About Us
About Us
Seneca Family of Agencies (formerly Seneca Center) was founded in 1985 as a small Bay Area residential and day treatment program with a simple but powerful mission: to help children and families through the most difficult times of their lives. Since then, Seneca has expanded to provide a broad continuum of permanency, mental health, education, and juvenile justice services, which today reach over 18,000 youth and families throughout California and Washington State each year.
The agency’s growth has been guided by a commitment to our Unconditional Care® model – doing whatever it takes to help children and families thrive, even when faced with tremendous challenges.
Topics
Mission & Values
Seneca’s mission is to help children and families through the most difficult times of their lives. We are driven by the fundamental belief that children and families do not themselves fail, but rather are failed by systems unable to meet their complex needs. Guided by our core agency values of love and compassion, hope and courage, respect, curiosity, joy, equity and justice Seneca refuses to fail the young people and families we serve. We offer each child and family a profound promise: you will be supported every step of your journey, no matter what challenges you face along the way.
Service Philosophy
Across all our programs and services, Seneca is guided by our agency philosophy and clinical treatment model of Unconditional Care®. As a service philosophy, unconditional care is a commitment to do whatever it takes to support the young people and families we serve. As a clinical practice model, Unconditional Care integrates three streams of assessment and intervention: relational, behavioral, and ecological. This philosophy and approach has remained central to all programs and is best articulated in our book, Unconditional Care. As a leading innovator in family-focused treatment services for children and families across the fields of education, mental health, permanency and juvenile justice, Seneca is driven by our commitment to Unconditional Care, strengths-based service planning, individualized and trauma-informed care, cultural humility, and interagency collaboration.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Many of the children and families who access our services are disproportionately impacted by systemic and institutionalized oppression, racism, and discrimination. To best serve our clients and families and provide the most effective and supportive services possible, all aspects of every family’s cultural identity must be engaged and used to inform treatment, and must be a focus of Seneca’s overall agency values. This work begins with the recruitment and retention of a diverse workforce that reflects the racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic traditions of the children and families supported within our programs. In addition, Seneca is committed to supporting historically underrepresented communities and informing agency policies and practices through its agency-wide DEI Initiative and DEI Advisory Board. Our agency’s values of love and compassion, hope and courage, respect, curiosity, joy, equity and justice anchor our work across all programs, ensuring our staff leverage the cultural strengths of the families and communities we serve. Seneca is committed to fostering an agency culture that is welcoming, cooperative, and inclusive of diverse peoples and worldviews.
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Boards
Bay Area Leadership Board: Jamie Church; Zach Cohen; Jenny Drew; Alex Kaplan; Dwayne Redmon; Hong Thach
Central Coast Leadership Board: Nicki Pasculli; Jeff Davi; Susan Guidotti; Lisa McMahon; Kathy Tiffany; Hiram Yanez; Zoe Carter; CeCe McCoy; Golnesa Payandehjoo; Peter Fernandez
Orange County Leadership Board: Tom Rogers; Geoffrey Le Plastrier; Susan Le Plastrier; Vickie DeArmey; Nichole Cooper; Beth Cieminis; Emily Civita; Payal Lohia
Leadership
Executive Leadership
- Leticia Galyean, Chief Executive Officer
- Ken Berrick, Founder, and CEO Emeritus
- Emily Allison, Chief Strategy Officer
- Robin Detterman, Chief Program Officer of Education Services
- Melissa Lawton, Chief Program Officer
- Scott Osborn, Chief Operating Officer
- Kimberly Wayne, Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer
Executive Directors
- Amber Fretwell, Executive Director of School Partnerships
- Dawn Henson, Regional Executive Director, Central Coast
- Erica Kellenbach, Interim Regional Executive Director, Alameda and San Francisco County
- Jessica Donohue, Executive Director, Contra Costa & Solano County
- Kate Walker, Regional Executive Director, Washington Programs
- Lily Ciancutti, Executive Director, Crisis Services & Ventura County
- Lauren Crutsinger, Regional Executive Director, North Bay Programs
- Matt Cammann, Regional Executive Director, Santa Clara County
- Melissa Padayachee, Regional Executive Director, Orange County
- Shelby Howard, Executive Director, Resource Family Programs
- Sama Hromnik, Executive Director of Non-Public Schools
- Toshia Cooper, Executive Director of School Partnerships
Service Locations
Seneca’s range of child welfare, mental health, juvenile justice, and education services annually reach more than 18,000 youth and their families in over 150 distinct programs throughout California and Washington. The agency’s programs span four key geographic regions: Northern California, the Central Coast, Southern California, and Washington state, with local administrative office hubs within each region.
Service Types
Seneca’s continuum of care includes mental health, education, permanency, and juvenile justice programs designed to meet the holistic needs of children and families. Over the years, Seneca has used the lessons we have learned supporting youth facing profound challenges to reshape systems and build programs that can both reach young people at the first sign of struggle and unconditionally serve youth with the most acute and extraordinary needs. Services are designed to be highly accessible and responsive to the needs and goals of each youth and family, reaching them in their homes, schools, and communities.
