As we enter October, I want to highlight our mental health service delivery model at ASCEND K-8, one of our Education for Change charter partner schools in Oakland, California. Our clinical team at ASCEND is in the exciting process of expanding their reach by providing short term therapy for students that the school has historically struggled to serve. These are students who do not meet the strict eligibility criteria of our two primary funders: MediCal and Special Education (Educationally Related Mental Health Services, also referred to as ERMHS). This shift in service was inspired by the shared vision of Principal Lindzey Tassano and our clinical team who are all committed to increasing equity and accessibility of services for all students and families. When describing the vision for creating this service and the clinical team’s contributions, Principal Tassano shared:

This current level of collaboration reflects All-In’s long history with ASCEND, where we have partnered over the last several years to build out a coordinated system of tiered academic, behavioral and social emotional supports. ASCEND was part of a pilot set of schools that integrated the Unconditional Education Coach role, which provided the opportunity to implement clear structures for assessing and improving schoolwide culture and climate year over year. Intentional capacity building efforts have allowed ASCEND to take on the special education, behavioral and culture and climate services in-house, while Seneca continues to partner to provide clinical supports via county mental health and special education contracts. Our current Seneca team consists of three full-time clinicians who strive to provide a broad array of tiered social emotional supports, which, on top of traditional individual and family therapy, includes: regularly contributing to structured collaboration time with teachers, participating on the Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) team, partnering with the administrative team to develop intervention plans, participating in school wide efforts such as Intersession (a week where students have experiential offsite learning), providing Trauma Informed Education training, and supporting ASCEND’s desire to establish a stronger culture around receiving and providing direct feedback. 

This level of integration has not always been easy for our staff and has required communication and collaboration with the administrative team around staff capacity and boundaries. As we fine-tune the process for providing short term therapy this level of collaboration will continue, ensuring that Seneca staff have the opportunity to co-construct the process for services delivery with their capacity in mind. Overall, it is great to see our clinical team valued as members of the ASCEND community and we look forward to continuing to evolve in our partnership to provide the most responsive supports for this school community.

​Name: Adrianna Delacruz
Position: Bilingual Clinical Intervention Specialist
What led you to your current position? The desire to work in this field was a direct result of my upbringing and experiences in life. While in foster care, I met so many loving and devoted people who were there to help me; their titles ranged from my foster mom, psychiatrists, social workers, case managers, and therapists. Each one made an overwhelmingly positive impact on my life. The footprints imprinted on my heart instilled an intense admiration and respect for the clinical work in community mental health.
What inspires you to do this work? Life was rough growing up, I endured many traumatic experiences at a very young age that led to childhood and adolescence colored by survival and coping. I ended up in the foster care system for a few years and my clinical team paved the way for healing the trauma that was left unaddressed and unhealed from my early days. Over the years, I have experienced the powerful and transformative impacts of therapy, giving me a second chance at life despite early adverse beginnings. My driving purpose of this work is to provide a safe healing space and support my clients and their families through their healing process.
What is a recent highlight you’ve experienced in the work or an important lesson you’ve learned in this role? In my journey to becoming a clinical therapist I have grown through my own empathy, resilience and acceptance.
Share your life motto: "Every day is a fresh start."

In this week’s post, I’d like to highlight our continued partnership with Alliance Renee & Meyer Luskin Academy. Luskin Academy opened in 2012, and currently serves 488 students for grades 9th – 12th in Los Angeles’ Hyde Park neighborhood. It is one of 25 middle and high schools that make up Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, a network of Los Angeles charter schools serving communities that have historically faced systemic oppression, marginalization, and—as a result—were underperforming schools.
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Seneca began this partnership with Luskin last school year after Alliance came to tour our Bay Area programs in early 2019. Alliance’s home office team connected us to Luskin’s principal, who had led his previous school to implement a full inclusion special education model—and it became quickly apparent how aligned his vision was to the goals of the UE model. Toward this end, Luskin had recently “staffed up” a robust and experienced student support team of deans, counselors, and special education leads, and our central partnership goal was to figure out the best ways to coordinate and collaborate efforts across these teams.

Through the support of grants from Los Angeles Unified School District, our own Geoff Nuñez is now serving his second year at Luskin as a Behavior Interventions Coach. After supporting multiple Alliance schools last year, we were lucky to establish Geoff full-time at Luskin this school year. His expanded role now includes:

• Individual Staff Coaching on (virtual) classroom management, individualized student support, and staff professional development goals.
• Monthly School-Wide Professional Development, ranging from UE’s Foundations Series to more tailored PDs, including over 10 hours provided during Luskin’s back to school orientation week.
• Supporting the Counseling, Deans, and Special Education Teams through weekly meetings to develop school-wide behavioral and social-emotional supports.
• Facilitating Collaborative Student Support Team Meetings for students receiving support from multiple teams.

In his second year, Geoff has become an integral part of the Luskin team, and has led many of the school-wide discussions on school culture and community-building as staff grapple with the challenges of distanced learning. As Luskin’s leadership team leads monthly professional development on anti-racist educational practices—working primarily from Mica Pollock’s Everyday Antiracism—we are collaborating to find overlap and more opportunities to integrate this stance with Geoff’s monthly PDs, in an effort to truly make antiracism a part of our everyday work as educators.

