Seneca’s Wraparound program: Unconditional Care in action
What is Unconditional Care? Annalise Oatman, a Care Coordinator with Seneca explains, “if any child or youth becomes a Seneca kid, there is absolutely nothing in the world they could ever do or say that would make us abandon, reject or give up on them.”
Seneca Family of Agencies is a nonprofit mental health agency dedicated to providing Unconditional Care to children and families throughout California and Washington. Seneca’s Wraparound program provides family centered, individualized, and culturally relevant services to youth who are struggling with significant mental health and behavioral needs, while also working to expand their support system.
Annalise shares an example of a youth, Ryan, who came to Seneca after three years of being admitted to and then discharged from residential treatment programs all over the country. Ryan was engaging in physical altercations so frequently that he was eventually deemed to be ‘unsustainable.’ Annalise recalls the summer of 2016, when Ryan moved back home with his adoptive parents: “When I met the family, they were having such a difficult time with him back in the home that they were in a desperate, minute-by-minute state of barely hanging in there. If things did not work out for him at home, the outlook for him was pretty grim. It was nearly impossible to find a school in the community that would enroll him as a student. While speaking to one principal on the phone, he actually laughed audibly at my mention of the youth’s name and responded, ‘That kid is notorious. There is no way in hell we will enroll him as a student.’”
A little over a year later, the family is in a completely different place. Annalise shares, “Ryan achieved an unprecedented level of stability, thanks to the safety, unconditional love, and belonging that his parents and extended support network have been able to provide. He has been accepted into a youth leadership program that provides opportunities for him to intern at various tech companies in the city (a long-standing talent and interest of his), and he showed up for the interview 30 minutes early, wearing a suit! Ryan continues to attend this program on a weekly basis and, more importantly, he has found successful ways of seeking connection and emotional support from his caregivers that are adaptive and effective — and the whole household feels the difference.”
Ryan’s story is one of many successful outcomes resulting from Seneca’s Wraparound programs. The young people that come to Seneca often have life stories that are riddled with trauma, rejection and abandonment. Annalise notes, “it is precisely because they have had those adverse experiences that, often, they believe that is who they are. Unconditional Care provides a healing response to youth and children who have had this experience.”
Wraparound is just one of many programs that Seneca offers to San Francisco youth and families. Others include short-term intensive stabilization, behavior-based interventions, juvenile justice, therapeutic family visitation, crisis support, and permanency services.
What differentiates Seneca from other mental health providers? For Amy Huson, a Seneca foster parent, it’s the people who make it a remarkable organization. “Everyone I have met from Seneca is genuinely kind and caring, and they all clearly share a common mission. While becoming a foster parent, I worked with five different social services nonprofits contracted by the San Francisco Human Services Agency. Seneca stands out as a truly caring organization to a new foster parent; they keep the voice and concern of the child in mind at all times.”
Amy Huson was introduced to Seneca’s Wraparound program when she unexpectedly became an emergency foster parent last March. Her daughter
asked her to help a friend whose foster parent placement had just fallen through. With Seneca’s support, Amy empowered this young man, now her foster son, to finish high school and access AB-12, a program that helps former foster kids make the transition to adulthood.
Amy shares how Seneca turned this unexpected life change into a success: “The Seneca team met our families (both mine and his biological) at home and met our foster son at his school. They provided our foster son with a continuity of care and concern during this sudden change and move to our house. They provided me with perspective and honest, caring assessments while the social worker focused on all the legal paperwork to get him officially placed with us and approved by the court.”
For over three decades, Seneca has been delivering Unconditional Care throughout education, communitybased, and permanency services. In the Bay Area alone, Seneca provides support to thousands of children, youths, and families each year. On any given day in 2016, Seneca’s San Francisco programs served more than 450 families. 83 percent of the youth in these families are progressing toward fully meeting their treatment goals.
It is superb staff like Annalise who embody Seneca’s values and empower families, like Amy’s, to flourish and thrive through unforeseen and often challenging circumstances.
With ever-changing community needs, Seneca continues to provide innovative, strengths-based solutions to families. This agency’s impact is evidenced by recent awards including the 2017 James Irvine Leadership Award, the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities Commitments Award, and three years in a row as a Bay Area Top Workplace.