Welcome to the CASRA Newsletter

In this issue:

-A new photo gallery on the CASRA website

-Supporting systems to help people to get jobs

-Programs that support people leaving jail and prison are a lifeline

-When symptoms become stories

-Neighbors as the key to solving loneliness

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.

A new feature has been added to the CASRA website for your viewing plasure. A Photo Gallery now resides on the EVENTS page and currently consists of albums of the 2024 Spring and the 2025 Fall CASRA Gatherings. We plan on adding more albums in the future.

If you have photos of your agency's events you would like to share with other CASRA members, contact joe@casra.org.

To view the current albums in the Photo Gallery, CLICK HERE.

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 facilitates a number of support groups for people working at CASRA member agencies. The support groups provide people working in similar roles opportunities to share experiences, information, and challenges. They meet monthly for approximantely one hour. for more information contact the person listed for each group.

Social Rehabilitation Facilities (SRF)
Meets: First Tuesday of the month at 1 PM

Human Resources
Meets: First Thursday of the month at 11 AM

EmploymentVocational Rehabilitation Services
Meets: First Thursday of the month at 3 PM

For information regarding any of the above groups contact:
Chad Costello, chad@casra.org

Wellness Services (Well Talk)
The Wellness Services support group is now online. For more info contact Joe Ruiz, joe@casra.org

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

Complexities and Collaboration: Supporting the Systems to Help People to Get Jobs

From cpr.bu.edu
By Virginia Selleck, PhD, October 16, 2025

“If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either being made.”

~Otto Von Bismark (maybe)

If you are reading this paper, you are likely to be well versed about how important employment can be to good health. Also, you are perhaps aware of the Evidence Based Practice of Individual Placement and Support, Supported Employment, and other supports and services that help people with mental health conditions get and keep jobs. Plenty of research has demonstrated the effectiveness of these practices.

There is considerable evidence that large percentages of people who have experienced mental illness want to work. Regrettably, there is also data from the National Research Institute Uniform Reporting System showing that a mere 22-24% percent of people in the public mental health system are actually employed. (research supporting these assertions can be found Here.

The purpose of this piece is to take a look at potential advocacy activities to help overcome the frustrating barriers that can impede both the staff helpers and their administrators from providing evidence-based services leading to better employment outcomes. Clarity about what goes into the bureaucratic “sausage” may offer paths for advocacy, both at the local program level and at the state departments level. Read More

For People Leaving Jail and Prison in California, Programs to Support Their Reentry Into Life Outside Are a Lifeline

From mindsitenews.org
By Laurie Udesky, October 24, 2025

Incarcerated people, especially those with mental illness or addiction issues, benefit from reentry programs, which offer housing, job training, substance use treatment and other crucial support.

When 30-year-old Guillermo was in the county jail for nine months in San Diego County in 2024 for violating probation, he was coping with withdrawal from the heroin and methamphetamines he used to help ease the pain of a trail of losses.

The young laborer had never gotten over the deaths of his mother and aunt, killed in a car crash when he was 3 years old. He was also mourning the more recent deaths of his father and stepmom, and being in jail had pushed him to the brink.

“I was very stressed and having these anxiety attacks,” said Guillermo in a Zoom interview. Like other formerly incarcerated people interviewed for this story, he is identified only by his first name to protect his privacy. Read More

The Unspoken Lexicon of Healing: When My Symptoms Became Stories

From madinamerica.com
By Deborah Omontese, MA, MS, October 24, 2025

The first time I told a doctor about the weight on my chest, she didn’t ask if it felt like wet sandbags or a sleeping child or the ghost of every goodbye I’d ever swallowed. She typed two words: “Anxiety,” “Xanax.”

The therapist asked if I had considered medication for the anxiety. I wanted to say, “No, I was struggling with transitions, I am grappling with the silence where my language used to be.”

When I first moved away from home, I didn’t cry, not in the way people expected. My sadness didn’t come in “panic attacks or depressive episodes.” It came when standing in the grocery aisle, staring at spices I didn’t know how to use. In the way my hands would hover over the phone at 3am, aching to call someone who was already asleep seven time zones away. My laughter felt like wearing shoes two sizes too big. We don’t have a word for this in English, but other languages do. In Welsh Gaelic, Hiraeth: it’s homesickness for a home you cannot return to. In Romanian it’s Dor, the pain of wanting something so deeply it feels like a knife turning in your chest. Toska (in Russian) is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for. Éadromchroíoch (Irish Gaelic) is, literally, “light-hearted,” the bittersweet joy of remembering what you’ve left. Read More

Are Neighbors the Key To Solving the Loneliness Epidemic?

From sfchronicle.com
By Catherine Ho, October 19, 2025

For an hour on Thursday afternoon, inside the spacious St. John of God Church in San Francisco’s Inner Sunset District, Georgia Seibert and about 30 other older adults — mostly from the neighborhood — did tai chi, arm circles and stepping to the beat of the music in unison as part of a group exercise class.

Afterward, Seibert and a dozen others sat in groups of three to get to know each other, picking questions out of a hat as an icebreaker. Seibert’s group drew, “Share something about yourself people might be surprised to know.”

Seibert, 84, shared that she was a ballet dancer in Beverly Hills when she was 18.

The event was part of the “Meet Six Neighbors” initiative, led by a statewide program called Neighbor-to-Neighbor, which began during the COVID pandemic to help Californians tackle social isolation and strengthen community bonds. This fall, the state partnered with the city of San Francisco to launch the Meet Six Neighbors campaign locally, challenging residents to forge social connections with six people who live nearby. 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.

Project Return Peer Support Network (PRPSN) Earns WRAP Center of Distinction Certification

CASRA member agency Project Return Peer Support Network (PRPSN) is now a licensed WRAP Provider and affiliate of Advocates for Human Potential and has been officially recognized as a WRAP Center of Distinction.

This prestigious designation highlights PRPSN’s commitment to excellence in delivering Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) Seminars and supporting recovery-oriented practices. PRPSN's Training Institute is now a leading provider of WRAP Seminars across the West Coast, helping individuals and organizations build wellness tools that foster hope, personal responsibility, and empowerment.

For more information or to schedule a WRAP Seminar, please contact PRPSN's Training Coordinator, Gustavo Limas at glimas@prpsn.org.

We want to hear what you need to be successful in your community's Behavioral Health Services Act Community Planning Process!

The Commission seeks your input on our efforts to build a toolkit to help community members and organizations participate in the Behavioral Health Services Act Community Planning Process with their county behavioral health departments. Bring your questions, behavioral health needs, and ideas for this toolkit to a listening session and help us determine what should be included.

The listening session will take place virtually via Zoom on November 13 from 10 a.m to 11 a.m. Please register in advance using the linked button below.

In recognition of Veteran's Day

Take a veteran to lunch

Or

Simply say to them,

“Welcome Home”