Abundance Therapy Fund Sponsorship for BIPOC Healing
The Root to Crown Abundance Therapy Fund allows community members like you, to assist in sponsoring BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) individuals with financial barriers to receive therapy services from Cassandra Sawyer, MA, ATR-P, RYT, at Root to Crown Healing & Wellness, LLC. At Root to Crown, we believe that all humans are deserving of high quality mental health care, and that economic class status should not be a barrier to receiving those services.
During the uprising in the Twin Cities after the traumatic and tragic murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, MN, there was an undeniable need for race-based trauma services. The initial therapy fund at Root to Crown Healing & Wellness was created to assist the influx of new clients with financial barriers that were seeking services in response to the events in Saint Paul and Minneapolis (trauma and grief reactions, fear, stress, etc). The initial fund raised almost $7,000. Within the first two months, this allowed 30 therapy sessions to be supplemented, and even allowed some individuals who were out of work due to the pandemic to have access to the same high-quality services, free of charge. Currently, 60% of Root to Crown clients identify as BIPOC and benefit from the therapy fund.
There is virtually no part of the United Stated that is unaffected by race-based trauma and racism. The public lynching of George Floyd changed the entire world, and it hit particularly hard in Twin Cities. Root to Crown is a Saint Paul based company, less than 20 minutes from the location where George Floyd was murdered by police, and less than 15 minutes from where Philando Castile was murdered by police. During the pandemic and with the knowledge that BIPOC individuals are at greater risk of dying from COVID due to health and social disparities, Root to Crown is able to service clients all over Minnesota via an online virtual platform.
BIPOC individuals already face many barriers to care and treatment. Some of those barriers include: difficulty in access to a therapist of color due to the limited amount of therapists of color in field, seeing a therapist that understands race-based trauma, being able to afford mental health care, and over coming the cultural stigma to attend therapy.
Cassie (she/her) is a Black mixed-race, pre-licensed, arts-based psychotherapist (art therapist) that practices holistically to meet each client’s needs. She incorporates her training in somatic yoga, reiki, and other modalities to supplement her therapy work with clients. Cassie has dedicated the majority of her career to studying race-based trauma, exploring anti-racism and decolonization work in the mental health field, and implementing strategies into her work to be able to appropriately address the complexities that arise with this type therapeutic work. Cassie delivers culturally competent, high quality, and professional therapy services.
Your financial contributions will contribute to collective healing. None of us can be truly healthy, until all of us are healthy and cared for. Self-care is community care, and every human deserves access to healing and wellness.
FAQ:
What is this money spent on?
All of this money is spent on supplementing the fee for therapy services with Root to Crown Healing & Wellness. One therapy session costs $150, and most clients get therapeutic value from bi-weekly therapy sessions.
Why don’t you accept insurance?
When you accept insurance, they are able to dictate many aspects of a client’s treatment, including but not limited to: what therapist a client is able to see (example: only an in-network provider that may not have the specialty that the client is needing), how many therapy sessions they are allowed to have based on diagnosis (despite not actually knowing anything about the client’s life or therapeutic needs), the requirement of having a diagnosis (which can often times be stigmatizing or limiting to the client in the future). The Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Health Disorders 5th edition (DSM5) is heavily rooted in white supremacy, and can be stigmatizing. Unfortunately, diagnosis when shared with an insurance provider can limit an individual in the future and can follow them for their entire lives (example: when joining the military or Peace Corps). Using insurance may also mean that a client is not able to afford their monthly premiums, or out of pocket amount due before reaching their deductible. At Root to Crown, it is important to protect all clients, and delivery care that is in the best interest of the client, and at this time it means not accepting insurance. This fund is so important because it allows all clients, regardless of wealth, to be able to access the same quality of services. All humans deserve mental health care.
Why is it important for Black clients to be seen by another Black therapist?
Many BIPOC clients have the desire to be seen by someone who understands the type of experiences that they have, instead of needing to do the emotional labor in therapy to explain why this experience causes harm before processing it. Events like those may serve to further re-traumatize a client, because the dynamics of white supremacy still exist within the therapy room.
Is Root to Crown a non-profit?
At this time, Root to Crown does not have non-profit status, and is a registered LLC in the state of Minnesota. However, we are in the works of doing research to see what options we have with this fund. We hope to give you more information on this soon!
Where can I make an one-time donation?
https://roottocrownhealing.com/store/p50/therapyfund.html#/
Where can I read more about your work?
Please visit the Root to Crown website and read our thesis. https://roottocrownhealing.com/thesis.html#/
How can I contact you?
Please email me at cassie@roottocrownhealing.com. I am a one-woman show, so all communication is from me directly, and I would love to hear from you :)
Donor Wall10
Calvin Hauer Therapy | $52.37/M
Lindsey Rue | $52.37/M
Keep up the amazing work, Cassie!
savanna
Miriam McNamara | $25/M
Lindsey Rue | $26.27/Q
Macey | $10.70/M
I believe ART HEALS! I know it’s not much but if I can afford a monthly Disney+ subscription, I can afford a monthly donation to something more meaningful and healing to my MN community
Kristen | $52.23/Q
Amy DiGennaro | $104.15/Y
Maddy
Maren