As we at enter into Black History Month, DASC recognizes continued barriers to equity and access in mental health care for those in the Black community, as well as celebrates the community care so often interwoven within the Black community.

DASC values participating in the lifelong journey of becoming anti-racist and to lift up the voices of those who have been oppressed. We recognize that the field of mental health treatment has a long history of benefiting from and participating in structural oppression, which is something that we are striving to unlearn and hoping to start to correct for.

Rather than siloing this recognition to a single month, DASC will be making a monthly donation to The Loveland Foundation’s Therapy Fund. Loveland Therapy Fund recipients will have access to comprehensive lists of mental health professionals across the country providing high quality, culturally competent services to Black women and girls. The Loveland Foundation was established in 2018 by Rachel Cargle in response to her widely successful birthday wish fundraiser, Therapy for Black Women and Girls, which made it possible for Black women and girls nationally to receive therapy support. The Loveland Foundation is the official continuation of this effort to bring opportunity and healing to communities of color, and especially to Black women and girls. Black women and girls deserve access to healing, and that healing will impact generations.

DASC is committed to serving as many of our community members in need as we can. We do not believe that quality mental health care should only be available to people who can afford to pay full fees. We are proud to offer a variety of reduced rate and sliding scale fee options to those in need and those without insurance, or with high insurance deductibles. Last year (in 2021), we calculated that our sliding scale pricing is 48% less than an average therapy hour billed to insurance, and we averaged 112 reduced rate hours per month; contributing $6,900 per month to the community.