Community Solutions for Children, Families and Individuals

Community Solutions’ mission is to create opportunities for positive change by promoting and supporting the full potential of individuals, the strengths of families and the well-being of our community.

Our goal is to enable individuals and families to be safe, healthy, and self-reliant, with access to an interdependent and robust system for support when needed. For us, this means that each individual and/or family is able to be the best version of themselves and is not defined by their present circumstances or their past decisions.

We believe the health of individuals and families is dependent on strong and healthy support systems including family, friends, community, and other providers. While we wrap our clients in the services and support they need for their unique situation, our goal is to help them build self-reliance and support systems that will enable them to continue their wellness and success independent of our services.

Our services focus on recovery, wellness and resiliency; are client and family-driven, culturally-responsive, trauma-informed, and community-based; and utilize evidence-based practices. The following principles guide our programs and interactions, helping us to build emotionally healthy children, families and individuals, and to increase their interdependence, self-reliance and safety:

• Strengths-Based: The plan of care identifies, builds on, and enhances the strengths of our clients, their community, and other team members. Team interactions demonstrate appreciation for each member’s competencies, skills and knowledge.

• Client-Centered: Clients have a primary decision-making role in their care as well as the policies and procedures governing care for the agency.

• Team-Based: The team consists of individuals agreed upon by the client who are connected to them through natural, community, informal and formal supports.

• Culturally Sensitive: The service process demonstrates respect for the individual, family and their community, building on their values, preferences, beliefs, and racial and cultural identity.

• Collaborative & Integrative: Team members work together to develop, implement, monitor, and evaluate a single plan of care. The plan reflects a blending of team members’ perspectives which guide each team member’s work with each client.

• Community-Based: The team implements services and support strategies that take place in the most inclusive, responsive, accessible, and least restrictive settings possible, safely promoting clients’ integration into home, community, and life roles.

• Individualized: Strategies, services, and supports are developed and implemented in response to the individual and unique strengths, needs and aspirations of each client.

• Natural Supports: The team actively seeks out and welcomes natural supports and integrates their perspectives fully into the planning process. The plan of care reflects activities and interventions undertaken by natural supports.

• Unconditional: The team consistently uses unconditional positive regard while working with the each client toward successfully reaching their goals. While considering community safety, the team perseveres to support the client regardless of behavior, legal status, individual or family circumstance.

• Needs Driven: Supports and services are designed to address unmet needs across multiple life domains. Formal therapeutic services are viewed as tools to meet normalized needs rather than as needs in and of themselves.

• Flexible/Accessible: Services and supports are dynamic and adaptable to meet each client’s changing needs.

• Outcome Based: The team ties the goals and strategies of the plan of care to observable or measurable indicators of success, monitors progress in terms of the indicators, and revises the plan accordingly until the team reaches agreement that a formal process is no longer required.

Community Solutions has over 40 years of experience providing behavioral health services for youth and adults and services for survivors of domestic violence/intimate partner abuse. We added services specifically for survivors of sexual assault in 1981 and human trafficking (labor/sex) in 2003.

In fiscal year 2018-19, Community Solutions provided direct services to 5,872 children, youth, adults and older adults. Our education and outreach services reached an additional 2,286 individuals, primarily youth in our Healthy Relationships program.

Our services focus on recovery, wellness and resiliency; are client and family-driven, culturally-responsive, trauma-informed, and community based; and utilize evidence-based practices. Additionally, our services for survivors of violence are victim-centered and empowerment based. In 2019, we received a three-year renewal on our accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF), which substantiates the quality of our care.

Staff are highly qualified to meet the needs of their program populations. Training is on-going through our in-house training division and external partnerships. Behavioral health service staff are trained in our Core Care Training Model, which includes eight key evidence-based practices (EBPs). All domestic violence/sexual assault/human trafficking advocates and volunteers complete the California 65-hour DV/SA Counselor Certification.

We believe that working with system and community partners who are in contact with our mutual clients is vital to effectively serving our clients. Our staff maintain intensive contact with co-providers, employing cross-system strategies of care coordination, crisis response, case management, and housing stability to mobilize the provider community on behalf of clients. We work closely with the County Court System, Office of the District Attorney, Office of the Public Defender, Social Services Agency, Behavioral Health Department, Probation, medical providers, and local law enforcement agencies. We also maintain referral relationships with a large network of nonprofit, community-based, and governmental organizations.

Our Cultural Competence Strategic Plan and policies ensure the accessibility and efficacy of our services to individuals from a wide array of racial and ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientation, gender identity, disabilities, economic status, language, literacy levels, and mental health status. Our staff use culturally-specific engagement practices to work with individuals and families from multiple cultures, as well as those with special needs, families involved in the criminal justice system, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people exposed to trauma. We are attentive to the impact that culture, customs, social situations, food, clothing, and language play in the overall well-being of our clients. Whatever life challenges, stressors, or needs clients have, we believe recovery and well-being are possible.

Since it was founded as a teen drop-in center in 1972, Community Solutions has continued to grow in both depth and breadth of services in response to the growing and changing needs of our current client base and the needs of the greater community.

Today we provide a comprehensive spectrum of prevention, intervention, treatment, and residential services for all ages, from infancy through older adult. We provide services and support to help children, families, and individuals overcome the challenges posed by mental illness and substance use, trauma, gang influence, severe family dysfunction, sexual and domestic violence, and human trafficking.

In FY21 Community Solutions served 6,402 children, families and individuals in Santa Clara and San Benito Counties, providing them the care, support, skills and resources to heal, live healthier lives, and more fully engage with their families and community.

In 2016, we received a three-year accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF), which substantiates the quality of our care. In 2019, we were granted a three-year renewal of this accreditation. In 2016, Community Solutions received the inaugural Nonprofit of the Year Award from our state legislator, Senator Bill Monning, recognizing our exceptional service to the communities represented in California Senate District 17.

The growth of our services is driven by the needs of our clients and our local communities. Currently, we are looking for ways to provide the most intensive level of behavioral health outpatient services so that we can keep clients living safely and with support in the community and out of locked facilities. At the same time, we have a vision of opening “Recovery Café” modeled services to provide a range of on-going walk-in services to support individuals who are successfully living independently with mental health and/or substance use issues.

Homelessness and housing instability plague the majority of our clients, across all programs. We are active advocates at the local and state levels for affordable housing for the communities we serve. In particular, we recognize domestic violence as a significant cause of homelessness in our community and the fear of homelessness as a deterrent to individuals considering leaving unsafe relationships. In FY19 Community Solutions dramatically expanded the range of housing supports available to survivors of domestic violence/intimate partner abuse, sexual assault and human trafficking. We are continuing to seek funding to support housing opportunities for our communities and especially for survivors, from emergency/shelter services, to transitional and permanent housing. In FY21, we provided permanent supportive housing, transitional housing, emergency shelter, emergency rental assistance, and/or supportive housing services to 646 individuals and families.