The Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative’s (CYBHI) Stories from the Field series aims to highlight the critical work being done to address the behavioral health needs of children and youth, as well as the ongoing efforts to improve systems and create sustainable change. These stories showcase the values and vision of the Initiative through personal experiences, composite stories, and audiocasts, and demonstrate how the CYBHI can build on existing efforts, learn from them, and work towards scalable and systemic change.

Two of the CYBHI’s core values are ensuring that all our efforts are centered on and driven by the needs of youth and families and developing a workforce with cultural competency and lived experience. The following story is one example of what those values can look like in action and the impact they can create.

When staff at the Cal Voices Family Advocate/Parent Advocate program meet with a new client, they may be strangers, but they still have something in common. That’s because everyone with the program, which provides support to families receiving services from Placer County’s system of care, can personally relate to the issues that their clients face. 

“I had experience in the system when I was younger,” said Indira Infante, who serves as program manager for the Family Advocate/Parent Advocate program. “And I’ve navigated County services for my son and my brother.”

The Cal Voices Family Advocate/Parent Advocate program has used creative, culturally-sensitive and strengths-based thinking to help Placer County families achieve their goals for more than a decade. Their model is based on the idea that families are the experts in their own needs and that support from someone who understands their experiences is critical to creating successful outcomes.

“When we’re hiring, we ask others in the system of care to refer parents who are former recipients of services and would be good candidates to be family advocates.” Indira said. “People don’t need degrees to join our team, as long as they have lived experience navigating some of the systems.”

When families begin the process, they can be intimidated by what they see as intrusion during a time of significant stress. There are many barriers that must be overcome—from language barriers and concerns around immigration status to distrust based on previous experiences with systems—to begin the path toward healing. 

Shared experience is essential to reducing stigma and helping Family Advocate/Parent Advocate   staff respond with empathy to the needs of families. “It means so much for our families to have a seat at the table and get the respect they need from someone else who understands what that means,” Indira said. 

Their model is straightforward, collaborative, and puts families right in the center. “Our purpose is to support and advocate for the families. We’re present from the start of system involvement,” Indira said. Their clients come to them through other child- and family-serving agencies, from behavioral health to drug court, child welfare and juvenile probation services. 

Because families can relate to and connect with a Family Advocate/Parent Advocate , the stage is set for a collaborative effort to create positive change. “Families come in with crises. Our team focuses on their strengths. We work together to shift the mindset.”

When families accept the services of a family advocate, a member of the team meets with them one-on-one to work on individual goals. Their advocate connects them to natural supports and community resources that meet their specific needs. 

“We don’t just give phone numbers,” Indira said. “We connect with services first to make sure they’re available. Then we sit with the client and help them learn how to navigate and advocate for themselves.” 

One of the most important roles members of the Family Advocate/Parent Advocate  team play is attending court proceedings, treatment team meetings and school meetings with families, assisting and supporting them in being equal partners with the professionals who work with them. They also take part in policy discussions to make sure the experiences and concerns of the families they serve are taken into account. 

“We’re a bridge to the other systems and practitioners,” Indira said. “Not working against them, but together. We act as allies to make sure families’ voices are heard.” 

In Placer County, that approach—integrated systems with youth and families at the center—is bigger than one program. It’s the core of their entire system of care. 

“We don’t have a separate child welfare department or mental health department for children. They’re blended together into one department, called Children’s System of Care,” said Mike Lombardo, executive director of prevention supports and services for Placer County Office of Education. 

In 1988, Placer County created one of the nation’s first fully-integrated child and family service agencies. By bringing together mental health, education, juvenile probation and child welfare services under one roof, with shared leadership, training and tools, they’re closing service gaps and improving the way they help families and youth. The Cal Voices Family Advocate/Parent Advocate  program is an important part of that system.

”As the County tried to align all these different systems, it became clear that we needed more representation from the people we serve,” Mike said. ”We needed a family member on our teams to help us support them and operate in a more credible, family-driven way.”

Bringing on staff with lived experience helps create an integrated system built for and with the people it serves. “The people hired by the program are embedded across our system of care,” Mike said. “They sit next to our social workers and mental health workers and take part in conversations about individual families. They work on wraparound teams and crisis teams.”

The result is an environment of collaboration, in which systems and families work together to create better outcomes. 

As Indira says, “It’s a culture of ‘we’ instead of ‘me.’”

Fully incorporating families, not only as clients but as practitioners and partners, creates systems in which their voices and needs are centered. Representation at every level, from program design to implementation to evaluation, can make our systems more equitable and effective for all California families.

Indira sees the power of this approach in the way her clients develop over time. “We’re working to get the people we serve to a place where they don’t need us,” she said. “It’s great to run into families we have worked with in the community and see how much they have grown and changed.”

The Cal Voices Family Advocate/Parent Advocate program is one example of the impact that can be created when our behavioral health workforce has lived experience and when our systems are centered on and driven by the needs of those they serve. Visit the CYBHI webpage to learn more about how the initiative is putting these values into practice to serve all California children and families.