EAST BAY AGENCY FOR CHILDREN
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Mission Statement
Mission East Bay Agency for Children improves the well-being of children, youth and families by reducing the impact of trauma and social inequities.
About This Cause
EBAC's programs fall into four major categories School-Based Behavioral Health: Thanks to East Bay Agency for Children, each year over 1,000 children in 40 Oakland, Fremont, Hayward, San Lorenzo, Newark and San Leandro public schools receive vital mental health support. Children can act out or become withdrawn as a result of emotional triggers they don’t understand and can’t control. Often these behaviors result from adverse childhood experiences such as abuse, the loss of a loved one, or the stress of living in poverty or in neighborhoods or homes impacted by violence. These resulting emotional and behavioral challenges can interfere with a child’s own socio-emotional and academic development and can be disruptive to an entire classroom. EBAC behavioral health therapists who work on-site at schools counsel children from mainstream classrooms who have been referred by their teachers, principals, parents, and themselves because they are struggling with issues such as anxiety, depression, or aggression. Through art, play, and other therapeutic tools, EBAC’s clinicians help these children develop ways to self-regulate their emotions and behaviors. These behavioral health clinicians have a therapy room on the school campus and conduct individual, group, and family therapy as needed to address the specific needs outlined in each child’s formal treatment plan. Additionally, clinicians work with teachers and administrators to create trauma-informed school environments and support a positive school climate. Intensive Behavioral Health: For some children and youth, the adversity they’ve experienced in their young lives has already had tremendous impact on their ability to function successfully in social and school settings. They are often severely withdrawn, anxious, aggressive, or disconnected. Often these behaviors result from adverse childhood experiences such as abuse, the loss of a loved one, or the stress of living in poverty or in neighborhoods or homes impacted by violence. Teens with a history of exposure to trauma often find themselves involved with the juvenile justice system. These children and youth require specialized support to aid in their recovery as they develop the tools to self-regulate and be successful in school and society. East Bay Agency for Children offers the following programs for impacted children and youth. Intensive Counseling Enriched Intensive Counseling Enriched classrooms are dual educational and therapeutic classrooms that enable children to learn techniques for self-regulating their emotions and behavior while receiving academic instruction. An EBAC behavioral health therapist works with each child to achieve goals based upon his or her individualized treatment plan. Behavioral coaches shadow the children all day long in the classroom providing real-time intervention and affirmation to support positive behavioral changes and self-regulation. EPIC (formerly Therapeutic Nursery School) EPIC is a new EBAC program replacing the Therapeutic Nursery School as our program to support families in understanding, coping and responding to preschool age children’s mental health stressors that show up as challenging or externalized behaviors. Black, Latino and other minority families disproportionately face poverty, are affected by trauma, and feel disempowered. Their preschool children experience zero tolerance policies to deal with behavioral issues, implicit bias of teachers and school administrators and often have unmet mental health needs. EPIC gives these children and their families the tools they need to thrive. EPIC’s program goals are to 1) improve children’s readiness for school and their self-regulation and social expression skills, and 2) increase families’ ability to understand and respond to their children’s needs. EPIC offers early interventions focused on decreasing externalized behaviors that impact the child’s ability to thrive in the classroom and provides family coaching and family workshops. EPIC is a 10 week, M-F daily program for a maximum of 10 Medi-Cal eligible children ages 3 to 5 who live in Alameda County. Program is held 4 times per year at 6117 Martin Luther King Jr. Way on the Oakland/Berkeley border. Youth Empowerment Services Youth Empowerment Service (YES) provides individual and family therapeutic counseling and intensive case management for youth in Oakland who seek to graduate, find employment, and achieve their life goals but who are challenged by the emotional and physical health effects of trauma caused by exposure to family and community violence, sexual abuse, neglect, poverty, racial and cultural marginalization, and institutional racism. Together with these youth, EBAC works to keep them in school, link them to employment, support the development of caring relationships with positive adults and peers, and reduce delinquency involvement. Family & Community Wellness: A strong and stable family is critical to the long-term wellness of children. East Bay Agency for Children provides several types of services that strengthen families and children, building resiliency to face future adversity and, where possible, increasing the potential of preventing exposure to trauma in the first place. Grief Support - Circle of Care is a unique program that supports children and their families coping with the death of a loved one. This program helps children heal and learn to cope with this traumatic experience through specialized Support Groups, Individual and Family Counseling, Crisis Support, Community Trainings and Outreach. Circle of Care is open to any child and his or her family. Family Resource Centers - Family Resource Centers offer convenient, inviting, and helpful places for parents to come for assistance in accessing a myriad of public benefits important to their family’s health and wellness. With multilingual and multicultural staff, EBAC-run Family Resource Centers help local families access the support services available to them so their children can thrive. Frick School Health and Wellness Center - East Bay Agency for Children operates the Frick School Health & Wellness Center in East Oakland in conjunction with Native American Health Center. The Frick School Health & Wellness Center is a community resource for convenient, high-quality physical and behavioral health services for students and families of Frick Impact Academy and the surrounding community. Services include: Medical Services, Dental Services, Health Education, Counseling, Case Management, Health Insurance Enrollment Assistance, School Nurse, and Youth Development. Afterschool programs – East Bay Agency for Children’s comprehensive afterschool programs provide academic support along with enrichment activities, such as arts & crafts, cooking, gardening and music. Often, our program provides the only alternative for children in under-resourced neighborhoods to spend the afterschool hours in a safe, supervised and enriching environment. Family engagement activities are a part of our afterschool programs and include potlucks, events and showcases as well as educational workshops for parents/guardians on topics they choose, such as nutrition, saving for college, and helping with homework. Our programs are considered “model” afterschool programs, and EBAC staff have presented at conferences and shared best practices to numerous other afterschool program providers. Trauma-Informed Collaborative: Trauma is a recognized public health crisis. In 2012 leadership from the behavioral health departments of seven Bay Area counties together envisioned the creation of a center that could build a regional trauma-informed system of care to improve the ways we understand, respond to, and heal trauma. With federal seed funding from SAMHSA, these counties and East Bay Agency for Children officially launched Trauma Transformed in October 2015. Trauma Transformed is the only regional center and clearinghouse in the Bay Area dedicated to promoting a trauma informed system of care. By providing trainings and policy guidance to systems of care professionals and organizations, Trauma Transformed is dedicated to reducing the re-traumatization of youth and families and the professionals who serve them. Trauma Transformed focuses its efforts in five key work areas: Center and Clearinghouse: Establish and maintain a physical center and digital clearinghouse to coordinate, consolidate and disseminate resources Promote Youth and Family Practice: Promote youth and family partnerships in Trauma Transformed and public systems to advance meaningful system change Care Coordination: Establish and maintain a regional model to provide coordinated services for youth and children placed out of county, and children, youth and families served by multiple systems within counties Workforce Education and Support: Develop and coordinate Trauma-Informed Systems (TIS 101) training resources for dissemination to providers, consumers, and county staff across sectors of social services, behavioral and physical health, juvenile justice, education, and early childhood Sustainable and Effective Policies and Practice: Support counties to select, implement, share, and sustain effective and meaningful trauma-informed practices and policies The story of Trauma Transformed is the story of courage, the courage to invest deeply in something that is difficult to describe and occurs very gradually through a persistent and ardous labor of love. For more information visit www.traumatransformed.org EBAC Values: Equity Humility Collaboration Innovation Effectiveness East Bay Agency for Children's EIN is 94-1358309