Grantee Partner Spotlight

Octavia Nankunda and Priscilla Rwandarugali met at a party in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 2017 and became instant friends. “I recognized Priscilla’s last name,” Octavia recalls. “It was the same as my ‘Auntie Fiona,’ who worked with my family for many years in Uganda.” As it turned out, Fiona was Priscilla’s older sister, and she was just one of several connections the two had between their families back in Uganda.

Their friendship deepened in 2020 during the pandemic, as they talked for hours about family and friends, the lives they had left behind when they each emigrated to the U.S., and current events in their new lives in America.

“As much as our hearts were hurting for friends back in Uganda, there were so many people hurting here too,” Octavia says. “The need for mental health support in the immigrant community is immense, but there’s still a lot of stigma, and so many barriers.”

“So we decided we could help,” Priscilla chimes in. “I had practiced law in Uganda, and Octavia is a psychotherapist with a masters and a concentration in marriage and family therapy and mental health counseling — and we felt like we could make a difference.”

They started with mental health group meetings online, and then met in person in Octavia’s backyard. During this time, they got the word out through beauty salons and churches. “We were very intentional about providing services in the immigrant community and for people of color,” Octavia explains, “because they need more guidance and reassurance — to understand how to access resources, how insurance coverage can help, and that counseling sessions are safe and HIPAA-protected. Despite Priscilla’s background as a lawyer, we don’t give legal advice, but we have answers to most people’s immediate questions and can steer them in the right direction. We always say that if we can’t help you, we’ll find someone who can.” 

That same year, 2020, Priscilla and Octavia officially combined their efforts (and their names) to launch P&O Behavioral Health Initiative, with a mission of elevating marginalized and underprivileged communities by empowering them to achieve success — using evidence-based and culturally competent treatments.

“We knew all too well the stresses immigrants face,” explains Priscilla. “For starters, most immigrants to the U.S. have college degrees, but when they arrive, they usually learn that the years of professional experience and academic degrees they bring from their home country are of little use in seeking employment in the States, leaving many to work two to three service jobs, such as geriatric care, to make ends meet.” 

They also understood how immigrant families needed help bridging the gap between generations. “We see a lot of parents who assume just being in the U.S. will automatically give their kids a better life,” Priscilla says, “because of resources like good schools, books, and computers. But the parents are working so hard they have to leave the children at home with older siblings or cousins, and they don’t get to nurture them and guide their activities and behavior. So what does success mean for each family? The parents might think that just being in America is a success, but meanwhile, the kids are struggling. Seeing a therapist from their own country makes it easier for them to accept help and to feel understood.” 

On any given day, POBHI is working with clients on a wide variety of issues, from school or work stress to domestic violence. They run counseling groups for kids, teens, and adults, as well as specific groups for mothers, fathers, and seniors, plus a creative group. Meeting virtually, each group can have up to 12 people, but teenagers and seniors also have an in-person meeting at least once a month.

Often clients need more individual assistance — sometimes with urgent crises, as when a client discovered her husband was planning to leave the country with their children and POBHI referred her to the police and an attorney. Another time, a client told them she dreamed of opening her own business. “We told her: Of course you can do it,” says Priscilla, “then we helped her figure out the process. She opened her own bodega just a year later. And now she has more time for her kids and can pick them up at school.”

POBHI group services are free of charge for those that can’t afford them, thanks to support from The Lenny Zakim Fund (LZF) and The Boston Foundation.  “The Lenny Zakim Fund believed in us from the start,” Octavia says. This past year, both women participated in LZF’s Transformational Leadership Cohort (TLC). “My TLC coach, Marianne, was a godsend,” Octavia says. “She has a background in social work and understood the intricacies of what we do for a living as well as the administrative work behind it. I love being a therapist, but the administration makes it so difficult. Marianne helped me get my thoughts organized along with our business, which needed some restructuring. She was good at both sides of it — social services and nonprofit administration.”

Now POBHI can see their growth trajectory more clearly, and with two clinical mental health counseling interns joining them this fall, they’ll be able to implement some of their plans. They’re already partnering with several insurance companies, including Blue Cross Blue Shield, Carelon Behavioral Health, and Harvard Pilgrim, among others  and now they want to consider how to address demand for more one-on-one counseling, find office space for at least one day a week, and bring more mental health counseling to colleges. 

“College students are still just kids, even though we consider them to be adults,” Octavia says. “They’re miles from home and stressed out and stranded and don’t know what to do, and sometimes that means they drink their way through school or flunk out. And international students have all the difficulties of being far from home on top of the normal struggles. So we want to offer sessions that teach them coping skills. And as with all of our services, we will emphasize that talking with a counselor is safe, healthy, legal, and a very positive thing you can do for yourself.”