Position: Resource Counselor at Lazear Charter Academy

What led you to your current position? I was in the Wraparound program for almost five years before I joined Light the Change. I became a mother a couple months before making this switch and needed something with a consistent schedule. I was working with two Wrap clients that attended Lazear and when I visited, I got to know the school and kids a bit more. When the position became available, I was a bit hesitant because I loved my work with Wraparound and dreaded the thought of leaving my kids. I can truly say that I am happy I took this opportunity and although I miss my Wraparound kids a lot, I am hopeful that our time together provided them some tools, love, and growth for them to be their best selves! I truly enjoy the work I do at Lazear and hope to continue providing these services to my community.

What inspires you to do this work? I grew up in Oakland and have always been interested in working with kids. I had challenges throughout my childhood and can relate to a lot of the experiences that my kids go through. I want to provide a safe space for them to express themselves, collaborate with parents, and create an environment where my kids can be heard and prosper in their lives. As I am growing as a mother and going through different stages of life, I am finding more empathy for parents and seeing the value of helping them heal themselves so they can get to a point of being that safe space for their children.

What is a recent highlight you’ve experienced in the work or an important lesson you’ve learned in this role? A recent highlight was seeing my TK student attend his PE class independently and sit with peers at lunch. I had been working with him for a couple months on building a relationship with his PE teacher and peers. He would sit alone in class, not eat lunch with anyone, and not play with others. Now, he is going to class without me having to support, he plays with his peers and calls some of them his friends and can tolerate sitting with people at lunch! Seeing this shift in him has been amazing! I could not have done it without the support of his teachers and appreciate their collaboration and openness to different interventions.
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Share your life motto or something unique about yourself. Remembering there are wounds we all carry, not taking things personally, and showing up for others. This work can be emotionally taxing, but seeing the smiles, hearing my name being called from across the school, receiving artwork for me to decorate my walls makes it worth it. I am excited for my son to receive that love from his teachers when he starts school here! 

AMAZING DEVELOPMENT! Certified Wellness Coach (CWC) is a new profession that is helping increase our state’s overall capacity to support behavioral health and the well-being of California’s children and youth in a wide variety of settings, such as schools, community-based organizations, and healthcare providers. The CWC role is designed to enhance the mental health and well-being of all youth by offering preventive and early intervention services through a diverse behavioral health workforce. CWC’s promote wellness, conduct screenings, provide educational sessions, link youth to external resources, offer safe spaces, and make referrals for crisis support as needed, effectively bridging the crucial gap between need and accessibility.
 
​Wellness Coaches can: 

• Provide one to one behavior intervention support (individual clients) with individualized goal setting
• Facilitate small skill groups focused on social skills, coping, wellness, stress management, healthy lifestyle choices, mental health support, building resilience, and much more
• Implement capacity building strategies for general education teachers pertaining to tier 2 interventions and wellness
• Develop and implement strategies to address chronic absenteeism
• Facilitate caregiver workshops 
• Build community connections
• Connect caregivers to external resources​

Within our Unconditional Education Programs, we have recently hired four CWC’s. These wellness coaches are located across East Oakland at Cox Academy, Lazear Charter Academy, Latitude High 37.5, and Lighthouse TK-5. Our CWC’s recently participated in their first official Professional Learning Community, which was facilitated by Emily Marsh, our Clinical Director, focusing on outlining their key responsibilities at their respective sites and small group facilitation. The next Professional Learning Community will be facilitated by our Director of Behavioral Intervention, Darrell Burns. The CWC’s Professional Learning Community consists of a blended behavioral and clinical model to offer a balanced approach to their professional development. The integrated model enhances our holistic approach treatment, allowing CWCs to consider the whole person rather than just isolated needs. In the months to come, PLC will focus on both individual and group skill development as well as behavioral coaching techniques.

By prioritizing the well-being of all students, we can create a thriving school environment where all youth have the chance to succeed. Although this is the beginning of this new and impactful role, I am super excited to see where this journey takes us.

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Blog By: Devina Brooks, Director of School Partnerships

Compass Care is a family-centered, customized intervention that reduces chronic absenteeism for 5th-12th grade students. Compass Care’s ten-week program utilizes advocates (with lived experience) who are curious and compassionate, focusing on the specific needs of a student and their family. Whether those are based in aspects of the school system or other barriers at home, the advocates are prepared for circumstances that range from academic or mental health challenges to concerns for safety to a lack of reliable transportation. Seneca currently partners with schools to address chronic absenteeism through the Compass Care approach in Tennessee, Washington State, and California.

