Trinity and Pace Team Up to Provide Free Psychotherapy
Trinity Church has partnered with Pace University’s McShane Center for Psychological Services to offer free psychotherapy to the Lower Manhattan community. “This is part of our Community Wellness Program,” explains Vidia Cordero, Trinity’s executive director for neighborhood support. “The program is open to people in need in the community. We became increasingly aware of individuals and families requiring services, who were being placed on waiting lists for six months or longer, often due to financial hardship or lack of insurance coverage. In response, we intentionally created a more accessible approach to care. We do not require insurance information, or ask about the individual’s ability to pay, because the process is that we pay for it. Through the referral process we have developed with McShane, we focus on two simple but meaningful questions: ‘do you need help?’ and ‘how can we help?’ With this approach, we are getting people services in days or weeks, rather than months.”
Dr. Rebecca Kulzer, director of the McShane Center, says, “the usual model for a program like this is to offer ten free sessions and then nothing more. Our model with Trinity is different, because we provide an unlimited number of one-on-one sessions. This means continuity of therapy—the same patient with the same therapist for three to four years. We are one of maybe three sites that do this anywhere in the United States or Canada.”
“When Vidia and I first discussed this,” Dr. Kulzer recalls, “I described the scale of the need, and the frustration of being able to provide only limited support. And Vidia just said, ‘we’re in.’ That’s how we started.”
In addition to patients referred by Trinity, Dr. Kulzer says, “anytime a client who comes to McShane can’t pay or has problems with insurance, we ask if they want to be part of our Trinity partnership. These are patients who would otherwise be denied services, and the whole point for us is to provide access. Our guiding principle, our ethos is to offer high-quality psychotherapy and to address disparity.” (Outside of the Trinity program, the McShane Center also offers low-cost/sliding scale therapy, based on need, priced at between $25 and $75 per hour.) “These services would otherwise cost $350 per session,” Dr. Kulzer notes, “but insurance is a moot point for us, because these patients never have to submit a claim.”
The 45-minute sessions—offered both in-person at the McShane Center’s Lower Manhattan offices (52 Broadway) and remotely—are provided by graduate psychology students at Pace who are working on doctoral degrees, under the supervision of licensed psychologists with decades of experience. Each doctoral student treats a maximum of five patients.
“Every hour of therapy provided by our graduate students requires an hour of supervision by our licensed psychologists, on both an individual basis and in groups,” Dr. Kulzer explains. “This unheard-of ratio is unique. It represents almost triple the minimum requirement, and gives our doctoral students lots of support. It means that our students get training, and our patients get a level of care, that are matched nowhere else. That supervision by senior therapists is actually the largest part of our budget.”
Since the Trinity-McShane partnership’s start in 2023, the program has provided more than 1,500 psychotherapy sessions to patients ranging in age from 15 to 67. (The average age is 40.) “When I reviewed the most recent data from McShane,” Ms. Cordero says, “it became clear that the overall utilization and the need for services have grown dramatically. So we are exploring ways to expand capacity and enhance services to better support the rising number of community members seeking help.”
Anyone wishing to connect with free therapy from the McShane Center, as part of Trinity Church’s Community Wellness program, may call Trinity’s resource line (917-594-6300), or email resources@trinitychurchnyc.org.