A 2022 Update on Zencare’s Commitment to Anti-Racism and Inclusive Therapy

by Zencare team

Two years ago, we published Zencare’s Commitment to Anti-Racism and Inclusive Therapy. When we published this statement, our intent was to communicate our company values; to clarify what it means for us to work towards diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism; and to hold ourselves accountable to building a more equitable product, service, and team.

As we continue to grow as a company, we are constantly evaluating our initiatives and making ongoing efforts to set and achieve new goals. In 2021, we conducted a review of our initiatives and published a Followup on Zencare’s Commitment to Anti-Racism and Inclusive Therapy. Our goal through this article is to share an update on our current statistics and initiatives, in hopes that it may be helpful to curious client users, therapist members, other companies, and our general community!

1. Definitions: What does Diversity, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism mean at Zencare?

To begin the discussion around diversity, inclusion, and antiracism, we first had to define the range of topics, identities, and backgrounds we are referring to when discussing these points.

At Zencare, discussions around diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism encompass the following:

  • Gender identity & expression
  • Sexual orientation
  • Race
  • Ethnicity
  • Physical & mental ability
  • Veteran status
  • Age
  • Religion
  • Culture
  • Class
  • Country of origin
  • Immigration status

We evaluate how we are being inclusive of and equitable to individuals of these diverse identities across our therapist network, clients, team members, and community at large.

Here are the areas of our business we consider when discussing these topics, and the goals we have for each:

  • Services: Tailor our services to providers and clientele, for the goal of increasing access to care for historically underserved communities
  • Product: Build and improve features to make our product accessible and relatable to historically underserved communities
  • Company: Take proactive initiative to create an inclusive environment for all team members and promote team diversity

2. Snapshot: Analysis of our provider and therapy seeker network

When we analyzed the data, we found that the racial/ethnic diversity of the Zencare provider network diversity is comparable to the psychology workforce, but much less diverse than the US population:

13% of our provider network identifies as a person of color (POC). This is comparable to the psychology workforce, where 14% of psychologists identify as POC; however, it is much less than the overall US population, in which 38% of individuals belong to racial or ethnic minorities (Black, Hispanic, Asian, American Indian/Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander, Multiple Races).

  • 6% of our provider network identifies as Latinx / Hispanic, compared to 5% of the psychology workforce and 19% of the US population.
  • 11% of our provider network identifies as Black / African-American, compared to 5% of the psychology workforce and 13% of the US population.
  • 6% of our provider network identifies as Asian / Asian-American, compared to 4% of the psychology workforce and 6% of the US population.

Our goal through this article is to share an update on our current statistics and initiatives, in hopes that it may be helpful to curious client users, therapist members, other companies, and our general community!

This year, our network of providers of color grew at a rate of 1.7x, slightly higher than the 1.6x rate of our overall network.

As for gender diversity, the Zencare provider network is majority female at nearly 80%; another 20% identify as male, and 1% identify as trans or non-binary (note the total exceeds 100% as providers may select more than one gender identity).

11% of our provider network identifies as LGBTQ, compared to 5% of the US population (though we believe this data to be underrepresented).

Note: Unfortunately, the data we had for comparison purposes were outdated, but we used them to have a benchmark for our analysis. Sources we used include the 2015 APA survey for demographic data about the psychology workforce, the 2019 Census Bureau for the US population demographic data (and the Kaiser Family Foundation’s data visualization), and a 2017 Gallup poll for the LGBTQ national data.

Diversity of the Zencare Clientele

Equally important to the provider demographics are client demographics. Are we serving a diverse clientele base in terms of identity?

It’s difficult to determine a precise response to this question, since we don’t track racial or ethnic data in order to protect client confidentiality. Additionally, third-party data analytics platforms like Google Analytics are limited to demographic data like age and gender (the latter currently in binary terms).

Instead, as a proxy, we turned to the number of referrals through Zencare to therapists of color, since many individuals seek therapists who share similar identities and cultural experiences. In a typical month, though providers of color account for about 13% of all Zencare providers, providers of color receive about 20% of client requests, which speaks to the success of marketing efforts to reach communities of color, as well as the overwhelming need for the services of providers of color. Moreover, we found that in May 2022, we referred 1.3x the number of clients to providers of color as we did in May 2021. This increase is likely due to both the greater number of clinicians of color as well as our search engine optimization efforts at elevating content and search pages related to POC mental health and searches for providers of color.

3. Review: What we currently do and what we achieved in the past year

We hold ourselves to continual reflection of areas of growth, and strive to improve accordingly. In this section, we cumulatively review what we’ve done in the past, what we achieved this year from our 2021 action plan, and what else we’ve done this year. Here are some highlights across our services, product, and team:

Services

What we’ve done in the past:

  • Offer lowered pricing to interested providers of color for whom cost may be a barrier, with the goal of increasing our network of providers of color
  • Published articles on Zencare’s commitment to anti-racism, as well as mental health in the Black & African- American community
  • Published resource posts on how to find affordable care in cities across the country
  • Published content that speaks to topics that encourage mental wellness in communities of color, the LGBTQIA community, and other marginalized communities

What we achieved from our 2021 action plan:

  • Provided more clarity to the therapist outreach team about when and how to offer special promotions or flexible payment plans to providers of color we're reaching out to.