At Compass Care, we believe that the best way to improve our work is to listen to those who experience it firsthand, our students and families. One of the most powerful ways we do this is through our Youth Advisory Board (YAB), a dedicated group of current and former Compass Care participants who provide invaluable insight into how we can better support students navigating chronic absenteeism.

Twice a year, the YAB comes together to review our program, discuss their experiences, and offer feedback on what works, what doesn’t, and where we can grow. Their voices help shape everything from how we engage families to the types of resources we prioritize. The YAB is a critical part of our commitment to continuous learning and improvement.

We also deeply value the perspectives of our Hope Scholars who participate on the YAB, current UC Berkeley students who have overcome significant challenges, including experiences in foster care, probation foster care, or being orphaned before the age of 18. Though they have not participated in Compass Care, their journeys offer important insight into the long-term impact of supportive services, resilience, and access to education. Their voices provide a unique and critical perspective on how we can continue to improve our work and ensure that students facing adversity receive the support they need to thrive.

By centering student voices and lived experiences, we ensure that Compass Care remains dynamic, responsive, and truly student-centered. We are grateful for the passion and dedication of our YAB members and Hope Scholars, whose contributions make our work stronger and more impactful every day.

Blog By: Kenosha Collins, Project Manager of Education Innovation

Clinicians in the Mosaic Outpatient Program provide a range of services to our school sites, students, and their families by utilizing a three-tier model of intervention that includes trainings, workshops, and other supports for the broader school community. Working together, we can significantly increase the opportunities for each student to make progress, advance academically, and meet their potential. Our clinicians are regularly asked by our school partners to conduct classroom and staff presentations. These topics include social and interpersonal skill building and mental health topics such as depression, anxiety or anger management.
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Searles Elementary School in Union City is one of the schools where Mosaic provides services.  In addition to providing individual and group therapy, Maritza Moreno, our clinician at Searles Elementary School, provides classroom presentations to address emerging social-emotional issues.  For example, after ongoing collaboration with school staff, principal Jessie Welcomer identified the topic of “Rumors and gossip” as an important topic that many of the older students were struggling with at school. To support the school, clinician Maritza Moreno organized and held 50-minute presentations for the 5th grade classes with the topic of Gossip and Rumors. This presentation included a hands-on activity involving transferring glitter from one person to another and noticing how glitter is hard to get rid of, easy to transfer, messy and yet appealing at the same time, much like gossip and rumors can be. Maritza then reminded students of opportunities to reach out to trusted adults for support or relying on a new phrase and gesture “No drama, Llama” to communicate neutrality and peace.

Students have expressed that highlighting and bringing attention to the social struggles they’ve been experiencing as well as having tools to manage these struggles, has been helpful. Many students have been seen by school staff, putting up the peace sign while telling their friends “No Drama, Llama”.

The accompanying presentation of this workshop includes psychoeducation about how students that are impacted by rumors and gossip, can be affected psychologically as well as somatically due to stress. This is an opportunity to emphasize empathy. Students are educated about what gossip can look like to help them identify it when they see it. They learn ways they can stand up to students who are trying to spread rumors or take it upon themselves to end the cycle of a rumor themselves.
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This is just one example of the many ways clinicians provide Tier 1 interventions in our school communities while also strengthening their relationships with school staff with whom they work. We are so grateful for the collaboration with our teachers and the invitation to discuss mental health and wellness topics with students throughout the year!

Blog By: Mosaic Outpatient Team

Position: Bilingual Outpatient Therapist
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What led you to your current position? I’ve always had a passion for trying to understand human behavior and psychology. The adversities I’ve had to overcome, paired with the diverse identities I hold, encouraged me to want to help others. Representation is important to me, and I believe there’s value in witnessing a first generation, Mexican American, eldest daughter, bilingual woman in a position that has included a lengthy education, overcome obstacles and advocating for others’ rights. Additionally, I love working with and have a big heart for children. I learn from my clients so much every day; from how to incorporate humor and silliness into our lives, to how to be honest and direct with our needs and observations. This position is greatly fulfilling to me as a person who hoped to find a sliver of silver lining in using my lived experience to help others feel seen, heard and supported in ways that I wasn’t. 

