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Since 1963, the Harvey L. and Maud C. Sorensen Foundation has actively supported children’s healthcare. In recent years, the foundation’s leaders have been interested in focusing the foundation's grant-making to achieve a greater impact.

“We took time to look at some of the biggest issues in children’s health,” said Nichole Rowles, who represents the Sorensen Foundation. “Mental health rose to the top.”

They discovered that the child mental health crisis was an epidemic even before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The foundation devised a plan to engage with children and adolescent social workers. As first responders, social workers engage with clients holistically, designing dynamic solutions their clients need and helping them navigate bureaucratic labyrinths. Social workers who work with children are also trained to understand their emotional needs and provide therapeutic care. The problem is there just aren’t enough child-focused social workers.

“And there's so much need, especially for families who can't pay,” said Rowles. “So we have two issues: not enough providers, and care isn't available because some families can't afford it.”

Rowles added, “So the question was, ‘Can we help to increase the pipeline? Can we help to increase the number of people who are committing to going into this field of social work to serve children's mental health as that first point of contact?’”

They researched universities known for producing effective social workers from diverse backgrounds who receive cultural competency training.

“We thought, ‘Let’s try Cal State East Bay,’” said Rowles.

Cal State East Bay’s Department of Social Work was founded 21 years ago by two social work visionaries, Dianne Rush Woods and Terry Jones. They designed the program “with the intent to really contribute to the diversity of the social workers in our region,” said Dr. Sarah Taylor, who joined the university in 2009 and has been the DSW chair since 2019.

“It seemed a great place to start in terms of getting people trained to go into this field of child-focused social work who can relate to the clients they’re going to serve,” Rowles said. “Not to mention how impressed we were with Doctor Sarah Taylor, which speaks volumes about the leadership.” 

With the partnership cemented, the DSW leadership team, including LeQuita Carroll-McKoy, Doctor Kristen Gustavson and a deep bench of leaders expert at handling partnerships, funds, seminars, and logistics, wasted no time launching the Sorensen Childhood Mental Health Fellowship program in January of this year. By June, they had their inaugural cohort.

Eight Master of Social Work students were selected from a highly qualified pool of strong academic performances. Each impressed the interview panel with their vision and ideas and expressed an ironclad commitment to the child and youth behavioral health field.

Fellows will be tightly matched with schools, child-focused public mental health clinics, children’s hospitals, juvenile detention centers, and homeless youth shelters — to name a few — that will provide real-world experience with close guidance.

The Sorensen CMH Fellowship also requires students to complete a capstone project, attend seminars and train on topics related to serving children and youth with mental health conditions.

The monetary award — $25,000 for the year — will help mitigate any financial pressures while fellows intern for 20–24 hours per week to complete their practicum graduation requirements.

Liz Rivas, a Bay Area native, is exactly the kind of MSW student the Sorensen Foundation is counting on to enter the children and adolescent mental health care pipeline.

Rivas heard about the Sorensen Fellowship through word of mouth. She applied, and to her surprise, received an acceptance letter. 

Born at St. Luke’s and raised in San Francisco’s La Misión, Rivas is a first-generation college student whose parents immigrated from Nicaragua.

After high school, she paused her college dream to raise her newborn child as a single parent while working full-time. A decade later, she kept a promise to herself and began taking courses at San Francisco City College for another decade.

Her San Francisco State University experience went faster after transferring in 2021 and graduating 18 months later with a B.A. in Child and Adolescent Development.

It was an SFSU professor, Brett Collins, who planted the idea of social work in Riva’s mind.

At Mission Neighborhood Centers (MNC) where she works as their education coach, Rivas recalls, “There was a family, and I was really limited on how I could support them. I began to realize that the system was failing this family.”

“My capacity was limited as an early childhood educator,” said Rivas.

She found direction when she shared her despair with the same professor who planted the seed and who in turn responded: “We need people like you in the community. Why don’t you try Cal State East Bay?”

She switched her career path from education to social work and enrolled in Cal State East Bay’s MSW program. Now as a Sorensen Fellow, Rivas feels she is where she needs to be — back in her community, preparing to learn how to provide therapy to its children.

Her internship will be with Instituto Familiar de la Raza whose relationship with this 40-year-old organization in La Misión goes back to when she received mental health care from them as a child.

Upon graduation, she plans to take her new childhood therapy skills to the MNC — which she revealed was the same place that nurtured her passion for learning as a child.

“I remember walking down Mission looking at MNC and going like, ‘One day, I wanna work for this place,” said Rivas who shared that the MNC was just two doors down from her childhood home. “It was my dream and it’s been an amazing journey.”

But the journey toward helping children in California get the therapy they need is beginning to look rocky. As the current state budget issue may threaten future funds for child mental health care, philanthropy will be necessary for adequate long-term solutions.

“This makes the investment of a private funder like Sorensen even more important,” said Taylor, who expressed deep appreciation for the $3.7 million in state funding her department received to expand the MSW program and launch a Bachelor of Social Work program.

Rowles and the Sorensen Foundation are confident in their choice of academic partners. “This is a unique program,” said Rowles, “If it’s successful, and we’re optimistic that it will be, then maybe this is something we can expand. They already hit the ball out of the park in terms of getting everything implemented.”