Farida Boyer was just 10 years old when her father was murdered. Racked with pain and confusion, she started acting out in school.
“I wouldn’t say I was a menace, but my behaviors changed. I wasn’t such an angel,” Boyer says. “I didn’t know it at the time, but I was obviously experiencing trauma.”
Still, the West Philly native always got good grades and did well in school. Is it any wonder, then, that as Boyer moved through her education, she was ultimately drawn to helping professions?
She graduated from Temple University with a degree in early childhood education, becoming a teacher while also working at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) as a parent educator. Wanting to advance further professionally, she decided to pursue a master’s degree in one of the ultimate helping professions: therapy.
Once she graduated with a degree in marriage and family therapy, though, there was another hurdle: getting licensed. Less than 5 percent of Black clinicians are nationally licensed, a distinction that opens up doors like greater earning potential and participation with insurance plans.
The licensing process is onerous — it requires intensive preparation for a costly sit-down exam (today, it costs $370), not to mention completing 90 hours of supervised therapy with patients. And it’s important for both patients and providers: Having a license ensures therapists are qualified to provide valuable care to clients.
“It became clear to me that the average aspiring practitioner can’t afford to get licensed because of all the obstacles to doing so,” Boyer says.
So in 2016, Boyer decided to do something about it.
The Black Brain Campaign
First, she invited others who would be taking the 2017 test to form a structured study group with her, requiring anyone who wanted to join to commit three hours every Sunday, with a team-teach approach; every participant was responsible for teaching a different portion of the required material.
That first cohort all passed the test — on their first try. Typically, the first-time pass rate is between 70 and 80 percent — but less than 5 percent of clinicians taking the exam identify as BIPOC.
With that success, Boyer organized another study group for future clinicians and, along with Black Brain Campaign co-founder Jaynay Johnson, started raising funds to help students pay for the exam. Ten clinicians have now passed the exam through Black Brain Campaign’s study groups. Beyond supporting Black clinicians, she also wanted to do something to help overcome the stigma in Black communities around mental health issues and therapy.
“We need to help people understand that mental health is just as important as physical health.” — Farida Boyer
So she also started forging relationships with community groups, like NoMo Foundation, Unity in the Community, Nicetown CDC, and others that largely serve Philadelphia’s Black community — a group that has historically been underserved when it comes to mental health treatment — to find clients for aspiring clinicians. Having trainees provide therapy free of charge — up to 12 free sessions — is a win-win: Trainees get 10 hours of supervised practice each week, while patients get free treatment. Since 2016, Black Brain Campaign has served more than 500 patients.
While Black Brain Campaign doesn’t have funds to offer infinite sessions, they’ve found 12 visits to be enough to achieve the organization’s goal of getting people in the door to see how beneficial therapy is. “We want to get people to a point where we help alleviate at least some of the things they’ve been dealing with,” says Dr. Kevana Nixon, the group’s clinical director.
Anton Moore, president and founder of the nonprofit Unity in the Community, collaborates with Black Brian Campaign to provide free group therapy to the at-risk teens, ages 13 to 17, who come to his program for carpentry and automotive training. He’s been amazed by the response. “They look forward to it,” he says. “I had a parent tell me her son came home talking about how much fun he had in therapy. When a kid discusses therapy with their parent? That’s a win for me right there.”
Filling a gaping need
Nixon was part of Boyer’s first study group and now, as Black Brain’s clinical director, oversees its expanded roster of programs. The group, which consists of a staff of 22 full-time and part-time workers as well as interns, now offers not only professional development and free therapy, but case management services (like helping patients arrange transportation and find food, clothing and housing); an internship program; and community days, like one they’ll be hosting at their West Philly headquarters on March 22, to further their commitment to reducing the stigma around mental healthcare in communities of color.
“There’s a lot of research showing that the number-one factor that increases the likelihood of therapy being successful is the relationship [between clinician and patient],” Nixon says. People don’t need a practitioner who’s exactly like them — but they do benefit when they feel their therapist understands who they are as a person, whether it relates to their religion, sexual orientation, race, gender, age and so on.
Nationwide, there’s a shortage of behavioral health practitioners — as of December 2023, more than half of the U.S. population lives in a Mental Health Professional Shortage Area. In recent years, programs have cropped up to address this shortage. In Philadelphia, for example, Penn Medicine introduced its highly successful Collaborative Care Program, which relies on primary care providers to screen patients for depression and anxiety and fast-track them to help in the primary care setting — eliminating barriers related to cost, access, and time.
“People don’t need a practitioner who’s exactly like them — but they do benefit when they feel their therapist understands who they are as a person.” — Dr. Kevana Nixon
The nonprofit Black Men Heal offers eight free sessions of therapy to Black Men in Philadelphia. Elsewhere in Pennsylvania, programs like Pittsburgh’s Steel Smiling have, since March 2020, covered the cost of more than $400,000 in treatment services for Black community members.
And there are other local resources offering free and low-cost support (see our list here). With mental health diagnoses on the rise, the often prohibitive cost of getting care, the lack of available providers, and the stigma that still surrounds mental health across many demographics, services like those offered by Black Brain Campaign are increasingly critical.
Hoping to extend its reach to as many communities as possible, Black Brain Campaign also offers mental health training to workplaces around the city. They’re currently educating teachers, for example, to understand what good mental health looks like. And they’re strategic about working with aspiring providers across the city — University of Pennsylvania, LaSalle, Temple, Drexel and Jefferson universities are all partners. “We have clinicians from all walks,” says Boyer. “We need to help people understand that mental health is just as important as physical health.”
Looking ahead, Boyer hopes to find a physical space to be able to create a learning institute, a training center that could multiply Black Brain Campaign’s impact, and perhaps expand to other cities. (Wisely, she made sure to copyright the LEAP — Licensure Education Assistance Program — initiative.) “My goal is always to support other people who are striving to be better,” she says.
“Black Brain Campaign is like a secret weapon,” Moore says. “In the African American community, there’s been this fear of talking about our problems. Somebody’s gonna tell on us, or whatever. But when you get that opportunity to talk to a therapist and work through your problems, it’s just amazing. For Black Brain Campaign to come into the heart of a neighborhood where violence is high and there are a lot of challenges going on is a blessing.”
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