Welcome to the CASRA Newsletter

In this issue:

In what is now is a tradition, this December issue of the CASRA newsletter focuses on the theme of Hope.

- We start with the definition of Hope from Dr. Ragins' writings in A Road to Recovery

-Faith in oneself

-Voices of experience and hope soar in a song to prevent suicide

-Mental illness does have a silver lining

-Holding hope for ourselves and each other

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.

The  CASRA 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

Employment/Vocational 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

SPECIAL NOTICE!

Because of the New Years holiday, there will be no CASRA Newsletter on
Thursday January 1, 2026.

The next issue will be sent on
Thursday, January 15, 2026.

Happy New Year!

Hope - A Definition

From "A Road to Recovery"
Dr. Mark Ragins

During times of despair, everyone needs a sense of hope, a sense that things can and will get better. Without hope, there is nothing to look forward to and no real possibility for positive action. Hope is a great motivator, but for hope to be truly motivating, it has to be more than just an ideal. It has to take form as an actual, reasonable vision of what things could look like if they were to improve. It’s not so much that people with mental illness will attain precisely the vision they create, but that they need to have a clear image of the possibilities before they can make difficult changes and take positive steps.

A Road to Recovery

Faith in Oneself: How Adversity Made Me Anti-Fragile

From madinamerica.com
By Moira Cue, December 5, 2025

Faith in oneself, tempered by adversity, creates an anti-fragile personality.

I am living proof of that concept.

I grew up in Monona, Wisconsin, in an enriched environment of beautiful parks and swimming pools, community theater projects, and gifted and talented programs run by the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition to parks and pools, my childhood was defined by my vegan Mormon family. They were weirdly outside the mainstream, part of overlapping countercultural communities.

My mother taught that the Standard American Diet is deadly. White sugar, white flour, meat, and dairy were not allowed in our home. Dad practiced acupressure. Eventually, my mom relaxed the dietary restrictions when she discovered Sunrider, a network marketing company that sold Chinese regenerative whole food formulas. With Sunrider, our family went from “rags to riches” in a few short years.

I’m Moira (that’s “More-Ah,” with a silent i) Cue. At 49, with a solo museum show that almost happened at the incredible age of 17, a record deal that almost happened at the age of 29, and film deals that have been almost happening since my thirties, I could call myself an “almost-has-been.” Read More

Voices of Experience and Hope Soar in a Song To Prevent Suicide

From npr.org
By Rhitu Chatterjee, December 14, 2025

When Jo Lambert first found out that one of her loved ones was feeling suicidal, she felt terrified.

"I was so panicked by the grief I might experience if my loved one died that it prevented me from giving my loved one what I needed [to]," says Lambert, 54, who lives in London.

That was back in 2017. Over time, through trial and error, Lambert says, she learned she had to put her own feelings aside in the moment and focus on the person in front of her. "As soon as I detached myself from the outcome, I made this about the person in the crisis — fully. That was when I got the hang of it." Read More

Does Mental Illness Have a Silver Lining? New Paper Says Yes

From medicalexpress.com
By Lisa Marshall, University of Colorado at Boulder, September 5, 2025
Edited by Gaby Clark, Reviewed by Robert Egan

An estimated one in five U.S. adults live with mental illnesses, conditions that are almost universally characterized by their negative consequences. But there are also positive attributes associated with psychological disorders— and acknowledging them can reduce stigma, improve care and provide hope to patients and their families.

That's the case made in a new paper titled "Silver Linings in Psychological Disorders: An Agenda for Research and Social Change".

Searching for Silver Linings
In it, University of Colorado Boulder psychology professor June Gruber and co-authors at Cornell University point to dozens of studies dating back decades, which associate mental illness with heightened creativity, empathy, resilience and other positive qualities. Read More

Holding Hope for Ourselves and Each Other

Here’s How Hope Quietly Carries Us Through Tough Times

From psychologytodaty.com
By Robyne Hanley Dafoe, EDD, December 12, 2025

• Hope is a practice we cultivate, not just a feeling we wait for.
• Hope can be borrowed and shared.
• To stay steady and be of service to others, we each need our own way of staying hope-filled.
There were times in my life when I didn’t have the strength to hold hope for myself. I believe that each one of us has a tiny and tender pilot light in our soul that keeps our will to live alive. At one point, it felt as though my flame had gone out.

In my first book, Calm Within the Storm, I wrote about how my flame didn’t extinguish in a single moment. I navigated a tumultuous adolescence and tried to ask for help in all the wrong ways: addiction, self-harm, self-sabotage, broken relationships. At 16, I didn’t know how to tell the people who loved me that I was struggling. I also wanted to protect my mother from carrying the weight. To me, despair doesn’t quite capture what I was experiencing. You can feel despair. I felt nothing—complete and total numbness.

What I needed wasn’t fixing. I needed someone who could sit with me in the darkness and remind me I wasn’t alone. 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.

Learn More

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all.

Emily Dickenson