Now Accepting Summer Bridge 2017 Applications

RAMS Summer Bridge 2017 Fact Sheet

RAMS-Summer Bridge is an 8-week summer mentorship program for youth ages 16 to 20, currently enrolled in or recently graduated from SFUSD high schools.  Richmond Area Multi-Services, Inc. (RAMS) is collaborating with California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS).  The program is funded by the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA).

What is the purpose of RAMS-Summer Bridge 2017?

It is a mentorship program for youth from under-represented backgrounds who are interested in the field of psychology. Participants will learn some basics about counseling psychology, mental health, and the many career possibilities in the helping professions. Participants will meet with therapists, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and other professionals in the field. Participants will attend weekly field trips within San Francisco. Participants will receive a stipend at completion of the program, during a graduation ceremony with friends and family.

Who can apply?

Youth ages 16 to 20 years old, currently enrolled in or recently graduated from SFUSD high schools, are invited to apply. 

What will we do each week?

The program will meet from 6/13/17 – 8/3/17 on Tues/Weds/Thurs from 11am – 3pm.  Each of the 8 weeks explores a specific theme, including Identity, Mental Health, Helping Professions, Education, Therapy, and Self Care. The main location is CIIS: 1453 Mission St (in SOMA). On Wednesdays, we will meet at field trip locations within San Francisco.

There are four major components:

§  Meetings at CIIS – team-building activities, guest speakers, experiential activities, small discussion groups, and work on final project

§  Field trips – to community agencies, clinics, and colleges; including the Fort Miley Ropes Course, San Francisco State University, RAMS Child, Youth, and Family Outpatient Clinic, and Psychiatric Emergency Services

§  Journal – weekly journal entries to reflect on the themes of the week

§  Final Project – presentation on what you have learned from the program

What do we need to do to complete the program?

§  Complete and submit application including 2 letters of reference

§  Be selected by committee of Summer Bridge staff and Youth Council participants  

§  Participate in all activities/visits and complete/present final project

§  Follow all rules and policies of RAMS-Summer Bridge 2017

What do we get out of this program?

§  Meet professionals from different cultures, sometimes in real work situations

§  Explore career options in psychology and the helping professions

§  Experience different neighborhoods within San Francisco

§  Learn more about yourself

§  Meet other students with similar interests from high schools throughout the city

§  Lunch provided each day

§  Stipend upon completion of program

RAMS– Summer Bridge 2017 Application

RAMS-Summer Bridge is an 8-week summer program for people age 16 to 20 currently enrolled in or recently graduated from SFUSD high schools.  It is a mentorship program for students who are interested in the field of psychology.  Along with the educational aspects of the program, students are given the chance to explore many career possibilities in the helping professions with weekly site visits.  Participants of the program will experience first-hand how psychology applies to human services. 

Deadline for application: rolling admissions, but must be submitted by May 4, 2017!

Application can be e-mailed to: summerbridge@ramsinc.org

U.S. mail to: RAMS, Inc. 3626 Balboa Street, SF, CA 94121, Attn.: Program Coordinator

Or put in envelope at any San Francisco Unified School District High School Wellness Center marked “Summer Bridge application return”

Questions: e-mail summerbridge@ramsinc.org

Click here for the RAMS Summer Bridge 2017 Application

RAMS is honored to receive the 2015 Grant from The Sophia Mirviss Memorial Fund

This summer, the Child, Youth, and Family Program at RAMS, Inc. was awarded a grant from the Sophia Mirviss Fund. The Fund was established in 1957 to honor Sophia Mirviss, M.D., a child analyst and pioneer in bringing psychoanalytic thought and practice to everyone who worked with children. She was particularly dedicated to reaching out to those who worked with children from economically disadvantaged communities.

Our grant proposal was to explore how to bring psychoanalytic ideas to work with children in the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD). RAMS clinicians are involved in the SOAR (Success, Opportunity, Achievement, Resiliency) Academy program, a classroom for students with severe emotional needs. Additional support, including on-site mental health services, and resources are provided with the goal of helping these students be able to return to a regular classroom. There are myriad challenges to a traditional therapeutic model in this setting. Students often have mixed feelings about being in the program in general, much less in therapy. Teachers tend to prioritize education. The schools themselves are not set up to promote a confidential, self-enclosed space to explore internal worlds.

