Getting organized to bridge community service gaps

The social service organizations in the northwest part of the county gathered to form a Community Service Area, dubbed CSA, to identify gaps in core services and to form a partnership to bridge them.

Representatives from each group attended a week long conference at the Pacifica Community Center a couple weeks ago to address those needs. Reporting out on the last day, many said they wanted to improve service coordination and speed up the time clients have to wait to receive services.

Anita Rees, director of the Pacifica Resource Center, Marie Ciepiela, director of the Pacifica Youth Service Bureau, Sgt. Duane Wachtelborn of the Pacifica police department, Paul Chang, executive director of Pyramid Alternatives, and Kimberly Gillette, program director of the Daly City Youth Health Center, represented Pacifica and Pacifica students in the week-long conference.

....  Of the 24 speakers, several identified working to dispel the stigma about receiving mental health services as a top priority.  .... "We need to collectively remove the barriers we've created to access our services. We need to appreciate the attention to stigma. This is about system transformation," he said. Read more. 

Note:  photograph from  Bridging the gap, me.

Posted by Kathy Meeh