Newsletter

In this and future issues of the CASRA Newsletter we are both highlighting AND spotlighting the new officers and members of the CASRA Executive Committee. We start off with CASRA President Beth Johns, CPRP. Enjoy!

What is your day job?
Program Manager for Employment Services at Momentum for Health

What do you enjoy about your work?
It’s a privilege to be part of an amazing team of individuals who are dedicated to helping our clients become job seekers, then successful employees. When someone realizes that they are more than their diagnosis, that they have strengths and skills and talents, it’s a powerful thing. I remember from own experience as a mental health consumer returning to the workforce 30+ years ago, how much it meant to me to get a job. Finding meaningful employment was fundamental to my recovery--it changed my life. Being able to help others along that same journey is incredibly rewarding.

What challenges you about the work?
Employment services are such a limited resource. It needs to be an integral part of the behavioral health system of care. By helping someone return to work, to get a job with a living wage and benefits, they can move out the system. We need a robust, dedicated funding stream to ensure that everyone who needs the support can get it. 

What is one thing you would like to see CASRA accomplish over the next year?
I hope CASRA continues to move forward to help member agencies seize opportunities to expand and improve services. This includes resources for building the behavioral health workforce pipeline, ensuring the best care possible in our community settings, expanding opportunities for growth and learning. “A diagnosis is not a destiny” needs to continue to be fundamental to the work of CASRA.

Do you share your food?
I love to bake. Fancy pastries, cookies, breads. The more challenging the process, the more I enjoy it. Bringing in my weekend “work” to share with my team is something I’ve always enjoyed. I’ve really missed the bonding that comes from team potlucks. Now that we’re moving to the other side of Omicron, we can hopefully get back to that soon.

CASRA is a statewide organization of private, not-for-profit, public benefit corporations that serve clients of the California public mental health system.

Member agencies provide a variety of services that are designed to enhance the quality of life and community participation of youth, adults and older adults living with challenging mental health issues.

Read more

The California Association of Social Rehabilitation Agencies

Mailing Address:
3350 E. 7th Street, #509
Long Beach, CA 90804

Email: casra@casra.org

Phone: (562) 343-2621

To reach us: use our Contact Form

Our member agencies are continually looking for new employees or volunteers to join their workforce.

To see current openings and find out additional information about CASRA's partners, please click on the agency name.

Please note that the city listed for each organization is the headquarters location. Several CASRA member agencies serve multiple service areas and sites. Check each to learn more.

• Baker Places (PRC), San Francisco
• Bay Area Community Services, Oakland
• Bonita House, Oakland
• Buckelew Programs, Novato
• Caminar, San Mateo
• Community Action Marin, San Rafael
• Commuity Connections (Volunteers), Santa Cruz
• Community Solutions, Gilroy
• Conard House, San Francisco
• Consumers Self-Help Center, Sacramento
• Didi Hirsch CMHC, Culver City
• El Hogar, Sacramento
• Hope Cooperative (Formerly TLCS), Sacramento
• Interim, Inc., Monterey
• Mental Health Association of San Francisco, San Francisco
• Mental Wellness Center, Santa Barbara
• Momentum for Health, San Jose
• NVCCS - Iversen Center, Chico
• Pride Industries, Roseville
• Progress Foundation, San Francisco
• Project Return Peer Support Network, Huntington Park
• San Fernando Valley CMHC, Van Nuys
• Transitions - MHA, San Luis Obispo
• Turning Point Community Programs, Sacramento
• Turning Point of Central CA - Hope House, Madera
• Visions Unlimited, Sacramento
• Yolo Community Care Continuum, Woodland

A benefit of membership in CASRA is receiving 4 hours of training for your staff. For more information, please contact joe@casra.org.

Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program & Community Care Expansion

Greetings from Antoinette Carter, Chair of CASRA’s Public Policy Committee and Interim Executive Director of Consumer Self Help Center and Chad Costello, Executive Director of CASRA…

As you may be aware, California’s ’21-’22 budget contained historic investments in behavioral health including $2.1B for infrastructure and $805M targeted at ARFs and RCFEs. The Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program (BHCIP) and the Community Care Expansion Program (CCE) make funds available to counties, tribes, non-profit organizations and others to build, acquire, rehabilitate, and in limited ways, operate a wide range of infrastructure projects.

Although the two projects operate under the authority of two different departments, BHCIP under DHCS and CCE under DSS, they have partnered to create a joint RFA, which was released on January 31st. Though the initial round of funding for the BHCIP limits applicants to counties and tribes, either can partner with non-profit organizations. In addition, later rounds of BHCIP funding will allow non-profits to apply directly for funding. CCE on the other hand, is immediately available to non-profit organizations and applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis until funds are exhausted.

DHCS and CSS (or more specifically, their subcontractor, Advocates for Human Potential), held a 1.25 hour webinar on February 10th focused on the RFA that some of you may have attended (there were 1,500 people on the Zoom). Both Antoinette and I agree that the webinar is well worth your time to understand the potential of both opportunities, which can also be combined with one another in some creative ways. The additional rounds of funding mentioned above are scheduled to occur later this year, so this is a great opportunity to know what’s involved and to prepare for their release.

CASRA has been working hard behind the scenes to make sure that both funding opportunities offer the widest range of opportunities for member agencies and those we serve. Both represent once in a lifetime investments on the part of California in the public mental health system. We know you are exceptionally busy and appreciate you and your staff’s responses to the numerous requests for information that have been sent your way over the past several months. There will be more of those asks in the near future – as there is much policy to shape. The BHCIP and CCE are tangible results of years of advocacy work. We can think of no better stewards of those efforts than CASRA organizations.

BHCIP/CCA RFA Website
Webinar PowerPoint

Why millions on Medicaid are at risk of losing coverage in the months ahead

from NPR
Rachana Pradhan, February 14, 2022

The Biden administration and state officials are bracing for a great unwinding: millions of people losing their Medicaid benefits when the pandemic health emergency ends. Some might sign up for different insurance. Many others are bound to get lost in the transition.

State Medicaid agencies for months have been preparing for the end of a federal mandate that anyone enrolled in Medicaid cannot lose coverage during the pandemic. Read More

We should stop blaming stigma for our shortcomings in Black mental health access

from Fortune
By Jessica Jackson, February 16, 2022 

My mother worked for the U.S. Postal Service when she was pregnant with me. She sued for racial and gender discrimination after her requests for light duty were denied.

For years, as the case went back and forth on appeal before ultimately being overturned, my mother suffered in silence, as she went head to head with the federal government. I was in the third or fourth grade when she finally lost her case, but she never spoke about it and I didn’t learn many of the details until I was in graduate school. Read More

Put Psyche Back Into Psychiatry and Add Psychological Intimacy

from Mad in America
Lynne Stewart, February 4, 2022

At age eighteen, in the summer of 1962, after the last of a series of four minor traffic accidents as a passenger, my mind, not my body, shattered. When the slow-moving pickup truck rear-ended my father’s Plymouth at a stop sign, I dropped to the floor of the back seat of his car curled up into a fetal position, rocking back and forth, fearfully chanting, “make it go away… make it go away… make it go away.”

Growing up in my family home, I was both witness to, and the subject of, raging anger, physical assault, and sexual abuse. Contrasted with that was smother-love and religious teachings. In addition, I experienced emotional neglect, abandonment and hypocrisy. However, the family presented well in public. Read More

If you or someone you know is considering suicide or self-harm, there are resources available to provide free and confidential support. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or Teen Line at 1-800-TLC-TEEN or The Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 for LGBTQ young people.

Save the Dates!

You win a few, you lose a few. Some get rained out. But you got to dress for all of them.

Satchel Paige