Editor’s Note: This guest post comes from MCM Collaborative, a New York City therapy practice and ICA Group conversion client that is transitioning to worker cooperative ownership.

MCM received technical assistance from The ICA Group through New York City’s Worker Cooperative Business Development Initiative (WCBDI), which provides support to worker cooperatives and businesses exploring transitions to worker ownership. Their conversion offers a powerful example of how practitioners in the care economy are reimagining ownership, worker power, and the conditions under which care is provided.

In this guest post, MCM Collaborative shares—in their own words—why cooperative ownership became a natural extension of their commitment to culturally responsive mental health care, collective care, and economic sustainability.

The views and experiences expressed below are those of MCM Collaborative and do not necessarily reflect the views of The ICA Group or the City of New York.

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A Love Letter to Social Workers from MCM Collaborative

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Despite the public’s growing appreciation of mental health, we know that many people do not fully see or understand the reality of what it means to do this work. As therapists, we spend much of our time listening, holding, and witnessing in isolation. Our labor can be emotionally demanding, often invisible, and increasingly shaped by the pressures of an extractive labor market. As the mental health industry becomes more corporatized, we have found ourselves asking: what would it look like to build a therapy practice grounded not in scarcity and hierarchy, but in worker power, collective care, and economic sustainability? 

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MCM Collaborative was founded in 2019 with the intention of creating a group practice that provides affirming and culturally responsive care to people of color, LGBTQIA+ folks, and those living at the intersection, both on the couch and in the chair. From the beginning, the practice has been deeply invested in the development of queer and trans clinicians of color through robust clinical supervision and a growing internship program for master’s level social work students. Six years in, we continue to evolve and are now expanding our vision by transitioning into a worker-owned cooperative. 

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As one of three MCM Collaborative co-founders, Taryn Crosby reflected,

“Becoming a cooperative felt like the natural progression of creating a different kind of therapy practice--one that continues to provide quality, culturally-responsive mental health care, and is also serious about worker power, self-determination, and economic sustainability in these increasingly precarious times.” 

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What ultimately made our transition to a cooperative possible was through Crosby’s connection with the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives. Through this organization, she learned about the NYC Department of Small Business Services’ Worker Cooperative Business Development Initiative, which supports existing businesses' transition to worker ownership. Through this program, MCM Collaborative received pro bono support from the ICA Group, an established leader in cooperative development, and legal guidance from the Community Economic Development Unit at Brooklyn Legal Services, who partnered with us to finalize the documentation needed to complete the transition. 

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"We are thrilled to be a part of MCM’s transition to a worker cooperative," said Rafaela Varela, the supervising attorney who supported the transition. "MCM is showing New Yorkers not only that alternative models exist, but that they can breathe new life into our City's businesses.”

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Under the cooperative model, Licensed Clinical Social Workers (LCSW) at MCM Collaborative are now eligible to own an equal share of the business, pool resources, and are entitled to an equal vote on high-level decisions such as approving budgets, business plans, and company policies. More junior therapists, or therapists with a Licensed Master of Social Work (LMSW) working under clinical supervision, become eligible to also become owners after receiving their LCSW and working at the practice for at least one year. 

‍We understand the impact of this shift as both immediate and long-term. In the short term, our cooperative structure creates a more equitable and sustainable way to structure mental health work in a way where mental health clinicians are supported, recognized as workers, and treated as resources whose labor holds real value. More broadly, we see this as a challenge to a long-standing culture within the therapy field that relies on underpaid or unpaid, precarious, and often feminized and racialized labor to sustain the exhausted care systems. 

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We hope to inspire others to consider cooperative ownership as an alternative to the extractive systems models that have become the norm.

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Ultimately, our transition into a cooperative model is a love letter to our clients, our colleagues, and our broader community. It reflects our commitment to care that is not only affirming and culturally responsive, but also structurally just. It is our labor of love that is rooted in the belief that mental health work can, and should, reflect the values held both inside and outside the therapy room, as well as on the couch and in the chair.

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