Early Childhood Mental Health Program fosters healthy emotional, social, and psychological development in children aged birth to six years, helps them succeed in school, and gives them the tools to reach their full potential.
As one of the few mental health agencies working to help very young children recover from the effects of childhood trauma, our goal is to create strong families and foster families and, ultimately, to create a more vital community.
Through a variety of child treatment and parent and caregiver counseling programs, we have helped many families remain intact and able to nurture their children at a critical time in their development.
One half of our clinical staff members are Spanish-speaking; most of these are also bicultural. We have Spanish-speaking clerical staff and intake staff. We welcome monolingual Spanish-speaking families.
OPENINGS IN OUR GROUPS FOR SPANISH-SPEAKING MOTHERS AND FATHERS Because of the generosity of the Kaiser Permanente Community Benefit Program, we will continue to offer evening parenting groups for Spanish-speaking families in West Contra Costa County. Ser Papá, for fathers who want a better relationship with their young children and families, is scheduled for Thursday evenings at 6 to 7:30 pm in our Family Center at 4101 Macdonald Avenue in Richmond. The group is led by Carlos Guerrero, ASW, who is on the staff of Children's Hospital, Oakland. He formerly worked as a home visitor and child therapist with Early Childhood Mental Health Program in West County. Free childcare is available. Familias Seguras, for Spanish-speaking mothers who have experienced or are experiencing domestic violence, is held Thursday evenings from 4:30 to 6:30 pm, also in the Family Center at 4101 Macdonald Avenue. Free childcare is also available for this program which is led by Ana Maria Rullier, long-time Family Partner in our Wraparound Program, who is specially trained in helping women with domestic violence issues. Safety planning is a part of this program. The Family Center is in a safe commercial neighborhood, across the street from the new Target development. Parking in our well-lit lot is free. To learn more or to register for either of these groups, call 510.412.9200 during business hours, 8:30 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday. Go to our resources page for materials of interest to parents, professionals, and students. We are interested in your comments. Go to "Contact Us" above to be in touch. We have been helped to build our capacity to serve chldren and families this year by generous grants from the San Francisco Foundation and the East Bay Community Foundation. The East Bay Community Foundation grant is specifically focused on services to Richmond children. The Foundation, in making the grant, cited our agency's "deep work with families" and our strong community Board. The Martin Family Foundation has given us grants three years in a row citing our success in preparing children for school. |
NEW LEADERSHIP AT EARLY CHILDHOOD Our Executive Director is retiring after 28 years, and the Board of Directors, after a nation-wide search, has selected Lynn Martin, MHS, to succeed her. Martin is Senior Director for Program and Fund Development at Northwest Human Services in Salem, Oregon, a large nonprofit multi-service center. Martin has worked in nonprofit services for nearly 20 years, usually in leadership positions. After college, she worked with Berber women and their infants in the Peace Corps in Morocco. She returned to the U.S. to earn a Masters in Health Finance and Management from Johns Hopkins, and then directed a primary care clinic in Appalachia. After moving to Oregon, she directed large non-profit clinics providing primary care, behavioral health, and dental services to low-income families. She was, for several years, Executive Director of Ochoco Health Systems in Prineville, where she expanded a newly established organization from 10 employees to an organization with 65 employees, and expanded services to residents of two additional counties, resulting in 15,000 previously unserved individuals obtaining access to healthcare. In this position, Martin raised the funding to build a new 14,000 square foot clinic and administrative facility. She has also raised funding for and has overseen the establishment of a dental clinic for low-income families and a program providing street outreach and overnight shelter services for homeless street youth. At Early Childhood, Martin will lead a 37-year-old agency that provides mental health services to about 500 families a year in West Contra Costa County. Recently, the Board of Directors has been looking for additional space and funding to be able to provide more timely services to the agency’s large waiting list of English-speaking and Spanish-speaking children and families. Martin was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and earned her bachelor's degree at San Francisco State. She is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives. Her thesis was titled "The Implications of Integrating Mental Health and Primary Care Services." Martin will join the staff of Early Childhood in mid-September. If you visited this site earlier today you may need to hit your browser's "refresh" button to ensure you're seeing the latest content. |