In This Issue
Highlights and Spotlights
Welcome to this issue of the CASRA Newsletter.
In this edition we take a look at the implementation of 988, research on the cause of homelessness, and talking to the Wall.
As Major League Baseball played its All Star game this week, it honored the 75th anniversary of Jackie Robinson integrating the game. We feel it is fitting to spotlight someone very close to Jackie, his wife Rachel who celebrated her 100th birthday on Tuesday. We hope you enjoy her story.
Play Ball! Who We Are
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 Contact Us
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 Member Agency Employment Opportunities and Information
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 Member Agencies, please click below.
 CASRA Agency Trainings
A benefit of membership in CASRA is receiving 4 hours of training for your staff. For more information, please contact joe@casra.org. | Advocacy/Policy/News
For crisis response, press 988 — and pass a bill to keep it funded
From LATimes
By LA Times Editorial Board, July 15, 2022
In the future, there will be a number to call for help, much like 911, yet different. It will be like a suicide crisis line, but better. On the other end of the line will be trained and experienced counselors adept at assisting people in the midst of mental health crises. They will be able to field questions and offer resources to families and friends concerned for the well-being of their loved ones. Their real-time, over-the-phone emergency counseling skills will be enhanced by a kind of superpower: They will be able to dispatch mental health clinicians, instead of police officers with guns or paramedics with trauma equipment. Read More
Cause of homelessness? It’s not drugs or mental illness, researchers say
Lack of affordable housing is key factor, according to study of nation’s major areas
From The San Diego Union-Tribune
By Gary Warth, July 11, 2022
Ask just about anyone for their thoughts on what causes homelessness, and you will likely hear drug addiction, mental illness, alcoholism and poverty.
A pair of researchers, however, looked at those issues across the country and found they occur everywhere. What does vary greatly around the country, they found, was the availability of affordable housing. Read More
The Power of Talking to Yourself
“External self-talk,” as it’s clinically known, gets a bad rap. But it can be great for pushing through all sorts of obstacles.
From NY Times Magazine
By Paul Mcadory, July 12, 2022
Trembling in bed at night, my blankets pulled tight over my head save for an opening I left my face, I would whisper my troubles to my closest confidant: Wall. Wall was the wall nearest my childhood bed and, other than the occasional stray bang or muffled skittering, a nonverbal communicator. That didn’t stop me from hearing and heeding his counsel. Nor did his cheap facade — brownish faux-wood paneling littered with stickers — temper my belief in his tender depths. Wall was a boy like me, but calmer, cooler, more reflective. He listened to me, debated me, grasped the ends of sentences I didn’t finish. Off him I could bounce ideas as well as balls until sleep finally conquered fright. Read More
This Jackie Robinson Day, let’s celebrate Rachel Robinson, too
The pathbreaking life that most Americans don’t know about
From Washington Post
By Seth S. Tannenbaum, April 15, 2022
Friday marks the 75th anniversary of Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson integrating modern Major League Baseball. This year, MLB is going all out for its first full-capacity Jackie Robinson Day since 2019 and prominently featured Robinson’s 99-year-old widow, Rachel, in its news releases about the event. Rachel Robinson, however, has always been more than just Jackie Robinson’s wife.
During his playing career, Rachel was his sounding board and partner, even as she fulfilled the stereotypical mid-century American woman’s roles that the public — and her husband — expected her to play. Later, Rachel excelled in multiple pathbreaking careers. She fought for civil rights, was a pioneering psychiatric nurse and professor of nursing at Yale University and, since her husband’s death, has protected, shaped and defended Jackie’s role in American history. For all those reasons, Rachel Robinson — a woman referred to as the “Queen Mother” by Hall of Fame second baseman Joe Morgan — deserves to be honored, recognized and celebrated in her own right. Read More
Training/Learning Opportunities
Coming Soon
for CASRA Member Agencies
Starting in the Fall, CASRA will be presenting a series of workshops that are designed to further the mission of improving services and social conditions for people with psychiattric disbilities by promoting their recovery, rehabilitation and rights.
The monthly learning opportunties will introduce new new staff, refresh existing staff, and remind all staff of the values, principles and practices of Recovery and Psychosocial Rehabilitation.
More information and registration information to follow.
If you are a CASRA member agency and would like to advertise your learning opportunity, training or event for the benefit of other CASRA member agencies, please contact us at events@casra.org.
There are a few guidelines:
You are a CASRA Member Agency
Your event is free of charge
and, as a reminder the Newsletter is published on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of the month Final Thoughts
"Home was our place away from the world, and it was central. We made a point not to talk about every negative encounter that happened. That would have been too much. We treated our home like a haven and when you come into a haven you don't want to bring in painful things. You want to cherish it. You use the haven to get yourself ready for the next day."
Rachel Robinson |
