The Behavioral Health
Collaborative
of Alameda County
Behavioral Health Services
Behavioral Health is an expansive term that refers to how our daily thoughts and habits affect our overall well-being, emotions, biology, and behavior. Behavioral health services include mental health and substance use treatment, as well as prevention and supportive services that address the "social determinants of health", such as housing, education, employment, social connections, food and nutrition, and a safe environment with access to nature and recreation.
This page provides a summary of the behavioral health services that member agencies provide. Agencies apply strength-based, person-centered approaches that value and respect each person’s ethnic, racial, and gender identity, as well as their family and community relationships. We apply destigmatizing, evidence-based practices that achieve results.
Early Childhood
Mental Health Consultation
Changing the trajectory of young children and families.
The first five years of life are critical to child development and future well-being. Collaborative agencies support the young child and their parents through Head Start programs, mental health consultation to childcare professionals, and parenting education and support. Services are provided by specially trained staff in a range of settings.
Photo credit: Family Paths
School-based Services
Supporting social, emotional, and academic success.
Collaborative agencies support schools and students with a wide range of needs. Services include school engagement, individual, family, and group therapy, consultation and training for school staff, psycho-educational groups, behavior coaching, and health and wellness centers. Agencies serve public schools, as well as Charter, Non-Public, and alternative school settings.
Photo credit: Fred Finch
Youth and Family Services
Outpatient Behavioral Health Services
Relief, relationship, and hope.
Collaborative providers apply social, psychiatric, and recovery approaches to relieve individual and family distress. Agencies offer individual, group, and family therapy, as well as medication evaluation, skill development, and consultation and coaching of professionals and stakeholders. Services are provided in office settings, family homes, and other community locations.
Photo credit: West Oakland Health Council
Substance Use Disorder Services
Safety, skills, and recovery.
Collaborative member agencies provide a range of community-based and residential treatment programs that help people recover from substance use disorders, addiction, and co-occurring mental health conditions. They help with withdrawal and craving, develop coping skills, and strengthen support systems, to enable a joyful life of recovery. Agencies use harm reduction and evidence-based practices that are effective and avoid stigma.
Photo credit: Bi-Bett Corporation
Integrated Behavioral Health Services
Healing the mind and the body.
Collaborative member agencies are unified in their conviction that behavioral health and physical health and inter-related and both support well-being. Agencies who provide integrated behavioral health establish partnerships between medical and behavioral health staff and support clients in medical settings, health clinics, and community locations.
Photo credit: La Clinica
Intensive Community-Based
Behavioral Health Services
Doing "whatever it takes" to keep people in the community.
Collaborative agencies provide intensive, team-based services on a 24/7 basis, to those with acute behavioral health needs. Programs such as Wraparound, Full-Service Partnership, and In-Home Behavioral Services apply a family-focused, needs-based approach to help youth, adults, and seniors. Teams help clients find strengths and natural supports to sustain their well-being.
Photo credit:
Bay Area Community Services
Crisis Stabilization and Diversion Services
Saving lives and changing futures.
Collaborative agencies respond to emotional, psychiatric, family, and addiction crises. Staff work closely with county staff, law enforcement, hospital systems, and the community. Programs and services such as crisis hotline, parent support line, mobile crisis response, 23-hour crisis stabilization units, jail diversion, and short-term crisis residential treatment - all of which save people’s lives and avoid hospitalization or incarceration.
Photo credit:
Crisis Support Services
Residential Treatment
Stabilization, treatment, and transition.
Collaborative agencies provide short- and longer-term residential treatment to youth and adults with behavioral health needs that cannot be safely addressed in the community. A multi-disciplinary treatment team provides a highly structured, resource-rich environment, with focused, therapeutic interventions. Collaborative agencies utilize person-centered, strength-based approaches that engage the client’s family and support system.
Photo credit:
Magnolia Women's Recovery
Supportive Housing & Shelter Services
Housing first.
Alameda County is both a progressive county and a community with profound housing challenges, especially for those with behavioral health needs. A number of Collaborative agencies provide emergency shelter programs for youth and adults-, short- and long-term supportive housing programs and a range of services to our unhoused community members.
Photo credit:
Abode Services
Family and Peer Support Services
Support for those who love you and those who have been there.
Collaborative agencies are committed to helping those that love and support the individuals we serve. Agencies provide Family Resource Centers, Warm Lines for parents and clients facing stress, Family Partners and Peer Support services provided by people with lived experience overcoming behavioral health challenges, and numerous support groups and family education programs. Agencies provide advocacy and support for those involved in family court or the legal process, as well as information and linkage to essential community resources.
Photo credit:
Alameda Family Services
Therapeutic Foster Care and Treatment
Helping children and families overcome trauma.
Children must sometimes separate from their families to remain safe and enable healing. Collaborative agencies provide high quality out of home care and family preservation services for the child and family. They provide models such as Emergency Foster Care, Kinship Care, Therapeutic Visitation, Shelter Care, and Intensive Services Foster Care. All services are focused on helping the child transition to a permanent, loving family.
Photo credit:
Alternative Family Services
Alternative Family Services
Senior Services
Aging with dignity and joy.
Collaborative agencies recognize the critical importance of social support services that maximize well-being. Agencies provide therapeutic and supportive services such as in-home assessment, memory care, home care, counseling and support, day programs, and palliative programs.
