About Raha Foundation
Raha is a non-profit mental health organization that consists of Psychiatrists, Psychologists, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Social Workers in Northern California. The mission of Raha is breaking the mental illness stigma, raising awareness and improving the mental health of our community by: Make Persian speakers aware of the availability of mental health providers and services, by improving the online directory. Educate the public about mental health issues by running workshops, seminars, classes in different subjects and group therapy sessions. Educate providers about Iranian American needs, by way of workshops and seminars.
Note that this website is just a directory and the mental health providers are not screened. Raha is not responsible for the educational and licensure information listed on the web site. This is not a partnership and the providers have their own sole business. Raha has no liability of any kind whatsoever to the members of the directory, nor to any individual, group, partnership, or corporation who may use the service.
Raha's Board Members
CEO and Founder
Jila Behnad is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, graduated from JFK University.
Her private practice is in Dublin, CA. She works with individuals and couples struggling with depression, anxiety, trauma, marriage and relationship problems. Jila Behnad is certified EFT Therapist and Supervisor as well as EMDR, and she is also trained in CBT, ACT and DBT.
Jila loves her job and she believes the secret of happiness is helping others. She hopes people can embrace their most basic universal human attachment needs without fear of persecution or marginalization as a result of religion, race, ethnic or national origin, sexual/affectional orientation and preferences, gender expression, family structure, age, class, mental health, physical character or disability.
Parastoo Mossadeghi PsyD is a licensed clinical psychologist. She has experience in providing evidence based individual and group psychotherapy as well as neuropsychological assessment in a variety of clinical settings.
She is trained in various therapeutic modalities including CBT (exposure therapy), ACT, DBT and Motivational interviewing. Parastoo is a bilingual clinician fluent in both English and Farsi. She immigrated to the united states at the age of 17 and completed her bachelor’s degree in psychology at the University of California Berkeley.
In 2018 she graduated from The Wright Institute with a doctorate degree in clinical psychology. In her postdoctoral residency program, she received extensive training to provide assessment and treatment to individuals with memory difficulty as well as evaluation and treatment of ADHD with adult patients.
In her free time she enjoys taking long walks in nature with her two dogs and experimenting with water color.
Wana Salehi is a seasoned licensed psychologist with over 17 years of experience in the mental health field. Throughout her career, she has held diverse and impactful roles, starting with providing therapeutic behavioral services for adolescents in community mental health settings. She has worked in a variety of environments, including domestic violence shelters for women and a maximum-security male prison, where she honed her skills in managing complex psychological cases. During this time, she also held a private practice for 7 years in the Bay Area. Wana’s expertise expanded when she joined Kaiser as a case manager for severely disturbed children, leading to a long tenure with the organization.
At Kaiser, Wana continued to climb the ranks, eventually becoming a Behavioral Health Manager II. In this capacity, she oversaw critical departments including Intensive Outpatient, Emergency Departments, Intake, Crisis, and Triage, effectively managing teams to address urgent behavioral health needs. Today, Wana serves as the Sub-Regional Director at Kaiser for Integrated Urgent Services, where she manages high-risk patients across a broad spectrum of ages, from children to older adults. Her leadership and extensive experience make her a respected figure in the field of behavioral health.
Shadi Rostami is a software engineer by training. Shadi is a SVP of Engineering at Amplitude providing Digital Analytics Platform.
Her teams focus on big data processing, distributed systems and cloud services. She holds a BS in Computer Engineering from Sharif University of Technology and Ph.D. from University of British Columbia.
On her free time, she enjoys playing board games, watching movies, and solving math problems with her twin, teenage daughters.She has joined Raha foundation in 2017 because she feels deeply about the cause, especially when it comesto immigrant teenagers’ mental health education and support system.
The Story of Raha Foundation
by Jila Behnad
I was born and raised in Iran. I was 8 years old when my parents got divorced, 9 when the Islamic revolution happened and 10 when the war between Iran and Iraq started. It continued for 8 years. I got my high school diploma during an air-raid, with bombs literally falling all around. I learned a big lesson from all the traumas in my life: No matter what, “The show must go on!” It seems tough, doesn’t it? But that was not the hardest time of my life.
After finishing college, I became a Persian literature teacher, my dream job. In two years, besides teaching at a high school, I started my own tutoring agency. It was a big accomplishment and I got lots of compliments from others. I was a happy, confident and successful young lady with many friends. After a few years, I met the man of my dreams and I moved to the US with him.
I remember, from the very first day, I felt lost. I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t work, I couldn’t make friends and I didn’t know who I am anymore. I was lucky to have a successful husband and to live in the US, the greatest country, but why was I not happy? I know now that, what I was going through back then was, in fact, the process of grieving.
Immigration is the greatest loss people experience in their lives. When you lose a loved one, you lose one thing or more, but through immigration, you lose your home, your support system, your family, your language, your culture, your identity, certainties, and even your self-image. Immigration requires a complete rewiring of your brain, not just simple learning of new things. People usually have valid reasons to emigrate, but sadly they don’t know how to deal with it emotionally. I learned this the hard way.
That’s why I decided to become a therapist so I could support other immigrants. That dream helped me to move on from my depression and it gave me huge motivation. I am a psychotherapist now and I established the Raha Foundation with the hope that I can help other people cope with the grief of their change in life.
Studies show in California nearly 1 in 6 adults has a mental health need, the rate among children is even higher and about half of adults and two-thirds of kids with mental health needs don’t get treatment. This is for all California residents, but we know this need is much higher in immigrants.
In the past few years, with other therapists’ support, we created the first Iranian-American mental health directory in the Bay Area, helping hundreds of people find therapists, as well as running many mental health seminars, workshops, and different group therapy sessions.
Managing a mental health problem can be difficult enough, but imagine not being able to get help because of the cost of the services. We want to provide mental health services for EVERYBODY regardless of their income, because we deeply believe that mental health is a right not a privilege!
This is just the beginning! We want to start a powerful social movement for change within our community to tackle the stigma of mental health by raising awareness. We will try our best in spite of all the limitations and difficulties, because the Show Must Go On!