FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Santa Barbara County, CA, February 28, 2022 – People’s Self-Help Housing (PSHH) has received $15,000 from the Cottage Health Foundation’s 2022 Network of Care Grant Program. These funds will be used to enhance onsite behavioral health programming and increase access to community resources at PSHH sites to mitigate and buffer Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) throughout Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo County.
Camino Scholars, the PSHH property-based education program, will be collaborating with local mental health clinics and providing a series of free, live community workshops. Presented by bilingual licensed clinical social workers and child therapists, the workshops are designed to equip children and caregivers with the essential tools and language surrounding ACEs. These will include effective strategies for regulating stress responses, and enhancing behavioral health equity for under-resourced and vulnerable populations.
These community workshops will be presented virtually, and will be available in English and Spanish. Sessions will coach families on ACEs-aware strategies, coping techniques, and the mental health lexicon needed to support children through behavioral health challenges. With the aim of building competency in, and normalize conversations surrounding mental health, it will also build emotional and family resiliency.
“Now more than ever, the need for mental and behavioral health services for children and youth needs to be a top priority in the education world,” said Joanna Dominguez, Director of Education. “We are very excited to be able to provide these much-needed resources, behavioral health partnerships, parent workshops and staff trainings in support of our students. To ensure academic success, we must focus on the whole child and make this a top priority in our classrooms especially after everything our students have lived through as a result of the pandemic.”
Training outcomes will be incorporated into the after-school curriculum of Camino Scholars with new lessons on ACEs-aware frameworks, mindfulness practice, and creative therapies to prevent, treat, and heal trauma-induced stress. Over 400 students participate in Camino Scholars per year at eleven onsite learning centers where they receive immersive tutoring, and individualized learning plans. The program also helps prepare college-bound students with application assistance, financial aid navigation, career exploration workshops, campus visits, and mentorship.
Cottage Health’s Network of Care Grant Program is aimed at funding community organizations that provide services to address toxic stress in children and youth. Funding for the grant program is made possible through a grant received by Cottage Health from the state’s ACEs Aware initiative, which is aimed at providing training, clinical protocols, and payment to service providers for screening children and adults for ACEs. First launched in August 2021 with over $340,000 dispersed, PSHH was awarded this grant as part of the second round of funding in February 2022.
To learn more about People’s Self-Help Housing or Camino Scholars, visit pshhc.org.
About People’s Self-Help Housing (PSHH)
With nearly 1,000 units of new housing in its pipeline and founded in 1970, PSHH is the longest-serving nonprofit affordable housing organization on the Central Coast. Our mission of building homes and providing services to strengthen communities and change lives, sees us serving low-income households, families, farmworkers, seniors, and veterans. We also provide welcoming environments for those living with disabilities, youth transitioning out of foster care, and the formerly homeless. Homeownership opportunities through a self-help, “sweat-equity” program have created over 1,200 homes and with a presence in San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Monterey counties, PSHH manages over 2,000 rental units, and employs over 200 members of staff. PSHH acknowledges the indigenous people of the territories that our organization occupies, including the Chumash, Salinan, Yokuts, Kitanemuk, and Tataviam people. To read the full land acknowledgement, visit pshhc.org/IDEA. For more information about the organization, visit pshhc.org, email info@pshhc.org or phone (805) 781-3088
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Media Contact: communications@pshhc.org, (805) 548-2340
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