How Dallas Clinics Overcome Mental Health Stigma

Counselors passed out art supplies at a Dallas mental health workshop last month, encouraging participants to express their emotions. One woman held up a collage with an image of a bare tree, without leaves or flowers.

She told the group, "This is how I felt when I lost my husband. I felt like someone shook me," and all her leaves and flowers fell away, recalled Maria Tovar, the social services director at Brother Bill's Helping Hand, a free clinic and food pantry.

The woman explained each stage of the collage before showing her final image from the session: a cherry blossom tree. "At the end, this is what I want to look like. This is what I'm working towards. I want to be able to blossom again," she told the group, according to Tovar.

This April series, known as "Let's Talk About Grief," is a new addition at Brother Bill's. By addressing sensitive topics that impact their community, the organization aims to normalize conversations around mental health and give patients a safe place to be heard.

Located in West Dallas, Brother Bill's Helping Hand serves a predominantly Latino community.

Maria Tovar described an attitude among local community members that can keep patients from accessing mental healthcare: "You're not feeling depressed. 'Depressed' isn't something that we believe in. If you're sad, get over it."

This mindset is something the organization hopes to change through a stronger focus on behavioral health.

Brother Bill's was one of 11 clinics to receive $75,000 through the Community Routes: Access to Mental Health Care program in 2025. A partnership among Direct Relief, Teva Pharmaceuticals, and the National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics, or NAFC, that launched in 2022, Community Routes allocates medication donations and grant funding to free and charitable clinics and pharmacies across the United States.

In April of 2026, the Community Routes program announced a second round of funding to the same clinics, totaling $150,000 per organization over those two years.

Before the Community Routes Program, Brother Bill's patients often found themselves waiting to see a counselor - a concerning barrier in a community where accessing mental health comes with stigma and many other challenges.

Thanks to the program's funding, the organization was able to expand services across the board, adding new counselors, workshops, and virtual opportunities. In 2025, Brother Bill's provided more than 1,300 counseling visits.

A strategy Brother Bill's uses to establish patient trust is to cater to the individual. Some patients are more comfortable communicating virtually, while others prefer in-person visits.

In addition to the mental health workshops and counseling, Brother Bill's implemented a text service to monitor patient well-being, and started Facebook Live sessions to discuss taboo topics with a larger population. By expanding their services, they hope to reduce stigma around mental health and inspire their patients to spread these helpful lessons to others.

"Eventually, we want to empower our community to empower their community," said Tovar.

"Know Your Patients"

With two clinics in Dallas County, Woven Health Clinic faces similar patient challenges.

"A lot of individuals feel that mental health is taboo," noted Sheridan Robinson, the Executive Director of Woven Health. With over thirty years in the community, Woven Health is working to build bridges that encourage more people to seek the services they need.

Initially, the clinic required patients to go through a primary care provider, who would conduct mental health screenings and then route them to therapy services if needed.

But after taking patient feedback into account, Woven now invites patients to schedule appointments for therapy, where they are assessed and referred to additional services, such as primary care or nutritional care, if necessary. This change enables mental health services to serve as an entry point for the clinic's comprehensive care.

The larger healthcare systems in Dallas are in such high demand that it can take months for individuals to receive mental health screenings, let alone medication, according to Robinson. They're also inaccessible for many people who are low-income and lack insurance. The Community Routes program has allowed these vulnerable patients to come in, schedule appointments within a week, and get medications at a much faster rate than before. "It's been quick, easy, easily accessible, and it's just been great," said Robinson.

Since joining Woven earlier this year, Robinson can attest to the quality of care her staff provides. "They care about the patients that come in," she said. "They are consistent, and our patients love them." The close relationships Woven Health makes with community members have contributed to a consistent patient flow.

Asked how other community providers can overcome stigma, Robinson stressed the importance of understanding patients' perspectives first. "You have to know your patients. You have to understand that everyone does not see and hear or understand mental health services the way that healthcare providers do," Robinson said.

The team's dedication to every person that walks in, combined with Robinson's leadership and the Community Routes program's support, are pushing Woven to expand. The clinic is in the process of hiring two Licensed Professional Counselors, or LPCs, to increase the availability and strength of services.

Under One Roof

As a recipient of the Community Routes grant, the Agape Clinic improved access to care in North Texas by working with additional community partners. "We're expanding care with the Boys and Girls Club," said Paul Hoffmann, the organization's Chief Executive Officer. "We're actually linking with a housing project in the community that we've not linked with before."

The growing network of partners means a broader range of services and greater patient accessibility. By forming strategic partnerships that target pediatric and low-income patients, Agape's services become accessible to people who might find mental health support harder to reach.

Serving an underserved and overworked population, Agape has found it beneficial to offer a variety of services under the same roof. This way, patients are more open to having conversations about their mental health because they already trust the clinic.

Agape's Behavioral Health Counselor, Gabriela Valenzuela, spoke about her efforts to educate patients on mental health stigma: "I've been working on teaching our patients about how our physical health is connected to our mental health."

Limited access to nutritious food can have a negative impact on mental health. When SNAP benefits were frozen in November 2025, Agape added a food pantry to its services.

With assistance from the Community Routes program, Valenzuela collaborated with Agape's nutritionist to produce tailored plans for individual patients to get the dietary support they need. For Agape patients struggling with food insecurity and chronic health conditions, this support was crucial to their mental and physical well-being. It also encouraged patients to come to the clinic.

This latest expansion allowed Agape to meet patients "where they are," Valenzuela said. Not everyone comes in ready for mental health screenings and counseling, but someone who visits for food or primary care quickly learns that these resources do exist, and that the community makes use of them. In 2025, Agape experienced a 15% increase in total patient visits and a 10% increase in individual patients served, a trend the clinic expects to continue.

The additional funding has been key to supporting Agape's expanded behavioral health services. The clinic plans to add another behavioral therapist to its staff to complement Valenzuela's work.

"Little by little, we are expanding, and things are changing for the better," Valenzuela said, "For us, for our patients, and that is because we do it together."