The TeleWellness Hub Podcast

Beyond Gender: The Inclusive Mental Health Mission of The Women's Center with Rachna Prithmin

• Martamaria Hamilton

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Transforming mental health access is at the heart of The Women's Center's mission, as revealed in this enlightening conversation with CEO Rachna Prithmin. Despite its name, this remarkable organization serves everyone—women, men, children, teens, and families—with a commitment that sets it apart in today's mental health landscape: providing quality care regardless of ability to pay.

What makes The Women's Center truly special is their comprehensive approach to breaking down barriers. With approximately 60 therapists collectively speaking eight different languages, they serve the culturally diverse Washington DC and Northern Virginia community with exceptional care. Their therapists offer specialized services including EMDR, CBT, DBT, and trauma-informed therapy, ensuring that each client receives precisely the support they need. Unlike many mental health providers, they accept all major insurance carriers while also offering sliding scale fees for those experiencing financial hardship.

Rachna's journey from a successful career in the private healthcare sector to nonprofit leadership demonstrates the profound commitment behind The Women's Center's work. Her leadership during the pandemic earned her the 2021 Northern Virginia Leadership COVID-19 Hero Award, followed by the 2024 David Bratt Nonprofit Leadership Award from the Greater Washington Community Foundation. These accolades highlight not just her exceptional management skills, but the vital importance of making quality mental health care accessible to all. Whether you're seeking support for yourself or a loved one, visit thewomenscenter.org to discover how this organization is redefining what inclusive mental healthcare can look like.

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Sandhya Nagabhushan:

Welcome to the Telewellness Podcast. I'm your guest host, sandhya Sharma, a licensed professional counselor, certified substance abuse specialist and an EMDR-trained practitioner. Today, I would like to welcome our guest, rachna Prithmin, who is a results-oriented executive with over 30 years of strategy, business development and operations management experience in the nonprofit hospital, healthcare and management consulting industries. She currently serves as the CEO and Executive Director at the Women's Center. Ruchner is a strategist leader with a proven track record of delivering growth, new programs, insights and overall success. Ruchner's leadership during the pandemic has been widely recognized and she was honored with the 2021 Northern Virginia Leadership COVID-19 here Award, and she is also the recipient of the 2024 David Bratt Nonprofit Leadership Award by Greater Washington Community Foundation. These prestigious accolades highlight her exceptional leadership skills and commitment to making a difference. Welcome, rachna. Thank you for being with us today.

Rachna Krishnan:

Oh, thank you for having me, and I think I'm just like blushing by your introduction. That was so nice, thank you.

Sandhya Nagabhushan:

It's a very honor to have you on the show because I would just like to start by saying I was a humbling counseling intern at one point at the Women's Center and and I can only speak on high accolades and extremely great training I received with the practitioners there and the therapists there. So I just want to start off with saying I'm really proud to have you on the show and to be a previous intern at the Women's Center. It takes a lot of pride in my own personal rhetoric as well.

Rachna Krishnan:

Oh, that's wonderful. I'm so glad that part of your journey crossed the Women's Center. That's fantastic.

Sandhya Nagabhushan:

Thank you. So I'd like to start off by telling us a little bit about the Women's Center and its mission.

Rachna Krishnan:

Sure, the Women's Center's mission is to significantly improve the mental health and well-being of all members of the community through counseling, education and support, regardless of ability to pay, and that's very important for us, that, regardless of ability to pay, we really take care of everyone Women, of course, and men, children. We have a clay therapy room. We take care of teens and young adults and we take care of everyone, regardless of their ability to pay. We take insurance and we take care of everyone, regardless of their ability to pay. We take insurance. We do sliding scale reduced fee for folks that are low income or maybe temporarily unemployed.

Sandhya Nagabhushan:

We like to take care of everyone. I would really like to notate that important distinction there between the Women's Center and different mental health counseling services that are offered at private sectors or other IOP programs and so forth. The Women's Center, as Rasha had mentioned, offers quality mental health services despite any disability, any inability to pay for the services. So I think that's a really important kind of point of distinction to make there, how it differs between other mental health services that are offered in Washington DC and the greater Northern Virginia area and we also take insurance.

Rachna Krishnan:

I'd like to highlight that, because so many therapists and I understand why do not take insurance, but we also take all the major insurance carriers and I think that's kind of like community service too, in a way.

Sandhya Nagabhushan:

Honestly, yes, and also taking insurance and people. Can you tell us a little bit about the different various populations served? You mentioned a little bit in the beginning, but what type of populations are being served at the Women's Center?

Rachna Krishnan:

Truly everyone, like everyone, can come. We have I don't even know who to take out, because really we have all types. We see all ages, we see all ethnicities, we see all financial backgrounds, all economic backgrounds, all socioeconomic backgrounds insurance. So we have that group. We have homeless people, we have single parents, we have the unemployed, we have veterans. It's just. The list goes on and on. We really take care of everyone.

