The clinical director of LaFamilia Counseling Center discusses their collaborative partnerships and efforts to reduce isolation and hopelessness among clients. They work closely with community partners like the Family Resource Center to offer parenting and support groups in multiple languages. They strive to empower individuals by starting from their strengths and helping them access community resources. The counseling center also provides art therapy, grief support, and employment assistance to help motivate clients and address mental health challenges.

1. Special Interview with Lynn Keune, L.M.F.T,
Clinical Director of LaFamilia Counseling Center
Interviewer: Your mission statement states that you Son said, “I don’t care”; and Dad stayed. He became honest, he had
work in collaborative partnerships. Please explain to cry, it became real. He said, “There has never been anyone to help
what type of collaborative specific to mental health? us.” It was pretty awesome to be able to [do] that; even if I only had
that one person it was great. And in conjunction with my mental
Response: Recently our collaborators have been very fo- health groups we work with the Family Resource Center here. They
cused along with the mental health services in trying to reach offer parenting groups, in Spanish and in Hmong, and different core
out to diverse cultures in the community. They asked us to groups under BFRC offer a variety of services. The center is not just
conduct a focus group for Latinos (speaking Spanish only) to exclusive to mental health; we refer our mental health [clients] to our
ask them what were their needs concerning suicide preven- whole program. We actually have a group of parents that contribute
tion, and so we hoped to do that focus group for them, and to all the various different programs. They meet as an advisory com-
then we gave that information to them because as you know mittee, and they meet monthly.
people that don’t speak the language are fearful to go to larger
groups. And so we approached them. As we said, the reason Interviewer: In what ways do you reduce isolation and
they are not [going is] because they resist large groups. We hopelessness?
have had a program in the past, and the program was to learn Response: I’ll tell you what, for 39, 40 years, however long we’ve
about what works. And we found out that if we have little
been in business, the original philosophy did not fit all cases. We
groups in the gym they will come. And it isn’t because they
found out that we need to find out from the families what they need
don’t know, they know and they want to participate because
and, most of all, go into the communities. If I take you on a tour here
they have information, but they are fearful to go to big groups,
you’re not going to see an office with a couch. We do in-home, school
thinking they won’t understand. So we have had groups with
support services; we reach out to them rather than making them
the Spanish-speaking, with Hmong-speaking. Those are the
come to us. That is what we have done the entire time we have had
two main ones but certainly when we had the Oasis Program
La Familia. We like to become allies with that family, and we provide
we had seven different capabilities of identifying these different
case management services to help them to connect with the commu-
groups that we could work with. African American was one,
nity resources. There may be a special group within the community
LGBT was one. [There were] many different ones we could
that can help them so that it will get them out of that isolation.
really focus [on] and find out from them what were their needs.
Interviewer: How do you empower individuals?
Interviewer: That sounds great. How do you help
people access their strengths and build on posi- Response: Sometimes it is hard because they sometimes have hit
tives? the end of their rope and they don’t know what to do. We always like
to start from their strengths, and so we identify what strengths they
Response: We believe in the same philosophy as the Mental have had in the past and then we start to build on those. We find that
Health Department or Behavior Health Services in providing little by little as we build on those strengths we can help them recog-
family-driven services, and family-driven services really mean nize them. That is what really works the very best.
that we need to hear the voice of the family and what is it that
they need. What is it from their perspective, not from us as
Interviewer: I read something interesting about individu-
experts; they are the experts in their family. They know what als having an opportunity to become stakeholders. How
has worked in the past and we need to help them use those does this work?
[methods], and maybe they have lost it somewhere; we can Response: The stakeholders are actually the public. They’re the
help find it again because the whole purpose is for us to get
ones who will come to our work groups when we are doing focus
fired. We are not there to step in and run their lives, so we
groups to identify what it is in the community that is needed. Some-
want to hear from them and find out what has worked. Maybe
times it is providing outreach to many different diverse areas here.
if there are some community services that they haven’t been
Parents are stakeholders as well because we invite them to be in-
able to utilize, to maybe bring them in to help them to voice
volved with the parents’ advisory committee and any families involved
what it is they need.
in mental health programs here are encouraged to participate in that
Interviewer: What are some of the groups that you group.
have for non-English speaking people that you have Interviewer: Do you have an employment center here? How do
not already mentioned? you motivate people with mental health challenges to transition
into wanting to have gainful employment?
Response: The mental health department itself. I am an art
therapist myself, one of the many hats that I wear. As an art Response: We do have a One-Stop Career Center here at our fam-
therapist I know that I can work with many different languages ily resource center. We do have families that come through here, first
because art therapy is a universal language, and you can go of all looking for a job, and we find that many of them do have chal-
right past that expressive language of the verbal into the ex- lenges that they are dealing with, and one of them may be a mental
pressive language of the heart, so we have groups in Spanish health issue. If we really get a sense that that is something that af-
here or Hmong, I mean they come in whenever they need it. I fects their ability to find employment, then we work with them to be
just did a grievement group, and there was a Spanish- able to at least help evaluate that this is the case and that there are
speaking dad and he never received grievement service in additional resources that can help them. We really encourage them to
Sacramento because there was nothing available. Even connect with some community resources to address those chal-
though my group is for kids, I invited him. Dad was just kind of lenges. Many times they are not going to accept that, so it may take
standing around, and I asked, “Would you like to stay?” And he several times of them coming back. I think they kind of get a sense
said he didn’t think his son would want him to, so I asked the that once they are looking for a job and they go for
son, “What would you think if Dad stayed?”
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