Aimee Clark, Founder of Purpose Therapy Group’s Take on Accessibility to Treatment in California
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, “Without treatment, the consequences of mental illness for the individual and society are staggering.” Nearly one in six Californians experience some mental illness. Furthermore, the accessibility to mental health treatment in California has been a major obstacle due to the lack of services for the youth, the stigma of getting treatment and financial barriers.
Aimee Clark, a marriage and family therapist as well as the co-founder of Purpose Therapy Group has already observed positive changes to these obstacles and identified potential solutions. She started this therapy group to give back to both the therapist community, and the California community through serving low-income communities.
Clark believed that the schooling for the youth would greatly benefit from more on-site mental health support. “The lower-income families in school systems are who we are trying to target for next year. I have extensively researched this topic, and will tell you that school systems are very far from being able to support students the way that they are needed,” said Clark.
The first step to support these students is to, “take it seriously enough to put it in the district as well as each school's budget line item.” The first step to finding a solution for this barrier that Clark hopes to do is to establish after-school programs with counselors at a low cost.
Clark emphasized the significance of beginning with funding to enable districts to subsequently explore available resources. “There are really no programs except for social-emotional programs which just happened in the last few years. There was also not enough support for these kids during the pandemic, especially in lower-income areas,” Clark stated.
The negative stigma to seeking mental health treatment has been a barrier for many who are struggling mentally as well. However, Clark expressed that, “Not just family systems but social systems are recently changing. As a whole, society is shifting towards normalizing mental health and it has been becoming more appealing to the people.”
Clark has observed that there has been a shift in the similarities of the number of male and female children/teen patients. This change could be due to the influences of social media. “We are seeing more equality in genders when it comes to children and teenagers [seeking mental health treatment],” said Clark.
Because of the pandemic, many mental health professionals have seen a positive change when it comes to the financial accessibility of treatment due to the development of telehealth. “There are more people now because of telehealth who are seeking out and continuing therapy since it is more accessible and allows us to reach the lower income communities for those that don’t have the means for transportation. It also enables therapists to do therapy throughout an entire state that they are licensed in versus just locally.”
Clark added, “I work primarily with trauma in couples and children which is the most difficult kind of work that I had to transition to do on telehealth. On the other hand, I was about 18 years in my practice when the pandemic hit, and noticed that because of telehealth, my number of appointment cancellations has decreased. It has now become a very viable way to do therapy.”
Clark has found that the lack of accessibility of mental health services for Californians is mainly due to financial barriers. This includes availability through patients’ insurance networks and transportation. However, because of this more recent change to how patients access care, there has been a positive impact on reaching patients in low-income communities as well as reaching professionals.
In working to solve this barrier, Clark’s Purpose Therapy Group has a partnership with Solutions for Change, a California non-profit dedicated to solving family homelessness. This non-profit supports people in transition from homelessness, drug addiction and imprisonment.
