Community Programs

Consultation and Community Care Offerings

History

Our Community Partnerships arm grew out of a long-standing collaboration that began in 2008, when CTRP partnered with Tipping Point Community to embed trauma-informed mental health services within community-based organizations serving families facing significant social and economic adversity. This early work placed our clinicians alongside agencies addressing families’ concrete needs—such as food, housing, childcare and employment—allowing mental health care to be delivered in settings where families already felt supported and engaged. These embedded placements also created meaningful training opportunities for clinicians in training committed to serving historically underserved communities; in several cases, trainees were later hired by partner organizations, further strengthening on-site mental health capacity.

As this model matured, we observed how embedding high-quality, relationship-based trauma treatment within community contexts strengthened coordination of care, deepened trust, and supported sustained engagement in services. At the same time, close collaboration with community partners highlighted the essential role of frontline staff and organizational leadership in shaping environments that could support healing over time. These insights prompted a broader vision for impact—one that extended beyond individual treatment to include the systems surrounding children and families, and that was recognized by the university as an exemplary hospital–philanthropy–community collaboration through the UCSF Excellence in Community Partnerships Award.

Guided by a strategic emphasis on broadening reach and supporting sustainable, long-term change, our partnership evolved to include a complementary focus on system-level workforce development. Training, consultation, and reflective support for staff became central strategies, allowing trauma-informed principles to take root across entire organizations rather than residing solely within individual clinical encounters.

This evolution laid the foundation for the formal development of our Community Partnerships arm. Today, this arm integrates our expertise in clinical care, research, and training to collaborate with philanthropic and nonprofit partners in strengthening mental health capacity within community settings. Through these partnerships, we expand access to direct services while supporting staff—including paraprofessionals and non-clinical providers—in developing the reflective, trauma-informed skills needed to serve children and families effectively. This work reflects our ongoing commitment to translating UCSF’s hospital-based clinical excellence and scientific rigor into sustainable, community-embedded practice.

Community Partnerships Approach

Our Community Partnerships approach emphasizes compassion and collaboration with community-based organizations. We begin by learning about each partner’s mission, strengths, and context so that our work is responsive to organizational realities and aligned with existing expertise. Engagements are collaboratively designed to build on what is already working while supporting organizations to deepen trauma-informed knowledge, reflective capacity, and mental health infrastructure.

We work with staff and leadership across organizational levels, recognizing that effective trauma-informed practice depends on both individual skill development and supportive systems of care. Drawing on our clinical, research, and training expertise, we provide consultation and learning opportunities that address staff wellness, secondary traumatic stress, collective stress, and organizational culture. Across all partnerships, we emphasize reflective practice, relational safety, and organizational conditions that support accessible, high-quality care.

Sample of Offerings

Our Community Partnerships arm offers a range of consulting, training, and capacity-building engagements tailored to the needs of individual organizations or delivered across cohorts of partners. All offerings are grounded in evidence-informed, trauma-responsive practice and designed to support staff, leadership, and organizational systems serving children and families.

Below is a list of workshops we offer. For more information about our offerings, contact Vilma Reyes at [email protected]. Together, these offerings reflect our commitment to translating evidence-based, trauma-informed knowledge into practical, sustainable approaches that strengthen organizational capacity and support the children, families, and communities served.