Advocate for Belonging | Abogando por la Pertenencia

Dear Friends,

This month I have been thinking about belonging. Whether starting a new school year, a new job, moving to a new city, or making any change in our life, we all hope for belonging, acceptance and community. 

Belonging goes further than “fitting in.” Belonging means having a role and a voice in a safe space. It means giving and receiving support without expectation. But most of all, belonging means feeling valued. 

Without a sense of belonging we feel isolated. Isolation leads to increased risk of physical and mental health conditions, reflected in around $6.7 billion in “excess Medicare spending annually,” as detailed in Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community (Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, 2023, p. 9). 

As a hospital social worker during the height of the pandemic, I would meet countless patients whose cognition, memory or mental health had rapidly declined due to isolation and loss of connection. I watched as my own daughter became more anxious in social situations as she spent a full year without her friends.

Belonging is healthcare. At the Healthcare Foundation we are focused on investing in programs and interventions that bring individuals a sense of belonging. 

In this newsletter you will read about one such program we launched with our community partners earlier this year, an ECO (Equity Community Organizing) Group in Cloverdale. 

Made possible through grants from The SCAN Foundation and California Health Care Foundation, the 18-month-long project brings together Cloverdale seniors and local nonprofits to explore the drivers of health inequities for elderly low-income residents, and to develop community-led solutions and goals toward greater equity and access.

Attending the ECO Group sessions has been a true highlight of my first few months at the Healthcare Foundation. The seniors who attend this monthly group are building skills, friendships, connections and community — thriving in the benefits and power of belonging. The joy in the room during these lively gatherings is medicine for everyone involved. 

Below you will also hear about belonging — and giving back — from a young northern Sonoma County native, Adilene Hernandez Perez, who is one of three new Mental Health Talent Pipeline (MHTP) scholarship recipients starting graduate studies in counseling psychology this fall.

MHTP turned five recently, so we’ve been looking back at the origins of this powerful intervention in our region’s dearth of bilingual and bicultural therapists. Below, you’ll hear from former Healdsburg mayor and longtime Healthcare Foundation community partner Ariel Kelley about those origins as well as her late father Dr. Steven Ungerleider’s indispensable contribution to the pilot launch in 2018.

Thank you for helping us grow the circle of belonging.

With gratitude,

Amy Ramirez
Executive Director

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Seniors Organize for Health and Wellness in Cloverdale at their Monthly ECO Group Meeting

It’s early afternoon on a sunny and very warm Wednesday in July, and the Cloverdale Senior Center is buzzing with activity. A group of about 20 local seniors, most of them speaking in Spanish or switching back and forth between Spanish and English, are gathering in the Center’s large community room for the monthly meeting of their ECO (Equity Community Organizing) Group. 

Also arriving are a number of people from the local nonprofits — On the Margins, La Familia Sana, Alexander Valley Healthcare, Nuestra Comunidad, Council on Aging, Cloverdale Multipurpose Senior Center, and the Healthcare Foundation — who have been participating in the design and hosting of these ECO Group meetings since January with the aim of empowering local elders to explore the drivers of health inequities as well as the needs and solutions seniors themselves see as most urgent.

People continue greeting and chatting with each other as they slowly settle into seats, either around the horseshoe-shaped line of tables that opens to the front of the room, or in the sofas and fold-out chairs set a little further back from it. 

Meanwhile, Dra. Daniela Domínguez and her team from On the Margins, who take the lead in running the meetings, are busy loading a spare table with a catered lunch of Mexican food, the delicious aroma blending into the relaxed and festive ambience in the room.

Full Article (3 min read)

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Mental Health Talent Pipeline spotlight: Meet Adilene Hernandez Perez

Adilene Hernandez Perez was born in Santa Rosa and grew up in Windsor. Her interest in psychology developed early thanks to a class offered by her high school when she was still a freshman.

“I was in a phase in my life where I was very much trying to find something that I was passionate about,” she remembers. “And I gravitated towards psychology.”

Adilene, who went on to receive her bachelor’s in psychology from Sonoma State University, is one of three new Mental Health Talent Pipeline scholarship awardees in 2024 who begin graduate studies in counseling psychology at USF Santa Rosa this fall. 

The Healthcare Foundation’s scholarship program aims at closing the gap in access to mental health services for Latine residents by supporting aspiring bilingual and bicultural MFTs (Marriage and Family Therapists) with an intention of serving Spanish-speaking and bicultural communities here in northern Sonoma County.

We spoke with Adilene recently about her motivations for pursuing a career locally as a bilingual and bicultural mental health professional.

Full Article (5 min read)

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The Mental Health Talent Pipeline at 5: A conversation with Ariel Kelley

Two of the people involved in the early conversations that led to the development of the Mental Health Talent Pipeline were former Healdsburg Mayor and co-founder of Corazón Healdsburg Ariel Kelley and her late father, Dr. Steven Ungerleider. Dr. Ungerleider, who passed away in 2023, was a renowned sports psychologist, author, and documentary film producer as well as a key benefactor who helped to underwrite the early pilot years of the program. 

The Healthcare Foundation recently marked five years since the Mental Health Talent Pipeline established itself, after its initial pilot phase, as an ongoing program that is bridging the gap in bilingual and bicultural mental health services for northern Sonoma County’s Latine community. 

In continuing our celebration of the milestone year, we spoke with Ariel Kelley about the origins of the Mental Health Talent Pipeline and the role played by her father in the conception and launch of this innovative scholarship program.

Full Article (3 min read)

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