What else we’ve done this year:

  • Welcomed 159 providers of color to our provider network this year (1.74x from July 2021 to Jun 2022, compared to 1.63x overall network growth)
  • Offered personalized email support to clients looking for guidance in their therapy search
  • Posted spotlights on Asian-American mental health and Black and African-American mental health on our Instagram
  • Conducted outreach 4x/year to providers listed on identity-specific directories

Product

What we’ve done in the past:

  • Made content about finding providers of color more easily accessible through search engines by building out dedicated search pages (example, example)
  • Improved filters and tagging to ensure that if a therapy seeker searches for a certain identity, only clinicians who match that identity appear
  • Positively feature images of people of color on our blog, screenshots of our websites, ads, social media, and other marketing materials
  • Indicate ADA-accessible offices on provider profiles so that clients can find accessible offices
  • Encouraged providers to indicate their pronouns on their profile via the Zencare Members Portal

What we achieved from our 2021 action plan:

  • Promoted POC on search pages: Created a promotion system that ensures that at least one provider of color appears at the top of search results
  • Added 76 new tags to the website, including 10 identities, 39 specialties, and 27 approaches
  • Added context on our site behind the origin of the name "Zencare," as some therapists have given feedback that they find it to be appropriative of Buddhist culture.
  • Added closed captions to all videos on the site published after summer 2021

What else we’ve done this year:

  • Partnered with the Loveland Foundation in support of their mission of fostering healing for Black women through therapy. The Loveland Foundation Therapy Fund financially supports up to 12 therapy sessions for Black women, girls, and gender expansive folks. At Zencare, we encourage all providers to opt-in to serving Loveland Foundation clients!

Team — Hiring

What we’ve done in the past:

  • Dedicated outbound outreach to potential candidates of color (otherwise almost all of our hiring is inbound; we conduct outbound hiring almost exclusively for the purpose of increasing the pipeline of candidates of color)
  • Emphasize inclusivity in our job posts by adding Equal Opportunity Statement, eliminating words that may alienate candidates (e.g. “women-led”), outlining the interview process on the job post to make it more approachable, publishing our mission and core values
  • Increased the universities we post jobs on via Handshake, including Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) as well as state and community colleges.

What we’ve been doing:

  • Always conduct the first interview via phone so that it is a “blind” interview to the extent possible
  • Take an affirmative action approach whenever possible to candidates of color by offering interview opportunities, while maintaining the same high bar for job offers
  • Keep our core values at the center of the interview and candidate assessment process, including care and respect of other team members

Team — Internal

What we’ve done in the past:

  • Started offering health insurance reimbursements as of Jan 2021
  • Made Juneteenth a company-wide day off
  • Engage in small group lunches to encourage intimate settings for conversations
  • Organize monthly events including those around resilience and mental health in communities of color and the LGBTQIA community
  • Implement quiet hours to promote team wellbeing and sustainability, prevent burnout
  • Use Google Meet (instead of Zoom) so that closed captions are available for hard of hearing team members
  • Reiterate our company values whenever possible, including on our job posts and at internal events

What we achieved from our 2021 action plan:

  • Encouraged all team members to add pronouns to their email signatures and team page
  • Created a mental health day policy and system that makes it easier for team members to take time off. Coordinated backup for every workstream, and started addressing sick day requests as “Ok, see you tomorrow!” instead of “Let’s solve this.”
  • Created a DEI reading and resource list for current + new team members to explore.
  • Ongoing review and training: annual review of provider network and clientele, and annual training on DEI

What else we’ve done this year:

  • Scheduled team workshops in July, September, and October 2021

4. Moving Forward

As a company, we recognize that our goals and initiatives are not static. We are committed to encouraging and absorbing input from others to inform our vision and action plans. We sent the above data to our internal team and requested for each person’s input as part of our annual DEI review. We’ve synthesized the feedback, ideas, and thoughts from the team to come up with this action plan for 2022. We’ve transformed as many ideas as we could into concrete action items. A few are listed as “reach goals” - even if we may not get those yet, we wanted to list them as inspiration for what other companies can do, and what you’ll see from us moving forward!

5. Our 2022 Action Plan

Services

  • Intentional outreach: Continue quarterly outreach to therapists listed on identity-specific directories.
  • Intentional outreach: Test outreach to therapists listed on 1 insurance database.
  • Training: Add a training on the DEI discounts guide during the first month of new team member onboarding.
  • Helpdesk inclusivity: Edit helpdesk articles to feature diverse photos.
  • Helpdesk accessibility: Add alt text to helpdesk articles to increase accessibility.
  • High-quality photos: Send a refresher training to photographers on photographing darker skin tones.

Product

  • Save your search parameters: Allow clients to save specific searches, including identity-specific searches.
  • Use a matching form: Create an easy quiz for clients to fill out before displaying relevant search results.
  • Explain limited list of identities: Link/button, 'Why is the identity I'm searching for missing?' that reveals help text that explains the limitation + plan for expansion.

Company

  • Team educational events: Host 3 educational workshops related to the intersection of identity and mental health
  • Prioritize diversity in recruiting process: When hiring for new positions, consider a diverse pool of candidates.
  • Update our DEI statement + commitment to anti-racism: Update the Zencare commitment to anti-racism and inclusive therapy this year.

Reach goals

  • Provider identity filter: Do a filter recheck and encourage providers to list accurate identity filters on their profiles.
  • Free remote setup: Offer free remote setup to providers of color who have already completed in-person photoshoots.
  • Closed captioning: Find providers who offer sessions in ASL + ensure that their videos have closed captions on Vimeo.
  • Reimbursify integration: Integrate with Reimbursify to make out-of-network services more affordable for therapy-seekers.
  • "Responsiveness" badge: Give a badge to providers who are highly responsive, similar to the “Zencare vetted” badge, to help clients reach in-network providers quickly.
  • Support parents on the team: Zencare leadership to hold 2 meetings to discuss how managers can effectively support parents on the team, including developing a parental leave policy

We are determined to continue moving forward, and to both hold ourselves accountable and keep a pulse on the mental health industry so that we may identify areas where we can fulfill unmet needs. We hope the steps we take now have a positive effect on our team, provider members, and therapy seekers we have the honor to serve each day.