve ever had. This has allowed us to service 60% more clients than we were seeing 2 years ago and get them into care faster.Our therapists continue to work on becoming certified in the various specialized care offerings that our clients need including transgender care, family and marriage counseling, and EDMR. Our new Nurse Practitioner allows us to offer full time psychiatric services and they are working closely with our Medical Director in assessing, diagnosing, and treating our clients.
While these strategic initiatives have put Persad in an excellent position, we need your support to help us continue to expand our therapy staff and also offer additional programming that our therapists and clients are telling us are important. These include:
* By June, we plan to have hired an additional 4-5 therapists, This will allow us to move our in- person and Telehealth clients into therapy even sooner.Each new therapist requires $5,000 in necessary HIPPA-compliant software and technology in order to provide therapy services to their clients.
* Our new Transtastix pilot support group program for ages 13-18, has created a place where youth can come together and share their collective experiences. This group has proved to be so successful that we are seeking immediate funding to make this an on-going, permanent program offering.
* We are working on securing funding for new support groups, including an 18+ Transgender/Gender Non-Conforming group, a Grief & Loss Support group, and an Art Therapy group.
* Soon it will be time to expand our office footprint to accommodate our continually growing team and clients.
All this requires a significant level of commitment and cost, and this is where we need your help.