MHSA Student Support Project

Welcome to the MHSA Student and Community Support Project Blog!

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 14:05:54 -0400

Over the next ten years, as the majority of mental health service providers in San Francisco County reach retirement age, there will be a continual workforce need to fill these positions with therapists who reflect the wide range of lived experiences, ethnicities, languages, genders and sexual orientations of their clients.

In order to fill these positions successfully, we are recruiting our most underrepresented populations including consumers, people of color, linguistic minorities and LGBTQIQ.

We are also actively seeking and supporting individuals who are consumers or family members with experience in the public and community mental health system, those committed to working within the community in a multi-faceted way but in particular those that have worked with local healthcare agencies and are committed to advocating for increased access to quality public mental health services.

Please peruse below for continuous updates on MHSA related scholarship opportunities, student and staff profiles, past and future MHSA events and much more!

Community Mental Health Student Profile: Elena White-Negrete

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 14:00:00 -0400

From time to time, we will feature various students at CIIS so people can get a glimpse of student life here. We are pleased to bring you our fourth installment of student profiles! We had the chance to ask Elena White-Negrete a few questions about her experiences in the CMH program at CIIS. Enjoy!

Introduce yourself!

My name is Elena White-Negrete. I am a soon-to-be second year student in CIIS’ Community Mental Health program. I am a Southern California native, with Mexican-American roots in Los Angeles that go back several generations. I am passionate about social justice, learning about psychodynamic models in Latin America, 80’s new wave music, and my friends.

What drew you to the Community Mental Health Program? What kinds of life experiences made you feel that this was a path you should choose?

I had thought about applying to CIIS for years, but decided to finally do it after learning about the CMH program at an open house. The CMH program prepares future therapists to work with communities who need therapy most, or may not be able to afford exorbitant fees that many private practice therapists charge. Therapy has helped me personally more than I could have imagined, and I feel fortunate that I was able to take advantage of being in therapy for so long. After working with girls in the juvenile justice system, and seeing how many have come to juvenile hall to escape traumatic and violent situations, I realized how important therapy was, not only to those who can afford it.

Why is it important for others to be community health workers?

There is a great need for CMH therapists who can provide quality therapy to those who may need it most, but may not have access to services (or feel stigma and may not pursue services on their own). It is important for those who have been disproportionally impacted by lack of services, poverty, and all forms of discrimination to have access to quality, empathic, and caring therapists.

What is your background in? What kind of work were you doing before you came to CIIS and the CMH program?

My background is in nonprofit organizations working towards social and economic justice. I worked for the United Farm Workers as well, providing support and organizing assistance for the strawberry campaign, an effort to unionize over 20,000 strawberry workers. More recently I worked for the Women’s Foundation of California as a grants manager; the Women’s Foundation invests in nonprofit organizations all over the state that strive for equality for all women and girls.

What do you plan to do when you finish your degree? Where do you see yourself in ten years?

I definitely see myself working with young women in some capacity. Girls in the juvenile justice system are especially close to my heart. However, I am also really loving the academic aspect of being in school, and have thought about pursuing a PsyD. I would also like to travel and learn about Latin American psychotherapy, particularly in Argentina where Lacanian therapy is more the norm.

What has been your favorite part of CMH?

I have really appreciated the CMH focus in every class, whether it’s Group Dynamics, Family Therapy, or Psychodynamics. We are being groomed to work with those who may need it most. I especially love my fellow cohort members; the support we provide one another is something special.

Favorite midnight snack?

Mint chip ice cream. Or cereal. Or have-a-chips.

Scholarship and Grant Opportunities (updated 7/25/11)

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 17:13:00 -0400

Periodically, we will post and update our scholarship and grant opportunities for prospective and current students. We encourage you to think outside this box and are excited to begin posting about other potential grassroots ways of fundraising. Please let us know your good news!

Roy Scrivner Memorial Research Grants

Grants up to 12,000

Deadline: November 1, 2011

The Roy Scrivner Research Grants provide graduate student grants (preference given to dissertation candidates) for empirical or applied research that encourages the study of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) family psychology and LGBT family therapy. Researchers from all fields of the behavioral and social sciences are encouraged to apply.

http://www.apa.org/apf/funding/scrivner.aspx

APAGC Committee on Ethnic Minority Affairs Grant Program

Grants up to 1,000

Deadline: December 7, 2011

APAGS scholarships are available to graduate student members of APAGS who are enrolled at least halftime as a student in good standing at a regionally accredited university. If you are a student affiliate of the American Psychological Association (APA) and are in a masters or doctoral program, you are automatically a member of APAGS. Undergraduates are not eligible for these scholarships, nor are APAGS officers, subcommittee, or task force chairs. Previous recipients of each award are not eligible to apply again for a period of five years.

http://www.apa.org/about/awards/apags-cema.aspx

Community Mental Health Student Profile: Claudia Molina

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 13:40:00 -0500

From time to time, we will feature various students at CIIS so people can get a glimpse of student life here. We are pleased to bring you our third installment of student profiles! We had the chance to ask Claudia Molina a few questions about her experiences in the CMH program at CIIS. Enjoy!

