Monthly “Whole Identity” Groups
Monthly “Whole Identity” groups are for the staff, facilitated by Aziza Belcher Platt, PhD and Latoyia Griffin Piper, LCSW, CGP. These groups offer a space for our team to deepen their understanding of the dynamics of power, privilege, marginalization, systems, and identity in the therapeutic relationship and clinical interventions. This process group supports our team members in their individual work around increasing insight into their personal identity, into the diverse identities of those in our communities and provides a forum for exploration of clinical questions and skill building, including the interplay of the noted dynamics.
Latoyia Griffin Piper
Latoyia Griffin Piper (she, her, hers) is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Certified Group Psychotherapist in private practice with a history in administrative, academic, training, and direct practice roles. She provides individual and group consultation, training, and supervision for individual, family and group therapists. She feels privileged to have provided direct clinical service to individuals, couples, families and groups over many years, with particular focus on those of diverse identities, blended families, those dealing with the impact of significant mental health/ medical concerns for self or others, and those newly engaged in the therapeutic process. In all of these endeavors, she brings a practice rooted in social justice as well as in attention to providing whole person centered service (attentive to all of the facets of identity, including ethnicity, culture, age, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, varying abilities, spiritual/religious, military status, area of the country/world of origin, “family”/communal connections) and the systems that impact our lives. She addresses safety attentive to diverse identities as a matter of ethics and engages in the labor of harm prevention as primary with supplement of injury/repair.
Dr. Aziza Belcher Platt
Dr. Aziza Belcher Platt (she/her/hers) is a licensed psychologist providing culturally-responsive individual and group psychotherapy, family therapy, and psychological assessment. She treats various concerns and specializes in racial-cultural issues, trauma, and grief. She was inspired to get into mental health to contribute to efforts to make therapy more acceptable, accessible, and affordable, particularly for marginalized communities. Social justice and liberation are an indelible part of her work. For patients, she aims to eliminate barriers, structural and otherwise, to seeking and receiving quality and culturally competent mental health care, especially for underrepresented and under-served communities. As a practitioner, she strives to help the field and practitioners become increasingly more culturally aware and responsive. As a scientist, she focuses on health disparities and evidence-based research to inform culturally responsive clinical practice.