A Better Way

Mental health services - we provide mental health services that are strength-based, family-driven, collaborative, comprehensive, and evidence based/evidence informed. Our treatment focus on behavioral & emotional issues and placement stabilization. Our treatment teams include doctoral and masters level clinicians, as well as family partners and rehabilitation specialists. We provide services in the areas of therapeutic visitation, reunification, pre- and post-adoption, and general psychotherapy in the context of individual, and family therapy. In addition, we have specialty programs that focus on children from birth to 5 years old. For fy 21/22, A Better Way provided mental health services to 761 children in or at risk of entering foster care, and to children at schools in alameda, contra costa, san francisco, and solano counties. All of them are either self-referred by caregivers, referred by their schools, or referred to us by their respective county social service departments.

Permanency - we provide traditional foster care, adoptions, intensive treatment foster care (isfc), and transitional housing for transitional aged foster youth (thp+fc). In fiscal year 2021-22, we had 40 approved resource families for our foster care, foster to adopt, and intensive services foster care programs and 38 placed children. In the thp+fc program, we had 1 approved housing locations and placed 3 young adult.

Social services - during 2021-2022 our social services programs consisted of 5 different programs, the largest of which were the alameda county parent engagement program (pep) and the alameda county another road to safety (ars) program. Additional social services programs include, alameda county parent education services (pes), the solano county parent partner & family navigation programs (ppfn) and santa cruz county parent partner program (scppp). The pep, ppfn, and scppp are dedicated to improving outcomes for families navigating the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. Ars is an early intervention / differential response service for families who are at risk of having their children removed from their care due to child abuse and neglect safety concerns. The pes program is A parenting education service designed to equip parents involved in the child welfare system with A variety of parenting skills to increase the parent's capacity to Better manage family issues. For fiscal year 2021-22, the pep program received A total of 106 families referred for services of which 82 cases were enrolled in the program and working towards reunification. Pep supported parents in 548 child family team meetings, facilitated 96 support groups that included 261 fatherhood and 692 parent leadership participants. This program also attended numerous other county team meetings, panels, committees, and workgroups and provided trainings to the community. Ars had A total of 246 families referred for services of which 130 cases were enrolled in the program. 143 ars families were closed successfully with goals met. Solano ppfn served A total of 154 parents involved with the child welfare system. The program supported parents in 58 child family team meetings. Scppp received 05 referrals and enrolled 4 parents working towards family reunification. The program supported parents in 12 child family team meetings. The pes program served 289 parents and successfully graduated 110 parents who completed the curriculum series. 104 parents reported improvement of their parenting skills and overall family functioning. 110 parents reported they were satisfied with the class instruction they received.

The training program at A Better Way provides hundreds of courses each year focusing on improving services to children involved in child welfare systems. We specialize in incorporating A lens of cultural humility and social justice within all of our educational offerings. Training audiences include: court dependent families; social services professionals; mental health clinicians; resource families/foster families; parents and caregivers; & system-involved youth. Courses are open to the community, and priority registration is given to our primary intended audience; caregivers and professionals who are or plan to be involved in lives of foster children and youth. We also provide mental health first aid certification courses upon request. 2021/22 data (title iv-e alameda, title iv-e solano, acbh training): hours delivered: 3,363.5; number of people trained: 4633; number of courses provided: 669; number of agencies served:248