What drew you to the Community Mental Health Program? What kinds of life experiences made you feel that this was a path you should choose?

My depression had taken the best out of me. Being depressed was exhausting. A social worker pushed me to send my resume to Mission Clinic and to my surprise I had a job! I am happy as ever.

What kind of work were you doing before you came to CIIS and CMH?

Advertising and Event Coordination.

How has Student and Community Support MHSA Project aided in your experience at CIIS?

I appreciated that there were people to listen and pay attention to my needs.

What do you plan to do when you finish up your time at CIIS?

To still work with community mental health as a therapist with my family at mission clinic.

What was life at CIIS like when you first arrived? What did you wish you knew that perhaps you could pass on to new and incoming students?

I had procrastinated to do some of my papers and I felt anxious. I wish I could have been more relax and taken a yoga class.

Favorite midnight snack?

Popcorn with real butter

MHSA related training opportunities

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 13:23:00 -0500

There are a number of unique and diverse opportunities that deserve their own section! We will be posting and updating our scholarship and grant opportunities as well as related training opportunities. We always encourage students to think outside the box of traditional fund and are excited to begin posting about other potential grassroots ways of fundraising and training and job opportunities. Please let us know your good news!

Violet and Cyril Franks Scholarship

application deadline is May 15, 2011

The Violet and Cyril Franks Scholarship is a $5,000 award given to graduate students whose work explores a psychological perspective to help understand and reduce stigma associated with mental illness. Please consult the APA’s Web site for comprehensive eligibility requirements and application information.

http://www.apa.org/apf/funding/franks-rfp.pdf

Community Mental Health Student Profile: Jesus Solorio

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 16:40:00 -0400

From time to time, we will feature various students at CIIS so people can get a glimpse of student life here. We are pleased to bring you our second installment of student profiles! We had the chance to ask Jesus Solorio a few questions about his experiences in the CMH program at CIIS. Enjoy!

What drew you to the Community Mental Health Program? What kinds of life experiences made you feel that this was a path you should choose?

I had been thinking about graduate school in the psychology field for years and was looking for a program that appreciated the complexities of our social context (oppression issues, race issues, cultural issues, etc.). I have spent years working around structural issues in the education field and more recently I was drawn to work supporting individuals on a one on one basis.

What kind of work were you doing before you came to CIIS and CMH?

I have been working in the education field for over 15 years in various capacities. I have been a Teacher’s Assistant, Office Manager and Volunteer Coordinator (at an elementary school), Community Organizer, Researcher and Technical Assistance Provider. Most recently I was the Associate Director at a nonprofit organization that focuses on equity issues in the education field.

What do you plan to do when you finish up your time at CIIS?

I hope to eventually be in a position where I can work with young Latino men that are struggling with violence issues where I can provide emotional, psychological and spiritual support. I want to explore the cycles of violence that our youth are faced with everyday and work with them on getting themselves out of these patterns.

What was life at CIIS like when you first arrived? What did you wish you knew that perhaps you could pass on to new and incoming students?

CIIS is a small school and the administration departments are small as well. Sometimes it can take a while to get questions answered and so forth. Patience and perseverance go a long way.

Favorite midnight snack?

Right now it’s the “ginger no cookie cookie”.

Community Mental Health Student Profile: Adriana Furuzawa

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 17:18:00 -0400

From time to time, we will feature various students at CIIS so people can get a glimpse of student life here. We had the chance to ask Adriana Furuzawa a few questions about her experiences in the CMH program at CIIS. Enjoy!

Adriana, what drew you to the CMH program?

What drew me to the CMH program was the fact that I could not picture myself in private mental health practice, and I was looking for a viable way to adequate my education to mental health practices that are truly all-inclusive. I am a strong believer in the integrative power of communities and as I am a witness to how individuals are transformed by the communities they participate in, I want to be able to use this for the benefit of my clients’ recovery process.

What kind of work were you doing before you came to CIIS and CMH?

I have a psychology degree from Brazil and I have been working in the community mental health field in Alameda County since 2003, with adults with severe and persistent mental illness, in different capacities.

