SOL-Play
Partnership
Social-Wellness Initiative
What?
A partnership is born
May 2023, Well-Play Counseling and Wellbeing Center (Well-Play) and Sistas of Los Angeles (SOLA) formed a partnership committed to improving the mental health of its membership. This partnership is built around Well-Play’s social wellness model. Well-Play defines social wellness as community + play infused with psychoeducation. For the next year Well-Play will engage SOLA’s members through live virtual mental health chats, Well-Play events, and therapy scholarships.
Who?
Sistas of Los Angeles & Well-Play Counseling and Wellbeing Center
SoLA was born out of the pandemic in 2020, where black women were seeking community but struggled to find it. Tayla, posted a message on facebook seeking black women who wanted to gather for brunch and go an overwhelming response and in an effort to better communicate Aigner realized that their was a space needed for black women to connect and communicate, so the Sistas of LA facebook group was born and has continued to grow rapidly. Tayla and Aigner began to plan and create events and knowing with assistance they would go further so they reached out to Diamond and eventually others to create a board. Three years later the Facebook group has continued to grow and foster positive and healthy relationships.
In the spring of 2022, there was a post made in the SOLA group about Well-Play’s services and that Well-Play had some openings for people looking for therapy. The phone began to ring off the hook. Denise, founder of Well-Play did some investigating to determine the source of the calls, this landed her in the SOLA Facebook group. After watching for some time and having a discussion with Aigner, Denise knew that this was the perfect community to build a partnership for her signature social wellness.
Why?
Because there are challenges in our mental health system as it stands today, and it creates barriers for care particularly for marginalized communities.
Well-Play’s primary focus is the mental health of black women. Social wellness is an additional way we believe we can help black women heal. When Well-Play was originally founded in 2009 the stigma around mental health seemed greater then, times have changed, and the stigma is slowly changing. However, there are still barriers that make obtaining one on one therapy difficult. Lack of culturally competent therapist, lack of black female therapist, the high cost of therapy, black women being under insured and just finding the right fit, make it difficult for black women. This leaves many women with mental health needs without mental health care or quality information about mental health.
How?
By infusing social- wellness into events, classes, intensives and mental health travel.
The Well-Play team has been curating social-wellness events for over ten years, from the Me First initiative teaching important tools for self-care to our RAGE initiative that helps women learn the importance of feeling their feelings and honoring their inner angry black woman.
Each event that is crafted by our team is built around a specific community, beyond being a woman or a black woman, it could be a community of mothers, daughters, students or executive women. The play is then designed to complement the community and the psychoeducation is pulled from evidence based and culturally relevant practices. For more information on our partnership please email your questions to
info@well-play.com
