A New Day Begins at Norooz: Making Therapy Accessible to All

Imagine finding quality mental health care that doesn't drain your bank account or require months on a waiting list. That's exactly what the Norooz Clinic Foundation delivers to Orange County residents and beyond. Executive Director Nina Barber joins us to unveil this hidden gem that's been quietly transforming mental health access for thirteen years.

The Norooz Clinic Foundation isn't your typical mental health provider. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, they've created an innovative model that simultaneously serves the community while training tomorrow's therapists. Their services span individual, couples, and family therapy alongside psychological assessments—all available in English, Spanish, Farsi, and Mandarin Chinese. What truly sets them apart? Their commitment to placing clients with therapists within just 3-5 business days, compared to the weeks or months of waiting that's become standard elsewhere.

Nina shares her personal journey from volunteer administrative assistant to executive director, revealing how working at Norooz empowered her own mental health journey. She tackles persistent stigmas head-on, particularly those affecting diverse communities where mental health concerns often manifest as physical symptoms. With nearly 24,000 affordable therapy sessions provided to approximately 4,600 clients over their history, Norooz demonstrates the tremendous impact of community-centered care. Whether you're seeking affordable therapy, interested in their free peer support groups, or simply curious about breaking down mental health barriers, this episode offers valuable insight into a resource that embodies its Persian name meaning "a new day, a new beginning." Ready to transform your mental health journey? Visit NoroozClinic.com to learn more about their services.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place
where local businesses andneighbors come together.
Here's your host, rachel Fyfe.
Well, welcome to the GoodNeighbor Podcast Now.
Are you in need of, maybe, somemental health services or
assessments?
Well, we've got a resource thatmight be closer than you think.

(00:24):
Today, I have the pleasure ofintroducing your good neighbor,
nina Barber, with the NeuruseClinic Foundation.
Nina, how's it going?

Speaker 2 (00:33):
today it's going well .
Rachel, Thank you so much forhaving me on the show.
I'm very excited to talk aboutour business and what we can do
to offer to the community.
Wonderful.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Well, we're excited to learn about your business too
, so tell us about your companyand the organization.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Absolutely so.
The Narus Clinic Foundation isa 501c3 nonprofit mental health
clinic and we provide reallyaffordable mental health
services to the community.
So that is your individual,couples and family therapy.
We also do psychologicalassessments and we have a couple
free peer support groups forthe community.

(01:11):
For those that may not becomfortable seeking therapy
services just yet, we do have acouple of free peer support
groups for them to check outfirst.
And we're also a workforcetraining site.
So we have three differentinternship programs at our
organization and our goal is totrain the next generation of

(01:36):
professional mental healthworkers or mental health
professionals, behavioral healthprofessionals, and we've been
around for 13 years now and forthe past 13 years we've actually
graduated over 200 studentsfrom our programs and many of
them are now licensed cliniciansand a few of them actually have
their own private practice.
So we're very proud of that andwe also do a lot of advocacy in

(02:01):
the community and so weunderstand that mental health.
There's a lot of stigmasurrounding mental health and so
really our goal and our job isto go out to the community,
connect with folks and reallytell them and let them know
about mental health and some ofthe stigmas or the myths that
are surrounding mental health,educate them and let them know
that, hey, there are affordableand accessible services, like

(02:24):
the nurse clinic that you can goto and you're not alone.
So really that's our goal, andour services are actually
offered in four differentlanguages.
We our services are offered inEnglish, spanish, farsi and
Mandarin Chinese.
We also have we're located inSanta Ana, so we have a brick
and mortar that you can come toor you can see us on telehealth.

(02:47):
So as long as you're inCalifornia and you have access
to the internet and a safe andquiet space to seek services,
then you can.
You can get therapy from us andwe make it very affordable.
So we our fees are already veryaffordable, but we also offer
sliding scale and pro bono.
It really depends on yourincome level.

(03:08):
And then we take insurance also.
So we take Aetna, cigna,magellan, blue Shields of
California and Optum, and we'reactually just got certification
for Cal Optima, so hopefully ina few months we'll be able to
take Cal Optima and Medi-Calclients.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Well, how did you get into this business?

Speaker 2 (03:29):
I was actually.
I've been with the organizationsince the very beginning.
So we were created in 2012 byDr Asan Garajagagi or Dr G for
short, and he is a licensedclinical psychologist to have
this community center where, ait's affordable, therapy's
affordable for the community,but B as a training site for

(03:58):
future behavioral healththerapists and professionals.
And NARUS is actually thePersian New Year it's always the
first day of spring and itmeans a new day, a new beginning
, because we want people to comeinto our organization and walk
out as if it's a new day, a newbeginning, and so it means a lot
.
And I've been there since thevery beginning.
I have my own mental healthjourney and really through
working at NAROOS and I startedout as a volunteer admin

(04:21):
assistant and really worked myway up and built programs and
now I'm the executive directorbut really through Neurose
Clinic Foundation, I found thestrength to seek therapy
services and talk to more abouttherapy and be more open about
mental health and the stigmasurrounding that.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Well, that is interesting.
You touched upon this a littlebit earlier, but I do want to
ask like what are some of themyths, misconceptions, about the
industry mental health?
I'd like to expand on that alittle bit.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yeah, absolutely so.
I'm sure we probably all hearthis phrase all the time.
It's oh, I'm not crazy or oh,it's a weakness.
Those are very commonmisconceptions and especially in
a very diverse community likeus in Orange County.
We have a lot of differentgroups of folks that are around
here.
Our organization is located inSanta Ana, so we're very center

