Community
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Bailey & Bailey Counseling – Community Reinvestment Project Spotlight
Bailey & Baily Counseling and Consultation is one 30 By/For Black, Latine, and Indigenous Kin organizations in Pierce County recommended by the Pierce County Local Advisory Team to receive funding through the Washington State Department of Commerce’s Community Reinvestment Project.
GTCF contracted with Commerce to convene the Pierce County Local Advisory Team and deliver funding based on their recommendations. You can read more about this partnership here.
GTCF reached out to Brian Bailey from Bailey & Bailey Counseling to learn more about their organization and how this Community Reinvestment Project funding is helping accelerate their work in Pierce County.
What inspired the creation of your organization/movement?
We started Bailey and Bailey Counseling to address the need of Minority Mental Health Counselors. The need is twofold:
1. People of color, particularly African Americans were having trouble accessing therapy and especially therapist that looked like them.
2. Minority Therapist had no place to intern, grow and learn in a therapeutic environment with people who shared their culture.
We aim to help the community with therapeutic services and help local clinicians find a place that they feel comfortable to learn and grow in their practice.
What is a challenge – or opportunity – your organization/movement is addressing or trying to create solutions for?
Like other mental health companies, we have the same challenge with access to major insurance companies.
Another challenge is acclimating our clients to therapy and moving away from traditional mindset about counseling. We have created a team of clinicians and support staff including Case Managers, Peer Support and Substance Abuse Therapist to help combat these issues.
What is an example of the actions, programs, or projects of your organization/movement?
We have therapeutic partnerships with Pierce County Juvenile Probation and Tacoma Public Schools to reach kids at a younger age to start the therapy process. Our modality of work with the entire family has showed dividends when it comes to reaching therapeutic goals.
How can funding – like what was delivered through the Community Reinvestment Project – help accelerate the work of Free253?
With an increase of funding, we can scale our model and help more families in Pierce County, including offsetting costs when needed. We can also work more intensively with families and engage them more frequently to aid in overall mental health