Home / NEWS & BLOGS / Fall 2020 Quarterly Newsletter – New Board, COVID Updates and Helpline Update

We are thrilled to welcome four remarkable women onto the Board of Family Paths. Each has a unique set of skills and expertise that will enhance our outstanding group of current Board members, and will make incredible contributions to help further Family Paths’ mission.

  • Dr. Dawn Sung – Child, Adolescent, and Adult Psychiatrist at Kaiser Permanente Oakland

  • Martha Winnacker – Former Public Defender for Contra Costa County in child welfare cases

  • Katy Brown – CPA and Tax Partner at Armanino LLP

  • Divya Agarwal – Marketing Strategy Lead at Google

To learn more about our entire Board and Leadership Team, click HERE.

NEW STAFF

Families in Transition Team

Angela Powell-Bulutoglu (she/her), our new FIT Program Manager, is an EMDR-trained LMFT and LPCC specializing in PTSD and LGBTQQIA-2 populations. Angela’s primary focuses are fostering cultural humility and trauma-informed work environments, believing that positive change happens when we challenge cultural scripts and lean into the discomfort that inevitably follows. In her free time, she can be found hiking on one of the many Alameda County trails that allow dogs to go off-leash with her boisterous maltipoo, Astro.

Juliana Batista is a new mental health clinician in the Families in Transition (FIT) Program at Family Paths. She received her undergraduate and master’s degrees from U.C. Berkeley. Juliana completed her clinical training at Alameda County’s Center of Healthy Schools and Communities, where she provided school-based clinical case management and therapy services to children and families. Prior to entering graduate school, Juliana worked at Hayward Unified School District as a support services coordinator connecting newly arrived immigrant students and their families to resources and services in the community. Juliana is bicultural and multilingual, and enjoys dancing, running, and traveling on her spare time.

Mariah Girouard (she/her/hers) is a recent MSW graduate from UC Berkeley and is a registered Associate Clinical Social Worker (ASW). Before joining Family Paths as a mental health clinician on the FIT team, Mariah provided individual and group counseling to high school and elementary-aged students in West Contra Costa Unified School District.

Returning Staff Members

    

Maya Hart provided services at Parental Stress Services as a graduate trainee during the 2000-2001 school year.  Upon graduation from San Francisco State, she worked in the Tenderloin with formerly homeless individuals, but returned to PSS in 2004 and worked on the hotline part time. In 2005 she became a full-time staff splitting her time between the CalWORKs program and the clinical training program.  In 2006 she joined the FIT team where she remained until becoming licensed in 2010.  After working in private practice and other Bay Area CBOs, she returned to Family Paths as a board member in 2015 and served as Vice president until 2018.  This summer she returned to Family Paths a third time in the clinical operations department and plans to stay until she retires.  She is the mother of 2 and is proud to say Family Paths is her favorite non-profit work place.

Kimbo Prichard is a licensed marriage and family therapist practicing child, adult and family therapy since 2004, and a Family Paths Alumni!! She started as a TIPS intern in 2006, and continued on as a Clinical Case Manager for the FIT team. As her family grew, Kimbo decided the flexibility of a private practice would allow more time with kids, and to expand her training and experience working with trauma. Clinical supervision became part of her practice in 2015 though community agency work, and led her back to Family Paths when the current Clinical Supervisor position became available. She is excited to return to Family Paths, a community of hard working therapists and administrators doing important work.

Rose Schweig, MFT is a bilingual, Spanish and English, speaking therapist who works in private practice with couples and adults and leads support groups at Bananas in Oakland for new mothers. She utilizes Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and the PACT approach to working with couples and individuals. She was a trainee and intern with TIPS at Family Paths from 2011-2013 and then joined the FIT team from 2013-2017. She recently began as a supervisor in the TIPS team and is happy to be back at Family Paths.


Kathy Davis is Family Paths’ new Controller. Kathy joined the Finance team in March, right before Shelter in Place took effect. She has met the challenge and led the Finance Department through securing the agency’s PPE loan, kept the Board abreast of all the changes in contracts and revenue, participated in Strategic Planning for 2020-2021, and has implemented several procedures to streamline our accounting systems. We are thrilled to have Kathy join our Leadership Team.

We are so happy to welcome our 2020-2021 clinical interns, pictured here with Program Manager Nancy Morosohk. Joining Annie Chen, who is beginning her second year with us, are Quetzal, Carly, Laura and Tia. Our interns do wonderful work each year – meeting with clients online and over the phone for therapy sessions, working shifts on our 24-Hour Parenting Stress Helpline, and assisting with our Parent Education classes. Welcome, Interns!


COVID UPDATE

   

Our internal Trauma Transformed Team meets regularly to evaluate the implementation of trauma-informed system principles. Our current focus is on the principle of Safety and Security. We know when we increase stability in our clients’ and staff members’ daily lives and we make sure core safety needs are met, we are all able to minimize our stress reactions and focus more on wellness. Our facilities team works hard in both our Oakland and Hayward offices to make sure staff is kept safe when they need to come work in the office.

Family Paths is very fortunate to have received two substantial donations of Personal Protective Equipment and vital supplies from the Taiwanese Chamber of Commerce of the San Francisco Bay Area via The City of Fremont Human Services Department and from First 5 Alameda County.

The City of Fremont’s Human Services Dept. donated 1,000 masks, which will be going to our clients who are most in need. Pictures below show the PPE being presented to our Facilities Manager Shay Black by Fremont Mayor Lily Mei, the Ambassador of Taiwan Scott Lai, and the President of the Taiwanese Chamber of Commerce Joe Chou.

First 5 Alameda County provided hundreds of masks, gloves, wipes plus diapers and toothpaste, which are vital necessities for our clients.

Thank you so much for your generosity!

   

VISIBILITY DURING COVID

Since COVID hit, Family Paths has been a sought-after resource by organizations and the media to help our community find ways to cope with their isolation, fear, frustration, disappointment, self-care and regulating our children’s emotions.

We have appeared on KPFA and KBLX radio, several panel discussions and events, including District 5 Supervisor Keith Carson’s Town Hall, Abriendo Puertas/Opening Doors webinar about how to engage families through virtual learning, Crisis Support Services of Alameda County’s Suicide Prevention Month webinars, and UCSF’s panel about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).

If you wish to have a Family Paths staff member join your online event, panel discussion or broadcast, please reach out to Executive Assistant, Angela Dant, at adant@familypaths.org.


HELPLINE UPDATE

In an effort to be more accessible and convenient to parents and caregivers in Alameda County during this stressful time, we will be offering an easy way to schedule a call back from our Parenting Stress Helpline.

Starting November 1, you can click the photo below or click through from the homepage of our website to fill out a simple form to schedule a time between 5pm and 11pm on any day that works best for you and one of our caring Parent Support Counselors will call you back. You can schedule a one time call or weekly call backs, and as always, if you need more immediate help, you can call the Parenting Stress Helpline 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 1-800-829-3777.