Advocate From Where You Are: How Therapists Can Support Inclusion as DEI Gets Rolled Back

Advocate From Where You Are: How Therapists Can Support Inclusion as DEI Gets Rolled Back Therapist advocacy as DEI gets rolled back: Curt and Katie on supporting inclusion from where you are. Federal mental health funding is being cut, and universities and agencies are pulling DEI language off their websites. If you have been waiting for your licensing board, your agency, or the government to protect representation and access in this profession, Curt Widhalm, LMFT, and Katie Vernoy, LMFT, think you could be waiting a very long time. Curt and Katie open a new sprint built around two principles that have guided the podcast for nine years: representation and inclusion strengthen the field, and therapists are stewards of the profession. They skip the case for why representation matters and take on the harder questions. When does expanding access prop up a broken system? Why do call-outs of other therapists so often come from privilege? How do cultural modes of healing fit alongside evidence-based requirements? And what kind of advocacy actually changes anything? They realize that everyone has their own particular situations, and they're honest that there is no single right answer. Your context, your capacity, and the way your practice is built all shape what's possible, and doing something small still counts. In this episode, we discuss: - Why waiting for institutions to protect inclusion leaves therapists stuck - How access can reach beyond insurance through sliding scale, pro bono spots, and support for local agencies - Why the same decision looks completely different depending on where and how you practice - How privilege shapes both call-out culture and who has time for advocacy - What separates advocacy that reaches policy makers from posting for likes - How cultural context can be weighed alongside consumer protection in ethics work - Why disability, neurodivergence, consumers of services, and prelicensed therapists get left out of DEI conversations - Small, accessible ways to support inclusion in your own practice Timestamps: - 00:16 - Why institutions won't fix the profession for us - 02:21 - The representation and inclusion principle - 03:10 - Therapists as stewards of the profession - 05:25 - Access versus propping up a broken system - 07:57 - Liability, civil disobedience, and protecting yourself - 09:53 - Why there is no one-size-fits-all choice - 13:07 - Privilege, call-outs, and cultural modes of healing - 16:08 - Advocacy that actually moves the needle - 21:16 - Consumer protection versus gatekeeping - 25:26 - Who gets left out of DEI conversations - 28:50 - Small steps any therapist can take Full show notes and transcript: mtsgpodcast.com Join the Modern Therapist Community Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/mtsgpodcast Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/therapyreimagined Modern Therapist's Survival Guide Creative Credits Voice Over by DW McCann: https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/ Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano: https://groomsymusic.com/