Sandhya Nagabhushan:

Excellent hearing how inclusive the Women's Center is and making sure that everyone has access to that quality mental health services. Can you tell us a little bit about what are the different types of therapies that are offered there, and if there's group therapy, are there other programs that people can have access to?

Rachna Krishnan:

Sure, so we have, yes, we have individual counseling, we have group counseling, group therapy, we do couples counseling, we do family counseling. We really do. You know, do take care of the whole family, bring yourself, bring your spouse, bring your kids, bring your families. It's really for everyone. And we also have therapists that are specialized in different types of therapy. We have therapists that are EMDR trained and all different types of therapy, because we have about 60 therapists on staff. Wow, a lot of them are part time, full time and part time, but across the 60, we pretty much cover any type of therapy that anyone could want. Honestly.

Sandhya Nagabhushan:

That's amazing, again pointing out different types of therapy from bbt, emdr, uh, cbt, uh, psychosomatic, uh, specialties, eft, uh. It's so important to highlight that all different types of therapy services are offered at the women's center, including group therapy as well. I remember there's dbt. I remember uh having been offered there and it's such great training that I received again, like I mentioned.

Rachna Krishnan:

One thing I was going to say, one thing that we do do is the trauma informed therapy, because we have so many. We do have a lot of women, of course, and we have lots of people that had trauma in some point of their lives and they may have gone to other therapists or other places, but we truly have therapists that are so specially trained in trauma-informed counseling to really deal with some of those root issues, to deal with that trauma, physically, mentally, and we train students and we have resident therapists as well that then get trained in these areas as well that then get trained in these areas?

Sandhya Nagabhushan:

Excellent, and could you speak a little bit about how women's centers culturally diverse and the cultural implications of having been able to see different therapists from different backgrounds and pointing out that point?

Rachna Krishnan:

Yes, absolutely so. We have therapists. We have eight different languages that our therapists can speak. So, like I said, we have 60 therapists or so and across that we have a lot of languages, many different cultures. We have very a wide variety of skills and experiences. Yeah, so we definitely can relate to people. We can make a good connection between a client and their therapist. We really do look for a good fit. When a client called, we really try to make a good fit with the therapist.

Sandhya Nagabhushan:

And that's such an important element there is to making the client feel safe and welcomed. And having access to different cultures and different languages, as you mentioned, is so important because Washington DC and Northern Virginia is so culturally diverse. It's really like a hub there. So it's so important to be able to have the client come into therapy and feel accepted, understood and develop that rapport with the therapist. I'm just curious, because you have such an extensive history and background and training in the private sector, what made you personally choose to transition from the private sector to doing the wellness work that you do here at the Women's Center?

Rachna Krishnan:

Yeah, so you know, to me, I've related to the mission of the Women's Center, which is mental health counseling and domestic violence services. I, um, you know, work at inova actually for like 20 years, 18 years, I don't know, maybe a long time and it's an interesting little story. I was joining the board of the Women's Center. So in summer of 2020, I was joining the board or summer of 2019. I was joining the board and the chair at that time His name was Greg Barone, and he said, oh, you know, our executive director is leaving about, you know, about applying for that position. And I was like, well, I kind of was settled. I never thought I'd leave, but the more I thought about it, I thought, oh gosh, I should really take this opportunity, because I the mission is so wonderful at the Women's Center, the staff are so dedicated, we're all aligned to helping people, and so I think that it's just a great place to work. It's a great place to see clients and it's a nice, nice organization.

Sandhya Nagabhushan:

Excellent. Thank you for giving us a little bit of that history and personally. How do you stay grounded as you do this position and you encounter so many different people in so many different walks of life? How do you stay grounded in your mental health journey?

Rachna Krishnan:

That's a good question. You know, since I've joined, it's been one crisis after another. It was the COVID isolation, the isolation, and there was like domestic violence and increased. Oh, it's just been one thing after another. I think for me I, you know, I rely on my team and my at the Women's Center. We really support each other. We help each other. I never feel alone when I'm at the Women's Center. I feel like we're all so supportive of each other. You know, outside of work, I try to exercise. I kind of like. I'm not always most consistent, but I do yoga Actually, I, I walk and I recently started personal training.

Sandhya Nagabhushan:

So your own coping skills that you implement in such a busy world that we live in today. And on another note, let me ask how can people learn more about the Women's Center and how can people get, say, a potential client call in to get services? How does it work?

Rachna Krishnan:

Sure. So the best thing, if you want to learn more about the Women's Center, go to our website. Our website's quite comprehensive. It's thewomenscenterorg, so T-H-E-W-O-M-E-N-S-C-E-N-T-E-Rorg, so thewomenscenterorg. And if you want to make an appointment, there's a scheduling line to call to make an appointment.

Sandhya Nagabhushan:

Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Rachna, for being a guest on our show. We're so excited to learn about the Women's Center and the services that are offered. It's an excellent program and I highly recommend everyone to check out the website and learn more about the programs that are offered. And again, thank you so much for being with us on the show today.

Rachna Krishnan:

Yeah, thank you for having me. It's been a real pleasure, thank you.

Sandhya Nagabhushan:

Thank you, Rachna.