Lea este artículo en español aquí.
Through its annual wine and food fundraiser, Gabilan Chapter Seneca raised over $125,000 last year for the Seneca Family of Agencies to help with programs that support adoptive children, foster kids and families.
Aug. 24 marks the 68th year of the Chapter’s Annual Wine & Food Tasting fundraiser, which will be held at Swank Farms and showcase wineries, restaurants, and food vendors from all over San Benito County. An auction held at the event will feature one barrel each of 2022 Calera Mills Pinot Noir and 2022 Calera Chardonnay.
One local service, Seneca’s mental health clinic in Hollister, now operates under a partnership with San Benito County Behavioral Health.
“We got the contract about a year ago,” said Seneca Executive Director Dawn Henson. “It’s a small clinic with three bilingual clinicians, and we provide individual, family and group therapy to children and young adults up to age 24.”
Seneca operates in eight northern, three central, and six southern California counties and three counties in Washington. It offers family and foster care-related programs, including certification and training for foster parents and support services for foster families.
Called a “wraparound program,” according to Director of Development Priyanka Subramaniam, Seneca’s clinicians collaborate with families to develop customized care plans.
“These plans are as diverse as the families they support,” Subramaniam said, “but all of them work to address trauma or mental health needs and other familial concerns so that children flourish in the nurturing environment of their own homes and community.”
Seneca also has a mobile response team that can respond to situations where youths are at risk to themselves or others. Subramaniam said it drastically reduces the need for law enforcement involvement and can speed up care through hospitalization or mental health care, improving the patient’s path to recovery.
“We provide them with crisis support right where they are,” she said, “and then connect them to other support or their doctor. It is not just a one-stop intervention but a way to ensure they continue improving.”
There is an entire web of services for children caught in unusual circumstances, like Family Ties for those who have been taken in by relatives on a temporary or emergency basis when their parents cannot care for them.
“It is a situation that requires a high level of intervention and community resources,” Subramaniam said,” as well as support and education just to ensure that the kids stay within the extended family and avoid any involvement in the system.”
Henson said that help from Seneca is open to anyone who qualifies for County Behavioral Health Services.
“If someone calls the county for mental health services,” she said, “they do a screening and then from there, they can refer them over to us. If the county does not have the capacity, they can also send us kids so they are not on a waiting list.”
Henson said the major issues that the clinic deals with are kids struggling with depression, anxieties or phobias, foster care-related problems, or other kinds of trauma.
“This is not a sole effort,” she said. “It is a combined effort to build the capacity of the county to provide more therapy services. The research does show the quicker kids can get into the therapy and start processing, the less likelihood of a long-lasting effect.”
Henson said that just over 600 youths and families are enrolled locally, and the average treatment time is around six months.
“So far,” she said, “about 90%, at their discharge, are reporting they have achieved the goals they stated they wanted to achieve. And it can only go up from there.”
Henson said that the organization is always looking for people wanting to become foster parents and Seneca can help them with that goal.
“There’s just always a need for families,” she said. “Sometimes kids have to be placed out of the county; there is just a lack of available foster parents throughout the state.”
Henson said she would like the Hollister Clinic to offer more services to the community.
“I’d love to have a few more clinicians,” she said. “I would love to grow our foster care resources. And if there is anything else the county would like us to partner with, I’ve got an open door.”
Gabilan Chapter Seneca was founded in 1956 as the El Torillo Chapter to support the Children’s Home Society. In 2011, it merged with Seneca under the name “Kinship Center” to help the agency provide a fuller spectrum of care, including mental health services. It changed its name to Gabilan Chapter Seneca in 2023.
Contact Seneca Central Coast at dase@senecacenter.org or call (831) 455-9965. Tickets to the 68th Annual Wine & Food Tasting fundraiser on Aug. 24 at Swank Farms are available on the Gabilan Chapter Seneca website.
We need your help. Support local, nonprofit news! BenitoLink is a nonprofit news website that reports on San Benito County. Our team is committed to this community and providing essential, accurate information to our fellow residents. It is expensive to produce local news and community support is what keeps the news flowing. Please consider supporting BenitoLink, San Benito County’s public service, nonprofit news.
The post Gabilan Chapter raises awareness—and money—for the Seneca Family of Agencies appeared first on BenitoLink.