3 min read October 2023 — Tonya Ladipo, founder and CEO of psychotherapy, workplace wellness and DEIB consultancy The Ladipo Group, spoke to Invest: about how policies and accountability go hand in hand in terms of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.
How would you characterize the contribution of the company in terms of growing access to mental health services for the Black and African American communities?
I started my company because I noticed that Black people weren’t receiving high-quality psychotherapy services for a variety of reasons and I wanted to fill that gap. Initially, clients would come to us saying, “You’re great but I can’t refer anyone to you because then they’ll know I’m in therapy.” In the beginning, a lot of our work was to destigmatize mental health services and highlight the benefits of therapy within our communities. Almost 20 years later, many of our clients come from word-of-mouth referrals. Recently, we expanded our mental health services to be a specialized Employee Assistance Program (EAP) provider for companies.
In 2010, we evolved into consulting with organizations when we realized that the workplace was a huge point of stress for our clients. They were consistently being passed over for promotions, not assigned projects that could advance their careers, and persistently navigating inappropriate comments. We knew that if we wanted to have a greater impact, we needed to work within organizations to create a workplace where everyone, not a select few, can thrive and advance in their careers. We believe that if we can have a better impact on the workplace, then it’s going to be better for our clients and everyone. The ripple effect will be significant.
DEIB boils down to everybody having true opportunities to succeed in their career. It leads to personal satisfaction for the individual, better effectiveness for that organization, and a better bottom line for the organization and the individual. The further you go in your career, usually the bigger the pay bumps are. But if you don’t start off by getting the pay bumps, you could advance in your career and still not make enough money. Today, DEIB looks at ways to minimize and even eliminate the policies that promote inequities so everyone, regardless of race, gender, religion, sexuality, and ability can be successful in the workplace.
How do you anticipate DEIB policies to continue to evolve and how are you preparing companies for this kind of sophistication?
The next wave is accountability. There’s great intention at times and even policies that on paper look fantastic; however, there is a need for accountability to make sure that those policies happen in practice. Organizations that remain committed to developing a workforce that is effective and impactful will continue to support DEIB initiatives and policies. The organizations that are going to be the strongest and most effective are going to be those that tie DEIB accountability to performance metrics and even bonus compensation.
We’re in a capitalist society and we can’t ignore that. If you want to operationalize DEIB and make it core to the business, then we must tie metrics to it. For example, the Chief Diversity Officer might be the one who moves initiatives forward but the CEO, CFO and everyone must be responsible for it and have some skin in the game. That’s when DEIB-focused work actually shifts organizations to have a positive impact.
When we talk about DEIB today, some people are very concerned about the impact of the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling and the impact it could have on business. The principles of DEIB remain constant and can be accomplished regardless of any potential changes in law. Recruiting the best candidates naturally means recruiting from a variety of sources as it’s differences, not sameness, that produce innovation. Coaching, mentoring and sponsoring employees, not only those you’re familiar with, leads to a more engaged workforce that creates better products and services.
Where do you see the opportunities to expand the reach of your services?
We want to decrease the disparities in the city of Philadelphia regarding healthcare. The opportunity for Philadelphia, especially with so many medical institutions, is to look at the quality of care that’s being delivered. The data is there and it’s not great. Quality care varies by race and varies by zip code, which also tends to coordinate with race in most places in the United States. The opportunity is for my company and healthcare institutions to take an honest look at the information and data that’s already there. That is in addition to planning with accountability to change it.
For us, moving into the physical healthcare space is part of our plan. When we work with healthcare institutions at the top level where policy is being made, we can look at what’s being done from an equity perspective and what shifts can be made to have a positive effect on poorly served communities. For example, prostate cancer for men is higher among Black men than it is in non-Black men. What would it look like for an institution to make it a policy to screen all Black men for prostate cancer when they seek any medical service? How many more cases of prostate cancer would be caught? It’s such a treatable cancer when caught early. And Black women have higher-density breast tissue than non-Black women. Medically speaking, getting ultrasounds rather than mammograms is going to give a better sense of what’s going on in the breast tissue. That would make it easier to detect breast cancer at an earlier stage, rather than mammograms. The upfront cost of an ultrasound is more expensive than a mammogram but to catch breast cancer earlier, less treatment, and increased mortality is ultimately going to be less expensive.
How is The Ladipo Group addressing the mental health gap in the region?
Nationwide, around 4% of psychologists are Black. That is ridiculously close to zero. What we’ve done as a company with healthcare is to look at the way the system is set up. To bill for insurance companies to pay, you must be a licensed clinician at a certain level. Licensure means that after you get your master’s degree, you must work many hours, pay for additional supervision, and then take an exam. For some people that is a barrier. Over the years, we’ve worked to support clinicians to get their licenses so that there are more licensed clinicians in the field.
What is your near-term outlook for The Ladipo Group?
We’re really focused on wellness for the individual at home and at work. We’re focusing on working within organizations. Most companies offer EAP services to their employees. However, when EAP providers are not diverse, some employees will not use the service.
We recognize that people from underrepresented communities and organizations might have access to mental health services through work. However, if their EAP providers don’t have people who look like them and understand their experiences, they don’t get to use the benefit. Not utilizing a service because it doesn’t fit your needs becomes an equity situation. That’s where we come in. We complement existing EAP programs by focusing on services for Black and African-American employees.
We will also continue to work within various industries though we’re honing in on healthcare, tech, education, and social services in terms of creating cultures of belonging. When you’ve got more perspectives at the table and different experiences, you’re going to have conflict which should be expected. It’s not a bad thing but part of the human experience. That will be our focus in the coming years. Mental health is also going to continue to be a priority for people and organizations. The pandemic has shown how much attention is needed around mental health. We’re going to see more attention given to mental health from companies and organizations and we’ll be there to support them.
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