This is one of the first and most common questions I receive as an occupational therapist. Generally speaking, occupational therapy is a healthcare service which helps people participate functionally in the occupations or activities that are necessary or meaningful to their life. Depending on the setting or the client, those meaningful occupations can vary. For children and adolescents, one of their primary occupations is being a student.

Occupational therapists adapt activities and create modifications to provide a “just right challenge” for students. This allows the student to feel successful in their schoolwork and activities while simultaneously continuing to build their skillsets.

In distance learning, we continue to do just that! Instead of using sensory tools at school to self-regulate, we are building a “tool-box” of sensory items at home (i.e. blankets, squishy balls, play doh, etc.). Instead of practicing copying sentences from a real whiteboard, we are practicing copying sentences from a virtual “Zoom whiteboard.” And instead of promoting socio-emotional skills through peer interactions on the playground, we are playing turn-taking virtual games and role playing how to react and respond to what a peer said over a Zoom. For me, this has been one of the more fun challenges of virtual occupational therapy, finding games that translate easily to Zoom like Tic-Tac-Toe, Connect Four, or “Snakes.”

True, the environment and resources have changed, but the service goal is the same: to help students access their curriculum in spite of any obstacles they face, including and not limited to, a pandemic.

Today is the 29th of September, or the 300th day of March depending on who’s counting. At Elmhurst United, the middle school where I recently began my role as a therapist, we have completed our first quarter of remote learning. The familiar fall milestones, such (virtual) back to school night, parent teacher conferences and first report cards are accompanied by the unfamiliar and uneasy backdrop of everything happening right now. The young people I work with have shared how this moment has felt to them, ranging from surreal to sad to ridiculous and as one student shared, like “I can’t even tell what’s a meme now honestly.” 

I want to share something that, amidst all of this craziness, has helped to keep my head and heart looking forward: Elmhurst’s commitment to the full service community school approach, and why this model not only works, but is inherent to unconditional education and social justice.

As Julio Angel Alicea noted in a recent EdSource article:

​Elmhurst is 1 of over 40 schools in the Oakland Unified School District that is listed as a “full service community school” which offers supports like those named above. Elmhurst embodies this model by partnering with organizations like LifeLong Medical, La Clinica, and Seneca to wrap services around students and families, meeting a wide variety of needs. But it goes so much deeper than that. Our Coordination of Services Team (or COST) meets weekly to talk about things that are coming up for students and families. The difficult things impacting our students and families create new challenges but also opportunities for our school team to show up for them. This year we have worked with teachers and families to develop solutions to address food insecurity, technology device and training needs, and housing insecurity . Solutions that we hope will help students and families deal with the insane emotional weight of this moment. 

​The work to dismantle oppressive systems and structures is woven through each team member who brings a deep commitment to sustaining the culture of our students, families, teachers and staff. The team at Elmhurst embodies the spirit of a community school because the success of each individual student is directly connected to the success of the entire school. The collective work done to help nurture that success, to heal what’s wounded and celebrate what’s vibrant and special, is never taken lightly. Whether a student needs counseling, 1-on-1 academic support, case management, therapy, a dental appointment or help with housing, supports are identified based on a collaboration of so many perspectives, skills, ideas and resources. It’s no stretch when Principal Kilian Betlach signs off in his weekly newsletter saying, “No matter what.”

​When we partner with schools to cultivate this idea of “Unconditional Education”, I think it works because it’s rooted in something very real, especially during this moment where all of us feel isolated, overwhelmed and engaged in so many important struggles. Schools as an institution is filled with problems and inequities that demand bold, persistent and compassionate action. And, schools represent a conduit for community energy, a crossroads at which the lives of our youth, our elders and everyone in between intersect and intertwine. Now more than ever, schools need to provide safety and possibility, and we need to cultivate rich partnerships that don’t place that burden solely on students, or teachers, or families, or service providers – it has to be for, of, and lead by the community. This idea of a community model is much, much older than any of us and reflects the wisdom of cultures and societies often devalued by pre-dominant, white supremacist culture that emphasizes the individual over the collective. When we tap into that knowledge we can move toward our the common goal held by both Elmhurst and Seneca: to sustain the culture of our communities, and to do so with unyielding love and passion for a more just world. I am profoundly lucky to be able to exist in two spaces that hold the at same value to heart: we are a community, and our collective spirit drives the work we do.

Seneca’s All-In! Partnership Program is in its fifth year partnering with Horace Mann Elementary School in Oakland Unified School District. This year has been unique, as we have started the year providing all services virtually. This has presented some challenges, as well as some opportunities, to connect more with parents and caregivers. 

