Our Beginnings
The Rainbow Circles came out of collaboration between three therapists in Fort Collins in 2020, after seeing the need for LGBTQ+-affirming mental health support for for communities in Northern Colorado. Our agency has since grown into the anti-oppressive agency it is today under the guidance of M (they/them), our Clinical Director. Alyssa Wright (she/her) and Lauren Lessner (she/her), who are now focusing on their own respective practices, were instrumental in helping launch the first and only queer-focused mental health agency solely based in Northern Colorado. The Rainbow Circles has a strong team of collaborative clinicians working together to build our co-operative, not-for-profit style agency. The Rainbow Circles is grounded in queering therapy, engaging in anti-oppressive and liberatory frameworks, and practicing relational social justice.
Our Focus
We are a not-for-profit organization growing towards being worker-owned providing therapeutic services to all of Colorado virtually with a physical office in Fort Collins for in person visits. We primarily serve LGBTQIA+ youth, adults, partners, and families. Our team strives to center the lived experiences of both clients and clinicians. Our clinicians are experienced in various speciality modalities like play therapy, EMDR and wilderness therapy, as well as traditional therapeutic approaches, and we also provide gender affirming care letter writing services. We specialize in supporting clients in exploring who they are, their strengths, and their concerns in a non-judgmental environment.
Our Mission
It is our mission to help every client feel supported through accessible care, be able to express their most authentic self, and build a supportive, inclusive community grounded within relational, social justice, and anti-oppressive frameworks.
Our Visions
- We envision both our team and our community thriving, acting out of abundance instead of scarcity, toward a more compassionate world.
- This includes supporting our clinicians through a living wage and sustainable work environment, as well as being able to pay staff for their community outreach and passion projects.
- This also includes people feeling deeply supported and inspired through our work. We hope to empower clients to take action through rest, peer support, exploration, and community advocacy.
- We envision our organization going beyond just providing therapy services to coalition-building; mutual aid; social support and community-based groups; mentoring; spiritual coaching; and other forms of holistic healing. We hope that our organization can contribute to advancing research for oppressed populations. We additionally strive to increase community knowledge and access to affirming care in Northern Colorado through training and consulting.
- This includes being able to provide services virtually across the United States.
- We envision non-hierarchical expansion, which we see as ensuring all members of the organization are empowered to contribute to decision-making and the future of the organization.
- This includes a consent-based process where people can be a part of varied methods of decision-making, as well as a worker-owned structure.
- We envision a physical space that has maximum inclusivity and accessibility.
- We envision direct commitments to the causes we support, such as allocating specific funding (ex: 2-3%) toward political advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights.
Our Shared Values
Our Commitments
- We are committed to anti-oppression and liberation by:
- Fostering a culture of inclusivity, diversity, equity, and flexibility
- Centering lived experience in our practice
- Providing equitable mental health care
- Creating space for accountability, reflexivity, self-awareness, and humility
- Encouraging direct communication and open feedback
- We are committed to building a community by:
- Valuing interdependence, connectedness, support, reciprocity, collaboration, and relationships
- Emphasizing compassion, tenderness, and love
- We are committed to celebrating authenticity by:
- Prioritizing dignity
- Maintaining independence through freedom of expression, directness, and courageousness
- We are committed to embodying creativity within our practice by:
- Sharing humor, levity, and playfulness
- Engaging with wonder and curiosity
- We are committed to seeking balance by:
- Making sustainable choices for organizational longevity
- Radically harnessing tenacity and perseverance while honoring rest
What does this mean for you?
As an agency deeply rooted within anti-oppression, our clinicians are better equipped to meet the needs of our clients and communities. Healing and liberation start with us. Unlike many other agencies, we are growing into a co-op model with a flat hierarchical structure, in which every team member has equal decision-making power and shared responsibilities. Everyone is able to focus their energy on the areas they are most passionate about; set their own schedules; and access paid time-off. This helps reduce burnout, ensuring that we can show up as our best selves inside and outside of the therapy room.
Additionally, we are a socialist-leaning not for profit agency, in which all staff have decision-making power and are equally represented within our payment structure. This structure allows us to offer flexible sliding scale and probono therapy services so more people have access to supportive mental health care.