Today we’d like to introduce you to Lei Raiza Zervoulakos.
Hi Lei, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Trauma Speaks was created in August 2017 as a mental health blog that shared the stories and experiences of individuals struggling with and/or overcame mental health issues. It was created to provide a safe space and encourage others to speak up about their struggles and experiences to send a message that you are not alone.
Trauma Speaks went on a hiatus for a short while and came back even stronger with the addition of providing psychoeducation to the public on mental health-related topics. Since 2020, Trauma Speaks has expanded to a mental health podcast and developing products for the public to consume and/or help our organization with funding.
As of September 2021, Trauma Speaks is a non-profit organization in California with members from other countries such as the Philippines and Germany with the hopes of providing more services through coaching, workshop presentations, fundraising events, and many more!
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It hasn’t been a smooth road honestly even when Trauma Speaks was just a blog. I think the most challenging part was receiving submissions to be posted on the blog. Though it was challenging, I am grateful and appreciate some of the individuals who bravely and courageously shared their experiences. Upon becoming an established organization, I would say that the struggles we have been having are recruiting volunteers who are passionate about the field & willing to learn more about the field that can help us with most of the content we would like to produce. We have so many ideas and so many plans, but we only have limited hands. Another major struggle is getting funding so that we are able to expand and do more for our community and being able to put ourselves out there in a more physical manner instead of online only.
As you know, we’re big fans of Trauma Speaks Inc. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Trauma Speaks is a non-profit organization with a purpose of raising awareness about mental health. We are advocates in breaking the stigma attached to mental health. Mental health is not just black and white, it’s all about the other shades of colors as well. It’s not just about mental health diagnoses like depression, personality disorders, schizophrenia, PTSD, and many more, but also stress, grief, phase of life problems, and so forth. Our organization provides online coaching services, workshop development customized to an agency needs, and provide our own workshops as well. Though we do provide services for everyone, we are focusing more on schools (K-12) as we believe learning about mental health at an earlier age will serve as a prevention or early intervention for mental health issues. We also have a podcast that is currently on hiatus where we discuss important mental health topics and invite guest speakers to talk about mental health in various aspects of our lives. We are also a registered vendor for LAUSD and so we can provide services to schools who are within LAUSD. This helps us reach out to schools who would like to have us provide workshops to their students or staff. What I am very proud of brand-wise is that we are still afloat despite of funding issues and minimal hands – that’s how dedicate my team and I are of our cause.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
As I mentioned earlier, we have a lot of plans that we would like to do but we are struggling financially as we haven’t been able to fundraise much or receive any grants. We do hope that in 5-10 years, we would be able to expand our services to providing individual therapy and/or group therapy, make our mental health fest event bigger, have more volunteers and part-time staff, and increase our network list. Some of our projects we have in mind will be kept under wraps (we have to keep some mystery, right?)
Pricing:
- Online coaching (individual, group) – price varies depending on length of session $30-$120 (open to anyone regardless of location)
- In-person coaching (individual, group) — $50 – $120 beginning March 2023 for individuals within LA.
- Tailored Mental Health workshops – $75 to $150 (depending on topic, duration, and needs)
Contact Info:
- Website: traumaspeaks.org
- Instagram: instagram.com/traumaspeaks
- Facebook: Facebook.com/traumaspeaksinc
- Twitter: twitter.com/traumaspeaks