We applied for the grant in order to provide a space for our clinicians to grapple with the challenges to the model, and to consider what psychoanalysis can contribute to clinical work in a school.

Once we were awarded the grant, the first task was to find a consultant who would be a good fit for the project we had proposed.  We were fortunate to find Audrey Dunn, LCSW, a proverbial needle in a haystack.  She has both provided mental health services in various collaborations with San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) for decades (in an adolescent day treatment program, on-site at middle school, etc.) and is actively involved in the psychoanalytic community.

We began the program in September, two monthly meetings held throughout the school year (Sept 2015- June 2016):  a reading group facilitated by the project coordinator and a consultation group.  Dr. Loong Kwok, a supervising psychologist who is part of the CYF team at RAMS, assigns readings in advance of his group (with input from Ms. Dunn based on what comes up in the consultation group) and discusses the readings with the clinicians.  Ms. Dunn provides a space for the clinicians to apply the readings to their experiences of running groups in the SOAR Academy classrooms and have clinical discussions with their colleagues.

Clinicians participating in the training series have observed that they are incorporating the ideas they’ve been reading when running the groups.  In addition to attending to behaviors, they  have also been paying attention to how the individuals interact with each other in the therapy group, and how the group itself fits into the school.  We have come up with some answers to specific questions about how to incorporate psychoanalytic approaches to our school-based groups. We are still working on joining these together into a cohesive plan. In the coming months, we will be considering the specific contributions of ethnicity and trauma in this work. By this summer, we believe that we can create a list of questions that need to be answered as we continue group therapy within the school system, and a list of preliminary answers.

Photo credit - Noel Z Gondek on Flickr

Reflective Spaces, Material Places

RAMS is excited about the upcoming presentation for the Reflective Spaces / Material Places event this Saturday! As described on the NCSPP website:

In community mental health (CMH) work, clients will often receive long-term therapy through a multitude of clinicians. This practice involves practicum trainees, interns, and staff clinicians alike. Building rapport and establishing a therapeutic alliance becomes all the more difficult when needing to process crucial aspects of the end of the previous treatment. This dynamic is common to many public clinics, yet it can be under examined or dismissed as just part of the reality of CMH work. Clinicians in CMH settings encounter a shifting array of clinical and cultural dynamics and navigating both can be overwhelming, particularly when acting as a replacement therapist.

Peggy Kim, a counselor at RAMS, will discuss a case focused on an adolescent with shifting identities, whose sense of belonging is compromised, and reality and fantasy mix together. Peggy will discuss her experience of being the “replacement therapist” and will be joined, in this presentation, by Yuka Hachiuma, director of Child, Youth & Family Outpatient Services at RAMS, who is Peggy’s supervisor. Yuka and Peggy have the added experience of transferring long-term clients to each other. Together, they will invite us all to think about how our cultural worlds and clinical sensibilities combine, intersect, and diverge when seeing transfer clients. As is the norm for RSMP events, all participants will share in a lively group discussion. 

DATE: Saturday, November 8, 2014
TIME: 2:00 - 4:00 pm
PLACE: A Better Way, 1663 Mission Street Suite 460 San Francisco, CA 94110

Attendance is free but registration is required (click HERE to register)

Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology, together with the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California (PINC) and Access Institute for Psychological Services, are co-presenting this event.

Photo credit -  Rachel James on Flickr

This presentation is part of the Reflective Spaces / Material Places event series, collaboratively created by the three organizations listed above as a way to "to bring community-based work together with psychoanalytic thinking" in response to "an even greater need to carve out spaces, both within our minds as clinicians and within our places of practice, to reflect on our work and connect with one another."
Dr. David Cushman, clinical staff at RAMS, is chair of the organizing committee.

This event is open to all community mental health providers, licensed mental health professionals, graduate students in training, as well as members of the lay public who have an interest in psychoanalytic psychology.

