Hanna Center’s Mental Health Hub will emphasize bilingual services

With a promise to provide low-cost and culturally sensitive services, the Community Mental Health Hub at Hanna will open next week, filling a critical gap in local health services.

“Sonoma County has a shortage of programs to support the mental well-being needs of its residents,” said Cameron Safarloo, CEO of Hanna Center. “The new Community Mental Health Hub at Hanna is filling this role for the community.”

Located at Hanna Center’s Arnold Drive campus, the hub will be unveiled on Wednesday, May 31, and celebrated with a grand opening party from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m.

Statistics show that more than 9,000 Sonoma Valley community members are eligible for Medi-Cal, but very few bilingual and culturally competent services are available to them, Safarloo said.

“The hub is committed to the long-term health and well-being of the community, especially those who traditionally have not had access to high-quality, affordable mental health care,” Safarloo said. “With that in mind, our services are driven by a commitment to linguistic and cultural sensitivity, equity, belonging and community responsiveness.”

Charlotte Hajer, senior director of the hub and former executive director of Sonoma Community Center, emphasized the importance of providing services to a wide demographic.

“Given that about a third of the Sonoma Valley community identifies as Latino, Latina or Latinx, that’s a large number of people who don’t have the luxury of talking to someone who shares their background and native language,” she said. “But our therapists represent a diversity of identities and native languages themselves, and are dedicated to providing culturally sensitive services to any of our community members.”

Although the hub has not opened, staff members have offered community workshops and therapeutic services elsewhere on the Hanna Center campus.

The hub will be located in an extensively renovated former residential cottage, near the entrance of the Hanna Center campus. It will offer individual therapy, group and family therapy, substance use groups, parenting classes and workshops, early childhood courses, education assessments, trauma-informed enrichment offerings, and yoga and movement classes.

It will also provide support groups, case management services and education sessions on topics such as how to recognize symptoms of depression, suicide prevention strategies and ways to support a child with attention disorders.

Initially, the hub will be open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., but the hours are likely to expand as the staffing and demand from the community grow, Hajer said.

Along with the services on campus, the hub will provide offsite programs for local businesses and organizations — including members of the Sonoma Valley Mental Health Collective — through a community outreach program.

The 17 local nonprofit organizations that comprise the collective were instrumental in creating a vision for the hub and continue to collaborate with it in coordinating programs and services, sharing best practices and exchanging funding opportunities. Hub leaders also meet monthly with First District Supervisor Susan Gorin and representatives from the Sonoma County Department of Health Services.

One of the hub’s main objectives will be to help address the mental health needs of Valley residents affected by trauma and adversity.

“Between the fires, the pandemic and growing wealth inequality, most residents in this region face of have faced challenges that create a deep sense of uncertainty and insecurity in their lives,” Hajer said. “This is on top of any specific trauma that families might face in their lives, such as divorce, a family member’s illness, a job loss, immigration-related challenges and so on.”

She said that over the years, Hanna has developed expertise in trauma-informed care with an approach that emphasizes the need for understanding the ways trauma shapes people’s experiences and behaviors, and offers therapeutic interventions and support tailored to trauma survivors’ specific situations.

Five of the hub’s clinicians were on staff at Hanna previously and three additional clinicians have been hired. The staff will also include an intake coordinator, a therapeutic activities coordinator and a team of community health navigators, all working under Hajer.

Navigators will conduct outreach in the community to make sure people are aware of the hub’s services and collaborate with clinicians on community information sessions about mental-health related topics. They also will work with families directly to identify their needs to help them connect with services provided at Hanna and at other nonprofit agencies in Sonoma Valley.

Hiring is ongoing for several positions, including intake coordinator, community navigators and mental health therapists. Anyone who is a licensed marriage and family therapist, licensed clinical social worker, associate marriage or family therapist, or who has an associate degree in social work or doctoral degree in psychology is encouraged to apply, Hajer said.

The hub is contracted with several insurance carriers, including Medi-Cal, Kaiser, Blue Shield, Anthem and Western Health. People who have insurance coverage may have to make a copay, but otherwise services should be covered by their provider.

Those who do not have insurance or who choose to pay out of pocket will pay on a sliding scale, with the fee based on income and household size.

“Our goal is to never turn anyone away because of an inability to pay,” Hajer said. “We also make sure that our workshops, classes and therapeutic activities are affordable for everyone. Some are offered on a sliding scale, while others have a suggested donation.”

The Sonoma Mental Health Collective was unsuccessful in its attempt to obtain a $5.5 million grant from the American Rescue Plan Act to help start the hub, but received funding from Sonoma County and the California Department of Health Care Services to support the Community Health Navigator program; a grant from the Catalyst Fund to cover the cost of furniture for the new space; and funding from Sonoma Valley Vintners and Growers Alliance and Community Foundation of Sonoma County to support some of the initial programming.

“But we continue to look for funding,” Hajer said. “We are committed to serving everyone, regardless of ability to pay, and our ability to do so hinges of funding from generous foundations, individual donors and government agencies.”

Hajer is confident that the hub will be able to fill a major need in the Sonoma Valley community and when fully staffed, expects it to see 1,000 to 1,600 clients per year.

“There are a lot of local nonprofits here doing great work already, and Hanna isn’t interested in reinventing the wheel,” she said. “The idea is, rather, to complement what already exists and create better linkages between those resources.

“That’s why this clinic is very intentionally called a hub. It’s a place for services, but also a place to connect with lots of other resources out there and a place to all the various human services nonprofits to work together.”

Reach the reporter, Dan Johnson, at daniel.johnson@sononmanews.com.