Counseling agency launches clinical nonprofit 864Pride

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Amaryllis Counseling, an agency designed to provide affirmative mental health therapy targeted, but not limited to, the LGBTQ community in the Upstate, has formed an offshoot organization, 864Pride, to elevate quality care for the population they serve.

Elizabeth Serricchio founded Amaryllis Counseling in Greenville in 2018 and brought in Laura Davis as a business partner for the startup. After working together in a clinical environment, they determined the need for 864Pride services to help people cope with “a great deal of pain and hurt,” according to a news release.

“It takes a lot for them — LGBTQ+ community members — to be alive,” Davis said in the news release. “We have specific aims of creating and sustaining mental health programming that does not currently exist for LGBTQ+ individuals. We seek to provide funding for LGBTQ+ community members to gain access to medical and mental health care, and through clinical training we aim to increase the number of affirming providers.”

For several years, Serricchio said community partners of Amaryllis consistently said services either did not exist, affirming and qualified providers were hard to find, or services were inaccessible due to cost.

“Amaryllis has done what it can to meet the need, but it still fell short in its ability to create necessary programming and make it accessible to folks who can't afford services,” she said in the release. “The foundation of 864Pride is to avoid marginalizing the people most in need of help with little to no resources.”

864Pride is a clinical non-profit that strives to reduce environmental and financial barriers to ensure that all members of the LGBTQ community have access to quality medical and mental health care and support. To achieve this, the organization and its volunteer board of directors are seeking grants and raising funds for evidenced-based programs provided by Amaryllis Counseling and other identified LGBTQ-affirming community partners.

“864Pride was born from an idea that we can imagine a world where we break down barriers to services and increase access for everyone because we know it saves lives,” Davis said in the release. “We wanted to combine our clinical experience with community access.” 

For both clinicians, 864Pride began as a dream to create a peer support program that is fully funded and free for the community. 

“We saw our clients struggling to know the proper steps or to be re-traumatized as they walked through things like a name change process, a first endocrinologist appointment, or adapting to new fashions, or learning about makeup,” Davis said in the release. “We want to create a safe space with safe people to aide in support because we recognize the incredible value even one supportive person does for a trans or non-binary person.” 

Services through 864Pride include Bloom, a clinical educational component targeting youth and focused on individual, family, and group therapy bolstered by training for companies, educators, and clinicians within the Upstate who seek to implement evidence-based care and proper interactions with the LGBTQ community; a scholarship fund for hormone replacement therapy, counseling services, or any other medical needs for the transgender and non-binary community; and Leap, a trans peer support program offering one-on-one peer and group support during a personal, social or medical transition, according to the release.

According to both Davis and Serricchio, 864Pride is the only company of its kind in South Carolina