Welcome to the CASRA Newsletter

In this issue:

-Register Now for the 2025 CASRA Fall Gathering!

-When workers' lives are more fulfilling outside of work, employers benefit as well

-California and young mens' mental health

-Alameda County finally adopts plan to address homelessness after several years

-Community, Ethics, and Healing after Hurricane Helene

-The CASRA Learning Library is now open!

Enjoy!

If you have news you would like to share or a colleague you would like to spotlight because of the great work they do or just because they are a great person or both, let us know by contacting joe@casra.org.

We are excited to announce that the CASRA Learning Library is now operational!

The Learning Library and its contents are free to CASRA member organizations and their staff. The Library is located in the Member Portal on the CASRA website here. More detailed instructions on how to access and use the Library can also be found on the CASRA website when logged on the Portal.

Our hope is that the Library's offerings will provide learning opportunities that will serve as part of CASRA agencies' onboarding processes for new staff, as well as be a resource of Recovery oriented values and practices for all staff. 

Access to the Learning Library is currently limited to CASRA member agencies and their staff. We hope to expand availability in the future.

For questions and more information contact Joe Ruiz - joe@casra.org.

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.

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

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

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

REGISTER NOW!

For More Information and to Register, Click Here

When Workers’ Lives Outside Work Are More Fulfilling, It Benefits Employers Too

From theconversation.com
By Louis Tay, August 15, 2025

Many employers are demanding more from workers these days, pushing them to log as many hours as possible.

Google, for example, told all its employees that they should expect to spend 60 or more hours in the office every week. Some tech companies are demanding 12-hour days, six days a weekfrom their new hires.

More job applicants in health care, engineering and consulting have been told to expect long hours than previously demanded due to a weak job market.

On the other hand, companies such as Cisco, Booz Allen Hamilton and Intuit have earned a reputation of supporting a strong work-life balance, according to Glassdoor employee ratings. Read More

What California Still Doesn’t Understand About Young Men’s Mental Health

In California, Youth and Young Adults Make up 21% of the Population but Account for 57% of All Emergency Room Visits Due to Self-Harm. When We Offer Real Space To Feel, Boys Start To Breathe When They Realize Emotions Are Not Liabilities but Signals.

From mindsitenews.org
By Ayo Banjo, July 28, 2025

Every summer, a few headlines remind us about Mental Health Awareness Month. And then, just as quickly, we move on.

But the truth doesn’t go away. For people whose lives have been impacted by it, neither does the grief.

I’m a 26-year-old Black man and a project director of a youth-led mental health initiative in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. I’ve been doing this work for years. But I started living this work when I was 12, the year I lost a sibling to suicide.

I didn’t have the language for it then — only the silence that followed. Read More

Community, Ethics, and Healing Amidst the Great Unraveling

From madinamerica.com
By Kristopher Drummond, August 15, 2025

The hurricane changed me more than I realized. Returning from evacuation three days after Hurricane Helene tore through Western North Carolina, I’ll never forget the silence, the emptiness, the shock. Crumbling roads, cars wrapped around electric poles, entire buildings simply gone, only cement foundations remaining; during that first week, people wandered down roads to homes rendered inaccessible by vehicles, handing out water bottles and food, all of us asking each other, sincerely, “Are… are you alright? Do you need anything?”

Stories of the missing, families swept off their roofs, mountainsides covering entire communities circulated daily as we tried to make sense of what it means to live as the people on the news.

From where I sit, nearly a year out, it feels more like a dream. Life has returned to a kind of normal—roads are repaired, businesses and traffic and all the rest of the machine buzzes along, almost like it was. But the fragility of our human condition is plainly visible now—the plethora of campers where homes once stood, two-story piles of debris being processed by tractors and woodchippers in fields along the highway; caved in roofs, slate grey foundations, sink holes, and the remade geographies of rivers that seemed so certain. 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 988 or the Teen Line at 1-800-TLC-TEEN or The Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 for LGBTQ young people.

For more information and to register, CLICK HERE

For more information and to register, CLICK HERE

“The biggest gift you can give is to be absolutely present, and when you’re worrying about whether you’re hopeful or hopeless or pessimistic or optimistic, who cares? The main thing is that you’re showing up, that you’re here and that you’re finding ever more capacity to love this world because it will not be healed without that. That was what is going to unleash our intelligence and our ingenuity and our solidarity for the healing of our world.”

Joanna Macy