Counseling Services

Early Childhood Mental Health

Every child and parent deserve the opportunity to love and grow together the best they can. If you have concerns about your baby or young child, or if stress or traumatic experiences are making it difficult to meet your child's needs, our Early Childhood Mental Health services may be able to help.

We provide relationship-based mental health services to families with infants, toddlers, and preschool-aged children who are experiencing emotional or behavioral difficulties. Our therapists work with children and their parents, and caregivers, together in child-parent therapy to promote safety and security in their relationships, and to help caregivers understand and meet their children’s developmental, emotional, and behavioral needs. We can provide services to families throughout Alameda County, in their home or in our offices located in Oakland and Hayward.

Families in Transition

The Families in Transition program (FIT) at Family Paths provides a flexible and comprehensive model of mental health services aimed at supporting children, adolescents and their families who are experiencing significant amounts of stress and instability in their lives. The flexibility of our program allows us to work with children in the environment that best meet their and their family’s needs. Throughout Alameda County, we go to homes and schools, as well as the more traditional office based locations in Oakland, Hayward and Fremont.

Our strengths-based, culturally sensitive and individualized approach combines the best of traditional play, expressive arts, talk and somatic therapies with practical case management support to meet the more immediate needs in children’s lives.

Our goals often include placement and school stabilization, reduction in symptoms, strengthening of family and community bonds and an increase in a child and family’s coping strategies to respond to difficult circumstances.

Services last as long as the child continues to meet the qualifications for the program.

CalWORKs Mental Health & Case Management Services

The CalWORKs program was established in 2000 by Family Paths for parents transitioning from welfare to work. We provide counseling, referrals to parenting classes and life skills classes, connections to job resources and community resources.

CalWORKs case management team sees clients in our offices in Oakland and at the Eastmont Self Sufficiency Center, and at various sites in the community. We are available at community college campuses for case management and provide Life Skills Workshops for CalWORKs clients who are attending classes.

Our clinical staff provides mental health services, and the case management team works with clients to remove barriers to self-sufficiency while linking clients to comprehensive resources within the community. Our teams strive to help clients transition from welfare to work. Our priority is helping parents and caregivers meet their personal, educational and financial goals in order to attain stable lives for themselves and their families.

Treatment, Intervention and Prevention Services

Office Based Therapy

The Treatment, Intervention & Prevention Services (TIPS) provides office-based therapy for children, parents, and families. Treatment addresses a range of issues including divorce, loss, and stress, as well as, exposure to trauma, abuse, and family and community violence.

Preschool Mental Health Consultation

The TIPS Program also offers Mental Health Consultation Services to early childhood educators. Consultants are placed in the preschool classroom for weekly observations to collaborate with staff and parents to promote children’s healthy emotional and social development and help transform challenging behaviors.

TIPS Program Highlights:

• Individual, child, family, couples, adult therapy
• Treatment provided by experienced clinicians and supervised interns & trainees
• Access to other Family Paths Services

Finding Peace Within Support Group

A Skills Group for Trauma Survivors

When we have experienced trauma in the past, our bodies may continue to feel stressed and try to protect us from harm long after the situation is over. We might feel anger, despair, turmoil or numbness even when we don’t remember or are not thinking about what happened. We can learn steps towards living more calmly and at ease in our lives today.

This group for women meets for ten weeks and covers simple and practical skills that can be practiced in our daily lives.

New groups starting throughout the year.

For information on upcoming groups, please call our 24 Hour Support & Resource Line at 1-800-829-3777

Victims of Crime Services

Family Paths provides support to both victims of and witnesses to crime through Victims of Crime (VOC) funding. If you or a family member has witnessed or been a victim of domestic violence, sexual abuse, rape, assault, street or gang crimes, or another violent crime you may be eligible to receive the following services:

• Free counseling once your VOC application is approved
• A needs assessment to determine other benefits for which you may be eligible
• Referrals to community services • 24 hour support and referrals

Family Paths is conveniently located near Downtown Oakland and is easily accessible by BART and public transportation.