Partner With Us

Overview

Suffer Out Loud’s Mental Healthcare Scholarship Program has helped over 250 Montanans access therapy since 2019, but growing demand has outpaced funding, prompting a temporary pause on new applications.

We are shifting our approach to support more people and reduce scholarship wait times.

Partnering with pre-licensure candidates and sliding scale providers allows us to award more scholarships to Montanans in need, reduce providers’ marketing needs, and support the next generation of mental health professionals.

How It Works

  • Scholarships will cover 12 sessions at $50 each, for $600 total. Partnering providers must accept this per-session rate for scholarship recipients for all 12 sessions. 

  • Our goal is to begin offering sliding scale scholarships as soon as possible, and initiate a quarterly schedule in August 2025. 

  • Providers must be licensed, or pre-licensure and working under a licensed provider.

Benefitting People and Providers

  • Allows program funds to reach more individuals and reduce scholarship wait times

  • Increases accessibility of ongoing mental healthcare by connecting scholarship recipients with providers they are more likely to be able to afford working with after their scholarship is used

  • Makes it easier for pre-licensure providers, or those offering sliding scale services, to spend less time marketing their availability and more time making a difference in the lives of others

  • Connects more people to more providers who may be a good fit—even outside of the scholarship program

Next Steps

If you are interested in partnering with us, please complete this form at your earliest convenience (if you have already completed the form, you do not need to fill it out again).

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NOTE: If you are completing this form on behalf of a practice, use these modifications:

  • “Full name and credentials:” Write the name of your practice, and all credentials held across the team

  • “Please select all licenses you currently hold in the State of Montana:” Check all the licenses held across the full team

  • For the rest of the questions, answer with the full practice in mind and feel free to expand where needed in the space provided to share any additional information you would like to share with the Suffer Out Loud team. 

 FAQs

  • No. Scholarships cannot be used for more than 12 sessions, even if a provider would otherwise charge less than $50 per session. 

    This ensures that scholarship funds have equal impact regardless of a recipient’s chosen provider or the provider’s fee scale, frees recipients to choose a provider based on their specialty and personality fit versus their fee structure, and helps us to accurately forecast program costs when awarding scholarships.

    Providers with significantly lower rates may “donate back” all or a portion of the difference to our scholarship program and receive the related tax benefits, but this is not required.  

  • Providers must be licensed, carry malpractice insurance, and remain legally able to provide psychotherapy via in-person and/or telehealth sessions 

    OR: 

    Must have completed a graduate education program, are in the process of a post-grad pre-licensure experience employed or contracted by an agency or group practice, and are being supervised by a Montana licensed therapist carrying malpractice insurance.

  • Every three months, Suffer Out Loud staff will ask partnering providers to report the number of sliding scale spots they can hold for the next round of scholarships. We understand that this number will fluctuate for each provider throughout the year, and that sometimes the answer will be ‘none.’ 

    We will award scholarships based on the total number of spots held and available funding. We will then send scholarship recipients an updated roster of partnering providers with current availability, including their general specialities, location, and contact information.

    Scholarship recipients will have two weeks to contact and get established with a provider on the roster (if requested, we can assist with this process). 

    After two weeks, providers can release the holds on those spots.

  • Providers who work with scholarship recipients can either bill Suffer Out Loud $50 each session for the recipient’s 12 sessions, or submit one bill at the end of the 12 sessions for the full $600. 

  • After the two weeks scholarship recipients have to get established with a provider, we will send the current roster to people remaining on our waitlist, which–if they choose–they can use to find and begin working with a provider at their expense until their scholarship is awarded. 

    NOTE: Individuals who work with partnering providers at their expense will receive the same scholarship: $600 for 12 sessions, regardless of the amount they are paying out of pocket. For example, if someone pays $15 per session out of pocket, they cannot use scholarship funds for 40 sessions.

  • Absolutely! If you want to be included in these and other emails we send regarding counseling services, please complete the provider interest form and indicate your average rate range. 

  • Please reach out to Rachel Caldwell, Executive Director, with any questions not answered here or to share thoughts or comments about this partnership opportunity: rachel@sufferoutloud.org

Program History

Since 2019, Suffer Out Loud’s Mental Healthcare Scholarship Program has removed financial barriers and increased access to mental health services by awarding scholarships that cover most or all of the cost of up to 12 one-hour counseling sessions with a licensed Montana-based mental health professional (based on an average of $160 per session). 

Since this program started, we have awarded over 250 scholarships. However, the need for help consistently outpaces what we can fund based on the program’s current model.

There are now 80 people on our waitlist–some of whom have been waiting for over six months. Given Montana’s mental healthcare crisis, we expect this trend to continue.  

At the same time, we recognize that making people who are brave enough to ask for help wait months for that support can do more harm than good. In February 2025, we paused the waitlist to focus on awarding scholarships to those who have been waiting and establish a new, more efficient approach moving forward.

We hope to reopen the waitlist in July/August 2025.

Questions? Contact Rachel Caldwell at rachel@sufferoutloud.org

We are also exploring ways to work with providers to offer support groups, skills groups, and workshop series. If you have ideas or are interested, please email rachel@sufferoutloud.org.