What do you plan to do when you finish up your time at CIIS?

I intend to continue to work in CMH and hopefully be able to articulate the
experience and knowledge I developed over the past 2 1/2 years in transforming
mental health programs and contributing to improving the quality of life of the
people I serve.

Favorite midnight snack?

Cheese and grapes

MHSA Student and Community Support Project Staff Profile: Irina Contreras

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 14:51:00 -0400

As Community Outreach Liaison for the Mental Health Services Act Student and Community Support Project at CIIS, Irina Contreras is not just responsible for students, but also for prospective student and community support. This means she does a little bit of everything including co-coordinating the project’s past summer training series on stereotyping, gender binary in the classroom and stigma in mental healthcare. She graduated from Otis College of Art and Design in 04 as well as having completed undergraduate work at San Francisco Art Institute and work as a Community Scholar in Public Policy and Social Research at UCLA.

Irina grew up in the Pacoima area of Los Angeles, the daughter of a grocery store checker, granddaughter of child farmworkers and the great-grandaughter of farmworkers and assembly line workers. She was largely raised by her grandparents Dolores and Jesus and family and a rotating cast of older punks and queers. It is in this way that labor and class, queer migrations, race and gender have always played out as common themes in her upbringing. It is with this in mind that she has always carried out work in her own community and the others she steps into; always remembering that social justice are words that can never take the place of the everyday actions that must and do take place in our communities sometimes invisible and/or unrecognized by the language of academia.

Film Still from Hilary Goldberg’s recLAmation, 2010

Irina is an artist and writer and worked for several years for the Cultural Affairs Department in Los Angeles as well as for many LA museums. However, it is the Los Angeles County Museum of the Arts (LACMA) that holds a special place in her heart. It was there that she worked with the Living With Art: Art in the Home Program which seeks to bridge art practices, language building skills and curricula development for teachers, students and community in the LAUSD system, a school system which she is a product of and is largely devoid of art, music and movement. One of her most inspiring days at work involved the visitation of another group she was active with, the Garment Workers Center. The garment workers and their families visited LACMA’s Free Sundays Program, where she was able to give a tour with help from her colleagues at both LACMA, GWC and Q-Team, a radical queer youth of color group. She feeds off of and is motivated to bring similar ways of connecting folks and places to her work for MHSA Student and Community Support Project. She is very excited about the potentials of the blog, gathering ideas and inspiring non-traditional fundraising for students and feels dedicated to seeing the student body demographics shift at CIIS in a way that is truly transformational for the neighboring communities in the Bay Area.

RAMS Summer Bridge 2010

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 17:41:00 -0400

This past summer, MHSA Student and Community Support Project hosted RAMS-Summer Bridge at CIIS. RAMS-Summer Bridge is an 8-week summer mentoring program for people age 16 to 20 currently enrolled in or recently graduated from SFUSD high schools. Richmond Area Multi-Services, Inc. (RAMS) is the leading agency and is collaborating with Horizons Unlimited, Samoan Community Development Center, Bayview Hunter’s Point Foundation for Community Improvement, and the Wellness Initiative.

We began our day with Community Mental Health Coordinator Sekyai Edwards tour of CIIS and then moved into a series of panels with CMH students, MHSA Peer Counselor and CIIS alumna Kelly Nguyen and admissions counselor Shawna Holbrook. After eating some delicious Zante’s Pizza, we held an informal Q&A with CMH director, Dr. Steven Tierney.

RAMS Summer Bridges works to promote awareness of psychological well-being and foster interest in the helping professions (social worker, counselor, psychologist, therapist, etc.) Youth that participate in RAMS Summer Bridges meet real people representing different cultures in various work environments and neighborhoods in the Bay. We were so honored to have them at CIIS for the day! The youth had so many articulate inquiries and insight that is needed in our communities and by the end of the day, we were sad to see them leave!

http://www.ramsinc.org/summerbridge.html

Scholarship and Grant Opportunities (updated 03/21/11)

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:10:00 -0400

Davis-Putter Scholarship Fund

Grants of up to 10,000

Deadline: 4/01/2011

http://www.davisputter.org/index.html

The Davis-Putter Scholarship Fund provides grants to students actively working for peace and justice. These need-based scholarships are awarded to those able to do academic work at the university level and who are part of the progressive movement on the campus and in the community. Early recipients worked for civil rights, against McCarthyism, and for peace in Vietnam. Recent grantees have been active in the struggle against racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression; building the movement for economic justice; and creating peace through international anti-imperialist solidarity.

An Uncommon Legacy Foundation, Inc.

