Open Paths Counseling Center

Sierra Smith (she/her/hers), Executive Director

“By recruiting therapists who are culturally aligned with the communities we serve, and training them through a culturally-affirming lens, our goal is to decolonize therapy in Los Angeles”

"As someone who grew up in an interracial, nonconventional family with a legacy of racial, historical, and systemic trauma and its resulting aftermath, I have had the misfortune of working with therapists from dominant cultures who could not contextualize my reality and pathologized my cultural norms. This reinforced my (previously) negative view of psychotherapy as being for “other people'' and is what propels my work with Open Paths in shifting the lens for how therapy is provided for BIPOC & QTPOC Angelenos."

Open Paths Counseling Center destigmatizes and decolonizes therapy by recruiting new therapists from the communities we serve, and training them in theories and frameworks that center clients from historically marginalized cultures and communities