What inspires you to do this work? Seeing gradual changes in my clients inspires me. I love to see clients having acceptance for themselves little by little, shifting their self-views and creating alternate stories that can shape their core beliefs about themselves and their world, into a version that can feel safer, more closely aligned with their values. It is a privilege to get to be let into my client’s family’s worlds. 

What is a recent highlight you’ve experienced in the work or an important lesson you’ve learned in this role? An important lesson is how many different perspectives and stories can coexist. I have made it a goal of mine to seek a bigger picture and gather perspectives not just from moms but from fathers as well, who so often, for many different reasons, get excluded from conversations about their children’s mental health. If we want men to acknowledge mental health and heal within society, they must be included. 

Share your life motto or something unique about yourself.  I don’t have a favorite life motto, but I can share one I highly dislike. Everything does not happen for a reason. Plenty of senseless, unexplainable things can and do happen in this life. Disproportionately. And even still, ongoing healing is possible. I wholeheartedly believe and am witness to that daily. 

For this week’s school highlight, I’d like to introduce one of our newest Los Angeles partner schools: Ararat Charter School! Ararat Charter School is an independent charter school located in the Van Nuys neighborhood in Los Angeles’s beautiful San Fernando Valley. 

Opened in 2010, Ararat serves 338 students, TK through 5th grade, with a mission “to educate students to their maximum potential in an environment that actively engages students in rigorous and relevant programs, promotes academic excellence and values cultural and linguistic diversity, and creative expression.” Ararat is the first school(!) to teach both Armenian and Spanish to all its students. Cultural awareness and understanding, as well as the six pillars of character are taught, emphasized, and valued at Ararat Charter School.

Seneca’s Unconditional Education partnership with Ararat is funded through the California Department of Education’s California Community Schools Partnership Program. After facilitating group supervision for Ararat’s special education aides two years ago, Seneca partnered with Ararat’s principal last year to write the grant that will fund our partnership at least through the 2027-28 school year. Our UE Coach, Marc Sahara, has been busy this fall semester, partnering with Ararat’s team to introduce and launch several new and exciting initiatives. Some of these highlights include:

• Conducting interviews and focus groups with all Ararat staff to hear their perspectives on school culture and climate, systems of student supports, and staff practices for responding to challenging behaviors
• Facilitating the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) Tiered Fidelity Inventory and Trauma-Informed Index with Ararat’s PBIS team, to self-assess the school’s systems of positive behavioral support and develop an action plan to improve them
• Administering school climate surveys to all staff, students, and parents/caregivers (with responses from 248 families!) to inform Ararat’s culture and climate goals 
• Founding and launching Ararat’s Culture and Climate Committee (C3) to collaboratively plan and improve on the priorities identified in the fall assessment
• Launching Ararat’s COSST (Coordination of Student Supports Team) to identify students in need of additional support and develop responsive and individualized intervention plans
• Facilitating Ararat’s Student Council to develop student leadership and incorporate student voice in school decision-making
• Providing valuable direct support for several high-need students and classrooms 

We are thankful to have found a school leadership team and community so aligned to Seneca’s values and the goals of UE, as well as sustainable funding for a full four-year arc of partnership. We truly see the work this fall as the foundation for years of partnership to come and are looking forward to the work ahead!

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Blog by: Sean Murphy, Director of School Partnerships

​We are in the golden age of podcasts where you can find a lot of different programs focusing on clinical work and the socio-cultural. For those of us with 30+ minute commutes, finding the right thing to listen to is essential to our professional growth and general self-care. Given so many to choose from, here are a couple recommendations for updated podcasts with some interesting subject material:

Between Us: A Psychtherapy Podcast

This podcast is hosted primarily by John Totten, a psychotherapist practicing in the Pacific Northwest. Season 4 comes about after an almost 3 year break from the initial run of the podcast but continues to showcase the varied works of different psychotherapist, psychoanalysts, and people interested in the intersection between therapy and society. For those who are interested in Relational approaches to psychotherapy/psychoanalysis, culture, and identity, this is a must.

Therapy for Black Girls

Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, PsyD. Is a psychologist from the Atlanta, Georgia area and has been providing a nearly weekly podcast for over 7 years! The podcast features numerous conversations on topics particular to to BIPOC experience including respectability politics, dealing with imposter syndrome, and interviews with other amazing healers in the field.