Deadline: May 1, 2011
The Lesbian Leadership Scholarship program, for both undergraduate and graduate students, provides awards for projects that address lesbian social, cultural and educational needs. Consideration will be given to academic performance, honors, personal or financial hardship and especially service to the lesbian/gay community. Candidates must have a minimum 3.0 GPA, have financial need, and demonstrate a commitment or significant contribution to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. The scholarship amount is $2,500. The deadline is May 1. Applications in PDF and text formats and additional information may be found on the Uncommon Legacy Foundation web site. For more information, contact:
Scholarship Committee
An Uncommon Legacy Foundation, Inc.
PO Box 33727
Washington, DC 20033
Fax: 1-202-265-1927
Phone: 1-202-265-1926

Zami

Deadline: May 15, 2011

Zami offers the Audre Lorde Scholarship and several other $1,000 scholarships to gay and lesbian undergraduate and graduate students of African descent who are making significant contributions to their communities. Zami is Atlanta’s premiere organization for lesbians of African descent, and the award’s emphasis is on service to the lesbian community. The deadline is May 15. For more information, contact:
Zami
PO Box 2502
Decatur, GA 20031
Email: audrelordescholarship@zami.org
Phone: 1-404-370-0920

Baumann Foundation Scholarship

Tuition support for students who complete a research project that focuses on three specific patterns of thought and social enactment to lead to unnecessary suffering as well diminished actualization of

human potential.

Awardees receive $2,500 each semester (excluding summer), up to 4 semesters.

A great opportunity for students in the Masters and Doctoral levels. Read the packet for details.

APPLICATIONS ARE DUE BY MAY 30, 2011

http://www.ciis.edu/Admissions_and_Financial_Aid/Financial_Aid/Scholarships.html

MHSA Student and Community Support Project Staff Profile: Joy Amao

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 12:41:00 -0400

Joy Amao is the project manager for the Mental Health Services Act at CIIS as well as a graduate of the CIIS MCP programs. In addition to her work at CIIS, she specializes in helping individuals, couples, families and groups in both agencies and private practice settings. By identifying and deconstructing seen and unseen barriers, her clients can attain personal fulfillment and their professional goals. With strong ties to the communities of West and East Oakland and Richmond, she has participated in non-profit program development geared towards providing culturally aware mental health services to underserved communities. She is also a family advocate for parents facing the economic and emotional challenges of parenting/single parenting.

As a West African born in England who immigrated to the United States, her concepts of community span three continents and are rooted in indigenous models of sustainability and group process.

Recently, we asked Joy a few questions about her position with the MHSA Department at CIIS and Student and Community Support Services. Enjoy!

What does your workhere at CIIS entail?

As Project Manager of the Mental Health Services Act, my goal is to create bridges for students to cross. Without sufficient support, many of our students would otherwise not be able to obtain their master’s degree or become licensed and employed as marriage and family therapists . If you don’t have your B.A. yet, we offer a three semester Bachelor’s Completion Program. If you have your M.A. and are interested in going further, we offer a PsyD program. MHSA support services are available to eligible students in each of these programs and concentrations as well as the 5 MCP’s. This is made possible by the MHSA funded grant we received from the City of San Francisco and the tireless effort of Community Mental Health Program Chair, Dr. Steven Tierney. Being a part of this grant program has made it possible for CIIS to take the first step toward the county’s collective goal of diversifying the mental health workforce - and that is to open the doors of higher education to diverse populations of students who then go on to graduate and provide services in county mental health, non-profits and community based organizations.

What are the steps being taken to ensure that the workforce is diversified while specifically supporting students at CIIS?

When I first took the position in 2009, I began building from the ground up. Along with the recruitment effort comes creating a welcoming environment on campus so that people are being supported in order to finish their degree on time and then secure employment in the field – which in this season of economic challenge is a real concern for students. To that end, I have incorporated everything from free graduate level writing and research skill clinics to psycho-educational testing for students to a community resource list for students experiencing economic, housing, or mental health challenges to name a few.

Are there new projects or updates you are excited about?

Part of supporting students is supporting staff and faculty. Each semester, I am fortunate to be able to attend events and select top trainers to work with our MHSA team to provide focused faculty and staff trainings that address the needs of Consumers, ethnically, culturally, linguistically diverse students and LGBTQIQ students. In addition, we hold trainings and advisory groups for and with students and community partners so that every voice is truly represented in this dialogue.

I’m also so pleased to have been able to expand the MHSA department in 2010, to include two new staff members who really round out the team and the vision of this department – Irina Contreras, Community Outreach Liaison and Kelly Nguyen, Peer Counselor.