Seneca Family of Agencies and Monterey County Celebrate Start of Construction of New Behavioral Health Center in Salinas

Expanding Behavioral Health Services Reach in Monterey County

Salinas, California, August 26, 2024 — In partnership with Monterey County Behavioral Health, Seneca Family of Agencies is proud to announce the start of construction on a new behavioral health center that will provide vital services for Monterey County children and youth experiencing acute mental health crises. Located in Salinas, Calif, this new facility on River Road will house a four-bed Crisis Stabilization Unit (CSU) and four-bed Children’s Crisis Residential Program (CCRP) that will serve children and youth ages 6 to 17 who do not require inpatient treatment but would benefit from ongoing behavioral health stabilization and therapeutic support. These programs are critically needed in the Central Coast region and will be the first of their kind in the county for Medi-Cal members. The creation of the CSU and CCRP programs will allow Monterey County youth in crisis to receive the critical stabilization and long-term wellness services they deserve within their own community. 

“We are thrilled to expand our services in Monterey County with the construction of this new behavioral health center,” said Dawn Henson, Regional Executive Director for the Central Coast at Seneca Family of Agencies. “This facility will provide a safe and nurturing environment for children and youth in crisis, offering them the essential stabilization and therapeutic support they need within their own community. Our partnership with Monterey County Behavioral Health, Child and Youth division is a testament to our shared commitment to providing comprehensive, trauma-informed care that meets the unique needs of every child and family we serve.” 

Nestled in the hillside of a quiet agricultural community, the River Road facility will be developed to offer a home-like setting for children and youth in crisis, while also incorporating state-of-the-art therapeutic and medical features to ensure safety and healing support. Unlike traditional locked inpatient settings, such as hospital psychiatric units or psychiatric health facilities, the less restrictive treatment setting allows for flexible services that meet the individual needs of each youth in crisis. 

“It has been a long-time goal of Behavioral Health to create a facility locally so that the children and youth in need of critical mental health support and stabilization can stay here, in their home community, with the support of their family and caring professionals,” shared Dr. Marni R. Sandoval, Deputy Director of Behavioral Health for County of Monterey Health Department. “Our partnership with Seneca Family of Agencies has allowed this goal to become a reality. Together we will open the doors to a center focused on trauma-informed compassionate care for children, youth, and families right here in Monterey County.”

Seneca and County of Monterey Partnership

The development of the River Road facility is the result of a decades-long partnership between Monterey County and Seneca Family of Agencies. For over 40 years, Seneca has provided trauma-informed, family-centered services to Monterey County children, youth, and families. Upon completion of the River Road facility, the CSU and CCRP will join Seneca’s broad continuum of local services funded through the county partnership, which currently includes wraparound services, outpatient behavioral health therapy, foster care and adoption services, and mobile crisis support services. 

Funding Sources

This project involves the partial renovation of Seneca’s existing 27,500 square foot building, converting approximately 6,000 square feet of existing office and counseling spaces into the CSU and CCRP facility. This exceptional opportunity was made possible through combined grant funding of $5.5 million from the California Health Facilities Financing Authority (CHFFA) awarded to Monterey County Behavioral Health, a Children’s Crisis Continuum Pilot Program (CCCPP) awarded to Monterey County Behavioral Health, and federal funding administered through California’s Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program (BHCIP) awarded to Seneca Family of Agencies. 

The Investment in Mental Health Wellness Grant Program for Children and Youth was created in 2016 under the expansion of the Investment in Mental Health Wellness Act by Senate Bill 833. This authorized the California Health Facilities Financing Authority (CHFFA) to support the development of an array of crisis services for children and youth, with a specific focus on capital improvement and expansion. In demonstration to the commitment to developing this much-needed facility, Monterey County Behavioral Health applied for and was awarded CHFFA funding, allowing for braided funding to maximize this historic opportunity.  

The County was additionally selected as one of eight counties and regional collaboratives to receive a Children’s Crisis Continuum Pilot Program (CCCPP) grant from the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) in partnership with the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS); funds from this award will also be supporting the development and operation of the River Road facility. 