Divergent Conversations | A Neurodivergent Podcast

The podcast is hosted by Patrick Casale and Dr. Megan Anna Neff, two AuDHD mental health professionals and entrepreneurs, and features other well-known leaders in the mental health, neurodivergent, and neurodivergent-affirming community. Highlighting the “nothing about us, without us” frame of having neurodiverse folks speak about their own experiences, this podcast has a range of conversations regarding areas such as diagnosis, masking, and autistic burnout to name a few

Room: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action 

On this podcast, writers, poets, activists, artists, and analysts who have contributed to ROOM (a free interdisciplinary magazine) converse about their work in larger connection to our complex world and narrative informed practices (including psychotherapy). The podcast is co-hosted by psychoanalytic candidates Isaac Slone and Aneta Stojnić and furthers ROOM’s mission to highlight psychoanalysis as an important lens for social discourse.

What are you all listening to?
 
Mosaic & Pathways Team

Position: My current position with Seneca is of a Wellness Coach. 

What led you to your current position? Prior to starting at Seneca, I was a family community specialist at Long Beach Saint Mary’s Hospital helping with unhoused individuals. I oversaw community outreach for mothers that were unhoused and had a minor under their custody. While providing these services, I noticed that it was more beneficial for their overall outcome to start with supporting these families in obtaining an education. 

What inspires you to do this work? I was informed by a nurse about Seneca, and after doing intensive research, I felt called to apply and support students in continuing their education. My inspiration to do this work is believing that we all deserve to be educated and supported during that journey. My favorite quote comes from Cesar Chavez “Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot uneducated the person who has learned to read. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. We have seen the future, and the future is ours.” I firmly believe the future belongs to my students and my role is to make sure they spread their wings. 

What is a recent highlight you’ve experienced in the work or an important lesson you’ve learned in this role? One recent highlight for me comes from a young man that has no academic support at home and the love for his younger sister has motivated him to come to school daily. He is doing his best to not fall into gang violence and inspiring his younger sibling to choose a different path. I feel proud of him for making those crucial changes and for being conscious of how his actions can affect his family at a young age. Thanks to him, I have learned to support individuals find their own journey and inspiration for wanting an education. Not all struggles come from the same tree, but all tree’s come with struggles.

Share your life motto or something unique about yourself. I personally collect books that might be at risk of becoming censored, I have about 300 books that range from Dracula to Latin American in Spanish, and psychology. I love to be able to see the little happy moments with my students and be part of their small victories.  
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​In 2021, Seneca and Valor Collegiate Academies co-developed a holistic short-term wraparound model to reduce chronic absenteeism. After a successful three-year pilot in Valor's three Nashville schools, Seneca was awarded an Education, Innovation, and Research (EIR) grant from the US Department of Education. The grant is designed to allow promising practices to expand their programming and to conduct rigorous research to evaluate their efficacy. The Los Angeles charter network Alliance signed on to partner with us and in the fall of 2024 we launched Compass Care partnerships at Virgil Roberts Leadership Academy (VRLA) middle school and Smidt Tech high school. At each of those schools, we have an embedded Compass Care Wellness Coach who serves a caseload of 15 chronically absent students and their families per cycle. Chronic absence is defined as missing 10% or more of school days. Intervention cycles are 10-11 weeks, with an opportunity to extend for students/families who need longer-term support. Since the causes of chronic absenteeism are so varied (including challenges with transportation, motivation, physical or mental health in students or family members, etc.), Compass Care staff provide customized, individualized supports tailored to each student and family.  
 
Partnering with the team at VRLA has been a delight. This is a dynamic and deeply committed school staff and community. Our Compass Care Tier 3 attendance supports are integrated within the school's thoughtful MTSS supports and family engagement efforts. The VRLA community is oriented toward whole-student and whole-family wellness, hosting many community events and linking families with needed resources to promote equity, wellness, opportunity, and joy throughout their community. Please see the 'Staff Highlight' section for more information about our outstanding Compass Care Wellness Coach at VRLA, Danni Estrella Rojo. She has done powerful work in deeply connecting with students and families, learning about their hopes, dreams, and goals, as well as their struggles. With a heartful, empathic presence and a deep expertise in all aspects of case management, Danni is able to find and connect families to resources that impact their lives in a profound, positive way.  

Blog By: Jason Keppe, Director of School Partnerships