(05:18):
of Orange County.
We have a lot of diversecommunities around here and in
each of these communitiesthere's that same theme of oh
I'm not crazy, it's a weaknessto seek services or to seek help
about my stress or depression.
And in a lot of cases, as anAsian American in my community,
a lot of the mental healthsymptoms come out as physical

(05:41):
symptoms.
So you'll hear people oftentalk about how their stomach
would hurt or they haveheadaches, but when you actually
look into it, is it really aphysical ailment or is it caused
by stress or anxiety?
So a lot of that is happeningand we try to work we actually

(06:02):
work really hard to destigmatizesome of that so that we can
make these services availablefor people.
If they're not, I guess if theydon'tize some of that so that
we can make these servicesavailable for people.
If they're not, I guess if theydon't acknowledge some of these
myths or they don't understandwhere it's coming from, they
will never seek services, untilsometimes it's too late.
And we try to avoid that.
We try to do the preventionside.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
Got it.
Wow, we know.
Now we know also.
Marketing is like kind of theheart of every business.
I mean, how are you targetingyour customers or attracting or
letting people know about you?

Speaker 2 (06:34):
A few different ways.
Actually.
We're on social media, sothat's, as you probably know,
for a lot of businesses that'sthe strongest arena for
marketing your business, so wego through that Word of mouth.
So over the last 13 years we'veprovided close to 24,000
affordable therapy sessions toabout 4,600 clients in Orange

(06:57):
County to about 4,600 clients inOrange County and some clients
are kind of in up from othercounties too, but a lot of it is
from word of mouth friends,family.
We get referrals from differentorganizations and community
partners that we work with, andwe love working with different
community partners.
We really do believe in thepower of connection and working
together because we only providethe therapy services.

(07:20):
However, some of our clientsthat come in here they need more
than just therapy services.
So, for an example, if someonehave food insecurities, so we
have a partner that can providethose services, so we will.
We love to refer out and thenthey love to refer to us.
We're also on Google searches,so people find us through just a
basic search.

(07:41):
We utilize our SEO.
Since we're a nonprofit, we getGoogle ad grants and we utilize
that too.
So, yeah, just different waysto target people and do
marketing and obviously this one, this podcast.
It's a great way too.
Have you ever?

Speaker 1 (07:55):
thought of doing a podcast.
Podcasts it's a great way toohave you ever thought of doing a
podcast?

Speaker 2 (08:00):
You know what I always thought about doing a
podcast and we actually tried todo our own podcast, you know,
with the staff a few years agoand we talked about different
mental health issues, but neveranything that we pursued more
formally.
But yes, I always thought aboutdoing a podcast, Wow great Well
.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
outside of work and this foundation, what do you
like to do for fun?

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Ooh, great question.
So I live in Brinkman, the RuseClinic, but as the executive
director joke aside as theexecutive director I'm always
out and about and I'm also partof a Rotary Club, so I have a
group of people that I turn to.
And I'm married I'm actuallynewly married and so I hang out

(08:47):
a lot with my husband and ourtwo cats.
They're two great cats.
I love to cook, so I've beengetting into cooking a lot
lately.
I'm in my hosting era, so I'vebeen hosting friends and family.
I also have side businesses, soI actually, a few years ago I
started a side jewelry businesswhere I make dainty gold jewelry

(09:09):
.
So that's one way where I havefun.
I'm an entrepreneur, so me andmy husband actually has a media
company, also another one.
And, yeah, I love to helppeople, love to kind of be
involved in the communitythrough things like Rotary or
volunteering opportunities orjust yeah, I mean I think I'm at

(09:30):
a stage in my life where Ireally just want to be involved
in the community.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Wonderful.
Well, Nina, tell our listenersone thing they should remember
about the NAROOS ClinicFoundation.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
Yes, that's a great question.
One thing that listeners shoulddefinitely remember what NAROOS
is for is that we are acommunity center, that we are in
the community.
We have a brick and mortar here.
We started as a communitycenter.
We have real people behind thescreen.

(10:11):
You can meet us in person.
We will always support you, andI just want to shout out to my
team I mean, my team is amazing.
They're very supportive, fromthe administrative team to the
clinical team, to all of ourinterns and clinicians.
They're there to help peopleteam, to all of our interns and
clinicians.
They're there to help peopleand we're all here to service
the community and to provideservices to the community.

(10:32):
So that's the one thing thatyou can count on us is we will
provide services and we canplace clients with a therapist
within three to five businessdays, which is very quick
compared to a lot of otherplaces.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
Wonderful.
Well, how can listeners learnmore about the Nauruz Clinic
Foundation?

Speaker 2 (10:53):
They can visit our website at wwwnauruzcliniccom
and that is spelledN-O-R-O-O-Z-C-L-I-N-I-Ccom, so
they go on there and if they'reinterested in booking an
appointment, we make it veryeasy.
There's a button on the topthat you can click.
It says book your appointmentnow, fill out a few different
questions and then somebody willbe in contact with you within a

(11:17):
few hours or maybe the maximumwould be like two to three, up
to five business days.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
OK, well, nina, I really appreciate you being on
the show and we wish you andyour business and foundation the
very best moving forward.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Thank, you so much.
Rachel, thank you for having me, you bet.

Speaker 1 (11:36):
Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor
Podcast.
To nominate your favorite localbusinesses to be featured on
the show, go tognporangecountycom.
That's gnporangecountycom,gnporangecountycom.
That's GNPOrangeCountycom, orcall 714-941-8862.