Founder

Currently, Dr. Marsh spends much of her professional career consulting, supervising, speaking, teaching both licensed and unlicensed clinicians, academic institutions, and other organizations regarding mental health.  She is quite vested in offering competent training in the various topics of mental health.   Additionally, she provides consultation to clinicians who desires to start their own practice and those who wish to begin a group practice.   Likewise, she offers group consultation and supervision to practices as well as clinical consultations to organizations.   She is an international speaker as well as presents domestically on the various intersections of mental health and telehealth.

Dr. Marsh is a visionary and enjoys developing innovative programing, and consulting with various organizations, including churches, businesses, academic institutions, etc., concerning mental health.   She is committed to helping individuals especially in urban communities who are underserved and disfranchised as a vehicle to enable these individuals to begin to see their lives transformed so that they can contribute to healing our communities.

For more than 25 years, Dr. Vernita Marsh is considered to be a leading expert in the area of Intimate Partner Abuse. Vernita Marsh, Ph.D., is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist who has more than 30 years working in the area of mental health. Presently, she is the founder and CEO of Dr. Vernita Marsh and Associates, a successful psychotherapy practice in Oakland’s Lake Merritt area.

Dr. Marsh has had several joint ventures in the area of mental health such as with the City of Oakland, Kaiser Permanente and other organizations and has worked in a variety of contexts in the area of Intimate Partner Abuse. One example of this is when she co-produced a video for Kaiser Permanente, Northern California Region and Stanford University featuring the Best Practices of Intimate Partner Abuse. This video has had a major impact in the establishment of Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California Regional Best practices for Intimate Partner Abuse which Dr. Marsh also was a member of this Best Practices regional committee. Additionally, she served as a member of the subcommittee of the Best Practices for child witnesses of domestic violence. This work resulted in establishing guidelines for intimate partner abuse and implementing protocols for health providers to adhere from physicians, nurses, mental health clinicians throughout the Northern California region.

At Harvard Medical School, Dr. Marsh worked with Massachusetts General Hospital as a consultant for a Domestic Violence Shelter in the Boston community. Dr. Marsh’s consultant role involved supervising and training the licensed clinicians there, advising the program administrator and board, as well as facilitating and implementing programs for mental health services for women and children of domestic violence.

Additionally, Dr. Marsh served as a consultant for the National Football League, based in New York City for more than five years where she provided training for the players here in the Bay area and nationally concerning domestic violence and sexual assault. This work was on the forefront of helping the NFL players possess increased awareness concerning domestic violence and sexual assault and to decrease several myths they had concerning intimate Partner Abuse. Also, for the NFL, Dr. Marsh provided psychotherapy for some of the players’ spouses who were victims of domestic violence. Another role for the NFL, Dr. Marsh administered domestic violence evaluations for the NFL players who had been arrested for domestic violence and/or assault and battery.

As a consultant for Department of Defense, Dr. Marsh also saw members of the military, families, and civilian staff who were impacted by domestic violence and sexual assault and other mental health issues. Also, she provided training and consultancy for the staff that had employees who were impacted by domestic violence and other mental health issues.

Dr. Marsh’s passion for working with the underserved populations, began while growing up as an African American woman in a low income community.  Dr. Marsh witnessed poverty, addiction, violence, oppression, and various forms of trauma. At the time, she didn’t fully understand the root cause of the turmoil within her community. Now, as a psychologist, she has a greater understanding and appreciation that those environments were created out of a deep pain and desires to these communities to heal and thrive. She believes that technology can play a great role in aiding individuals as well as communities toward healing and empowerment. “We don’t need to wait for somebody to do something, the power is with us”

Presently, Dr. Marsh is the president and founder of The Marsh Clinics©, a 501(c)3 organization that is dedicated to serving the underserved and underprivileged populations of mental health.  TMC has served the reentry population by providing them with outpatient individual and group psychotherapy services, both face to face and telehealth.  Additionally, we have offered psychopharmacological services for the re-entry population as well.  Furthermore, TMC continues to see victims of crime and other disfranchised populations.