Our partnership with Horace Mann has also grown over the years into a true collaboration. Seneca staff are integrated members of the Coordination of Services Team (COST), and hence collaborate often with teachers and participate in restorative practices with school staff, students, and families. Particularly during remote learning, Shakera has been instrumental in helping her clients and their families to access not only their educational and academic resources, but basic resources as well, such as food provision and internet access. As our work has shifted during the Shelter-In-Place (SIP), we have been reminded that basic needs are an important part of overall wellness, including mental and emotional wellness. 

​We are grateful for our partnership with Horace Mann and are looking forward to our continued collaboration and all the many adventures that lie ahead!

​Name: Shakera Buchanan
Position: Clinical Intervention Specialist
What led you to your current position? At times I felt like the current position I am in almost fell in my lap. Prior to becoming a Clinician that serves children, youth, and families, I was a Case Manager that provided case management services to formerly homeless and homeless adults for over 12 years. It was not until I went to graduate school through an internship opportunity, where I discovered school- based mental health services. I quickly fell in love with working in this setting and with this population. After this experience, I knew that I wanted to become a school-based clinician and here I am now.
What inspires you to do this work? As a Black woman who is the product of the Oakland Unified School District, OUSD,  and a mother of two children who are students in the OUSD, I feel that I have a duty to give back to a community that has given so much to me. I am inspired by the teachers, administrators and school staff that I have witnessed fight hard, love hard and give so much for our kiddo’s even when it seems like so many  others have given up. I am inspired by the parents and caregivers that despite their limited resources, abilities, and provisions they continue to advocate and show up in support of their children’s education and social emotional growth. I am so inspired by our children that despite any hardships, struggles or oppositions they may face, they persevere with their education with a wholesome attitude. I am so happy that I get to not only witness this but be a part of it in some small way.
What is a recent highlight you’ve experienced in the work or an important lesson you’ve learned in this role? Teamwork does make the dream work. I love our Coordination of Service Team, COST at Horace Mann Elementary School. All school staff and community partners come together and collaborate on best ways to support students and families and they execute this task so well. There have been many students and families who have greatly benefitted from this team’s coordinated efforts and actions.
Share your life motto: My favorite life motto is, This too shall pass. I have experienced many personal hardships in life, as a youth and as well as an adult. I know if I persevere, whatever it is will pass and I will be able to make it through.

​We begin this year at the cross-section of the pandemic’s wide-spread impacts within our community and this powerful moment of confrontation with systemic racism and anti-blackness in our country. We are strengthening our resolve to find new and creative ways to meet the deep and varied needs of students and families and address the many forms of racism still present within our child-serving systems of care. In the words of Bettina Love, we must “engage in the struggle for educational justice knowing that [we] have the ability and human right to refute oppression and refuse to oppress others, mainly [our] students.” Our partnerships in schools are built on aligned vision and commitment to creating school communities where all students can thrive. To this end, we have spent time this summer articulating a set of ongoing commitments and a few key areas where we will be dedicating time and attention in the coming months.

We recognize that reshaping the educational system is ongoing work and, our hope is that, by starting this conversation with concrete commitments, we can specifically articulate the ways in which anti-racism is part of our work in schools.
 
We are looking forward to a year of mutual teaching, learning, and growth!

I am so heartened and excited by two new programs available to Oakland, especially as most of the students, families and schools that I work with (and I myself) reside in Oakland. 

Another service is the MH First Oakland, a project from a regional organization called the Anti-Terror Police Project.  This is a community volunteer phone service that strives to “interrupt and eliminate the need for law enforcement in mental health crisis first response by providing mobile peer support, de-escalation assistance, and non-punitive and life-affirming interventions, therefore decriminalizing emotional and psychological crises and decreasing the stigma around mental health, substance use, and domestic violence, while also addressing their root causes: white supremacy, capitalism, and colonialism.”  

Both CATT and MH First Oakland are new programs that have launched in the past few weeks.  They have limited hours and are beginning to build up their staffing.  They both note that they will call for law enforcement under certain circumstances, so they do not eliminate police presence during a crisis.   
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Even so, both these programs show growth towards creating structures to address the injustices in relying on law enforcement for mental health care.  The ongoing highlight of the abuses of power in law enforcement continually compels me to critically address the need for our clients and families to have alternate ways of dealing with a mental health crisis outside of calling 911.  It is not enough for clients to hope for a responder who can manage the least amount of harm in a critical situation, all the while running the risk of –  like the many instances of the past few years have shown –  an unjust death of a vulnerable person.  This rubs against the training I have received that we ask clients and supports to call 911 when “in crisis.”  Asking clients and families to call 911 covers my liability in addressing risk and aligns with the standard of care that may be expected in the field.  

Under that tension, I must give clients and their supporters more resources like CATT and MH First Oakland; practice calling 911 to request an officer with mental health responder training; have safety plans that include assessing whether a client or guardian would prefer to voluntarily go to a crisis stabilization program like Willow Rock or Children’s Hospital for assessment and help; and explore more hearty early interventions and natural community supports for clients and families.  Giving clients and families more options to choose from can validate lived experiences of threat from powerful, privileged arms of our society.  I am grateful to have the folks at CATT and MH First Oakland launch these new approaches for our clients and families.  I am looking forward to seeing how these public services can improve the standard of care in our field.