Through 2021 legislation, the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) was authorized to form the Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program (BHCIP), with an available $2.2B dollars in funds, to construct, acquire, and rehabilitate real estate assets or to invest in needed mobile crisis infrastructure to expand the community continuum of behavioral health treatment resources.¹ This unprecedented opportunity (a total of four grants were awarded to Seneca program sites) created a pathway for Seneca to renovate its existing River Road site and develop programs that address critical gaps in care for Monterey County children and families.

River Road programming is anticipated to begin in early Spring 2025.  

About Seneca Family of Agencies

Seneca Family of Agencies was founded in 1985 as a small Bay Area residential and day treatment program with a mission to help children and families through the most difficult times of their lives. Today, Seneca provides a broad continuum of permanency, mental health, education, and juvenile justice services, reaching over 22,000 youth and families throughout California and Washington State each year. Guided by the Unconditional Care® model, Seneca remains committed to doing whatever it takes to help children and families thrive.  

Seneca Family of Agencies Awarded a $4 Million Federal Grant to Implement a Family-Focused, Peer Support Model for Increasing Student Engagement and Achievement

Oakland, California, December 15, 2023 – Thanks to the award of a highly competitive Education, Innovation, and Research (EIR) grant from the U.S. Department of Education, the nonprofit Seneca Family of Agencies will lead a collaborative of schools to implement “Compass Care,” a promising new strategy for chronic absenteeism that addresses the continuing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing stressors faced by marginalized students and their families. Across the nation, schools saw high chronic absenteeism rates surge during the pandemic—with the latest figures at double the pre-pandemic rate (from 8M to 16M chronically absent students), they have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels (Attendance Works, 2022). Expected to serve over 600 5^th-12^th grade students at seven schools in California, Tennessee, and Washington, the grant and matching funds will support three years of Compass Care implementation with a dedicated, full-time peer support staff at each school.

The model recognizes that the factors impacting a student’s attendance and engagement in school are numerous and complex, ranging from the individual to the systemic level. Family factors, including poverty, homelessness, disruptions at home and within families, and unmet non-academic needs (e.g., food insecurity, transportation issues, language barriers) are particularly significant. In the Compass Care model, the peer support staff, called the “Family Partner,” leads a team of service providers and natural supports over an intensive 10-week intervention cycle. During this time, they provide engagement, comprehensive case management, and care coordination services to support families of chronically absent students to understand and address barriers to their child’s success in school. Unlike many existing strategies for addressing chronic absenteeism, the model utilizes peer-level staff with relevant lived experience, whose sole responsibility is to provide interventions that combat chronic absenteeism, which supports schools to address absenteeism without burdening already stressed systems. The model also emphasizes flexibility and intensive interventions, allowing immediate, direct support while incorporating evidence-based teaming practices that leverage natural supports to sustain progress.

The EIR funding opportunity will support the implementation of the Compass Care model in seven public middle and high schools serving underrepresented students within Valor Collegiate Academies (Nashville, Tennessee), Highline Public Schools (King County, Washington), and Alliance College-Ready Public Schools California (Los Angeles, California). The project will include oversight by an Advisory Council comprised of education and mental health leaders (Susan Stone, Ph.D., Professor, School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley; Jose Blackorby, Ph.D., Research Director, WestEd; Daren Dickson, LMFT, Chief Culture Officer, Valor Collegiate Academies; and Nancy Peña, Ph.D., Behavioral Health Consultant), input from a Youth Advisory Board consisting of youth who have participated in the Compass Care program and youth from University of California, Berkeley’s Hope Scholars program, and an independent evaluation conducted by WestEd.

About Seneca Family of Agencies

Seneca was founded in Oakland, California, in 1985 in response to an emerging crisis: children and young people with the most complex needs and unaddressed trauma were being repeatedly failed by multiple siloed public systems intended to support them. Seneca’s foundational mission to do whatever it takes to bring multiple systems together to address the needs of the whole child has driven the agency’s evolution into one of the largest West Coast-based youth-serving behavioral health nonprofits, operating programs across 18 counties in California and two in Washington State. Our programs collaborate with and actively bring together hundreds of schools, school districts, county boards of education, behavioral health departments, child welfare departments, and juvenile probation departments to offer a full spectrum of highly responsive programs that address the multi-faceted needs of children and families.

The contents of this press release were developed under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Program. However, the contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the federal government.