We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Josephine Serrata. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Josephine below.

Hi Josephine, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Dr. Hurtado and I (Dr. Serrata), founded Prickly Pear Therapy and Training in 2018 after having left other work experiences that were extremely stressful personally and professionally. We met through a networking event for Latina-identified individuals who conduct research investigations. At the time, I (Dr. Serrata) worked at a national organization conducting research across the country on issues relevant to the Latinx community. Drs. Serrata and Hurtado worked together on a local project for Latina and African American middle school girls where we helped them to tap into their own voices and uplift social issues that were important to them in their schools. Through this experience, we learned how our strengths compliment one another and our passion for impacting our communities in positive ways.

We knew from experience how it is to survive in systems where communities of color and women specifically are underrepresented. We were united in our vision to create an alternative work environment that is centered around Latino culture and aligned with values of affirmative and inclusive care, anti-oppression, and healing-informed. We are dedicated to creating an inclusive healing space where team members, clients, and community members can show up as their authentic selves. In almost 5 short years, we can say with confidence that we have built an organization that provides a safe place for Latinx (and other underrepresented identities) clinicians, clients and community members. As revolutionary Latina leaders it has been an incredible journey so far.

Josephine, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Prickly Pear Therapy & Training, led by Drs. Serrata and Hurtado are Latinx and women-owned bilingual (Spanish/English) and bicultural mental health practice in Austin, Texas. We center our experiences in creating an organization that is affirming of diverse identities, including neurodivergence.

The practice provides healing informed and culturally grounded interventions; therefore, it centers on the experiences of the trauma of individuals with multicultural identities. In our approach, we integrate evidence-based interventions tailored to support our clients holistically.

In addition, we are passionate about our team’s training and professional development. We provide opportunities and support for our team to become experts in Latinx mental health and leading professionals in culturally grounded care. There are very few practices in our industry that truly center culture through and through. We proudly draw on cultural strengths and collective healing in all that we do.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

In late 2019, we expanded our business to reach more community members. The need that we observed was high, and we wanted to ensure that the clients that reached out to us had access to care promptly. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic occurred in early 2020 at a time where we had added an additional office space, doubling our rental costs and overhead expenses.

The COVID-19 pandemic also impacted our industry not only by the way we deliver services but also by changing the coverage of services. These challenges, in addition to an increase in the need for mental health services due to the significant loss and grief that our community was experiencing have had a significant impact on our business. However, we were able to quickly modify our systems to continue to provide culturally-responsive care through telehealth platforms which allowed us to keep the business afloat. Our quick adaptations and flexibility allowed us to respond and adapt.

This year we celebrated 5 years and have survived through pure perseverance, commitment to mission and corazon (heart).

Any advice for managing a team?

We truly value our team members, their experiences as individuals and the strengths they bring to our practice. We check in on them as people and incorporate trauma-informed practices into our org environment and meetings (e.g., taking pauses and opportunities to ground before jumping into work as usual). We offer creative benefits packages like a quarterly paid day for self-care, we partner with a healer in-house to provide support to our team around self-care practices using various healing modalities, we host team retreats and opportunities for respite (heal the healer offerings). We find these practices as critical to offering support to a team who are doing very difficult and emotional taxing work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://pricklypeartherapy.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pricklytherapy/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pricklytherapy/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/prickly-pear-therapy-and-training/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fpricklytherapy
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@pricklytherapy/videos

Image Credits
Lucero Valle