Meet RAMS - Alison Ching, LMFT and Yuka Hachiuma, LMFT

On October 30, 2012, in celebration of Mental Health Awareness Week, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors commended individuals in each supervisorial district for their work in the mental health field. We are proud to announce that Supervisor Eric Mar awarded RAMS counselors Alison Ching, LMFT and Yuka Hachiuma, LMFT with Certificates of Honor as the individuals representing the Richmond District of San Francisco.

Here’s why:

Alison Ching, MA, Ed.M., MFT is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with over 15 years of experience in the human services field. Beginning as a Research Assistant Intern for one of the first U.S. studies on HIV and substance use in Asian American populations, Ms. Ching has since worked with a range of culturally diverse communities of children, youth, and families providing clinical assessment, psychotherapy, and health education. She has been working at RAMS, since 2006, as a Behavioral Health Counselor for teens and families providing culturally competent assessment, therapy, and crisis intervention services for students on-site at Washington High School and Lincoln High School (and previously Burton High School) through the Wellness Initiative. She exhibits passion and dedication to working with culturally diverse youth and families, while demonstrating tireless advocacy and providing effective client-centered mental health services.

Yuka Hachiuma, MS, MFT is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with 10 years of experience in the mental health field. A bicultural, bilingual Japanese-speaking therapist, Ms. Hachiuma works at RAMS as a Mental Health Counselor providing culturally competent counseling to youth and their families, on-site at Washington High School. Specifically, she serves students & families with limited resources and youth receiving special education services while providing consultation to school faculty and administrators. While at RAMS, Ms. Hachiuma previously served as the first Coordinator for the agency’s launch of the Summer Bridge program, a summer mentoring program for San Francisco high school students designed to promote awareness of psychological well-being and foster interest in the helping professions. She continuously exhibits unwavering commitment to serving the diverse San Francisco community of children and youth, while modeling and inspiring compassionate & quality mental health care in the field.

Please join RAMS in congratulating Alison and Yuka for this commendation, and in celebrating all the honorees of the various San Francisco districts!

Youth Council Fall 2011

In September of this year, Youth Council reconvened with vigor and new faces. This year’s Youth Council has 9 youth attendees and two RAMS staff advisors who meet once a month to discuss mental health services and issues pertinent to the adolescent and young adult population. The opinions and perspectives of youth participants are gathered to better address the delivery service within RAMS and the larger CBHS system. Over the past months, we have screened clips from the documentary, “Race to Nowhere” (2009), discussed the academic pressures that our teens face and explored tips for self-care and connecting teens to mental health services. Sai-Ling Chan-Sew, LCSW, RAMS Clinical Supervisor/Consultant and also former Director of the Child, Youth and Family System-of-Care, Community Behavioral Health Services, visited and joined our discussion regarding stress management.

In 2012, the Youth Council will be accepting new members who have an interest in participating in this program. If you know of a youth who would be a good fit, please contact Nira Singh, PsyD. or Stephanie Chen, Ph.D. at (415) 668-5955 for more information. For a sneak peek--topics of the new year will include teen-friendly recruitment and outreach strategies as Summer Bridge will start gearing up for their third year.

Recognitions well deserved!

On December 21, 2010, RAMS received three Certificates of Recognition from Sai-Ling Chan-Sew, LCSW, Director of the Child, Youth, & Family System of Care in the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

The RAMS Child, Youth, & Family Outpatient Services was recognized for

• Exceptional agency-wide compliance in providing a detailed picture of children, youth, and families served by completing the "Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths" assessment, and


• "For its commitment to the implementation of the Second Step program, a research based violence prevention curriculum that emphasizes the development of social and emotional skills to help students succeed in school and in life"

The RAMS Wellness Centers (Behavioral Health Services) program was recognized for

• "Its commitment to the implementation of Seeking Safety, an evidence-based, manual-guided cognitive behavioral therapy for co-occurring PTSD and substance abuse issues"

A huge CONGRATULATIONS to our program staff for all of their hard work and accomplishments!