NBCC
Changing Lives, One Person at a Time
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Our agency addresses mental illness and homelessness in Santa Barbara County. According to the recent homeless count, there are more than 1,800 people experiencing homelessness; approximately 40% of the unsheltered homeless population lives in their vehicles. Our Safe Parking Program is the only program in the county that directly serves this population by providing community members living out of their cars with a safe place to park each night. Additionally, there are more than 200 veterans experiencing homelessness in our county. Our Supportive Services for Veteran Families Program ends veteran homelessness by moving homeless veterans and their families into permanent housing. For 50 years, we have offered the community with one of the lowest sliding scale fees for counseling services, averaging $17.90 per session. 1 in 4 people suffer from a mental illness in their lifetime, and many people cannot afford mental health counseling.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
The Donald J. Willfong Community Counseling Clinic
At New Beginnings, we offer confidential psychological counseling and assessment services to more than 600 at-risk individuals and families in the greater Santa Barbara area each year. Experienced counselors are here to help clients explore life transitions, relationship issues and a variety of concerns including anxiety, depression, grief and loss, trauma, abuse, compulsive behaviors, substance use, job loss and stress, aging, isolation and anger management. Many client experience a 15% reduction in overall distress after only eight sessions.
The clinic offers confidential individual, couples, family and group counseling services in both English and Spanish with masters and doctoral-level interns gaining hours for clinical licensure. We have trained hundreds of our community’s seasoned clinicians and continue to provide a research-informed, best-practice approach to preparing tomorrow’s psychotherapists and psychologists in the field of mental health.
Safe Parking Program
New Beginnings’ Safe Parking Program provides case management and outreach to the homeless and safe overnight parking to individuals and families living in their vehicles. New Beginnings has operated the Safe Parking Program since 2004 in cooperation with numerous local churches, governmental and non-profit agencies, and businesses. We provide confidential, daily-monitored parking places for those who are living in their vehicles because they do not have sufficient income to provide for their basic need of affordable housing.
In addition to operating more than 130 safe overnight parking spaces, the Safe Parking Program connects the chronically homeless to shelters and services that will get them off the streets and into safer environments. Program staff distribute more than 450 pounds of food each month and offer a rapid re-housing component that provides case management to transition program participants into permanent housing and employment.
Through the program, New Beginnings offers job tutoring, resume preparation and facilitates outside agency connections as needed to help participants gain employment or obtain government benefits. On a case-by-case basis, New Beginnings will write grants on behalf of clients to help them obtain cash assistance to pay for medical and dental expenses, and other costly, but life-changing assistance.
New Beginnings is also the nation's creator of Safe Parking Programs and distributes and sells a best practice manual to help other organizations establish similar programs in their communities.
Life Skills Parenting Education Program
New Beginnings’ Life Skills Parenting and Education Program teaches critical hands-on parenting skills, mindfulness strategies, and overall life skills to more than 100 low-income families each year who need practical tools to establish and maintain stability in their home environments. For more than fifteen years, this program has been offered at no cost through community centers and non-profit organizations that serve at risk youth and low-income families.
The Life Skills Parenting and Education Program consists of a series of culturally-based therapeutic and psycho-educational classes, offered in six, eight or twelve week formats in both English and Spanish. The classes teach hands-on skills that help parents define effective parental roles, end destructive behaviors, shift their thinking, and develop new perspectives to improve their lives.
Supportive Services for Veteran Families Program
New Beginnings Counseling Center’s Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) Program operates from a housing first model to help end veteran homelessness within Santa Barbara County. The program’s goal is to help veterans attain housing stability through short-term case management and financial assistance. The SSVF Program is a model program funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs. We operate the largest program of its kind across Santa Barbara County. We serve those in danger of losing their housing, as well as those who are homeless and need assistance in obtaining permanent, traditional housing.
Services Include:
•Short-term case management
•Housing counseling and placement assistance
•Temporary financial assistance for rental debts, security and utility deposits, and short-term rental assistance.
Basic Eligibility Requirements:
•A member of a veteran family, which can be a single veteran or family in which the head of household or the spouse of the head of household is a veteran.
•Gross household income must be at or below 50% of the area median income for household size.
•A person who served in the active military, naval, or air service, and who was discharged or released there from under conditions other than dishonorable.
Where we work
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of low-income families housed in affordable, well-maintained units as a result of the nonprofit's efforts
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
This number refers to unduplicated individuals housed or prevented from eviction.
Number of people who received clinical mental health care
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
The Donald J. Willfong Community Counseling Clinic
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of clients served
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
These are actual, unduplicated clients served. There was a drop in 2017 due to a contract ending with one of our partners.
Goals & Strategy
Reports and documents
Download strategic planLearn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
New Beginnings Counseling Center has been in the community for nearly 50 years, serving individuals, families, veterans, and the homeless who have fallen between the cracks or are not specifically provided for by other government, private, or nonprofit service providers.
We are here to help people become healthy and stable, and to ultimately reach their highest potential and become contributing members in the community. In doing this work, New Beginnings focuses on providing mental health services, groups, psychological assessments, and life skills groups to people regardless of their income, insurance, ability to pay, or transportation or mobility impediments. We also work to serve homeless and housing insecure individuals, specifically veterans people who are living in their vehicles, and other individuals and families experiencing homelessness. We serve approximately 2,000 individuals in our community each year.
We find that mental and physical health and housing security are often correlating and causal factors that affect each other, and our holistic approach helps to house hundreds of people each year and allows hundreds more at risk of or dealing with eviction to remain stable in housing.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
New Beginning's four unique programs work to address our core issues in different ways, and many clients participate in more than one program at a time.
We offer a sliding scale for our mental health services that fits our client's budgets. We arrange transportation assistance to appointments for many program participants, and in some cases can arrange to have a nurse or case worker visit them in their homes or at another agency at which they are receiving services.
We provide safe overnight shelter for Safe Parking Program participants, as well as case management, to help transition them into stable housing. We follow a housing first model, which helps to get our clients into secure housing while they work to align all aspects of their life.
We provide ongoing case management and assistance on an as-needed basis after our clients become housed to assure success and stability for the client and their landlord. Our Supportive Services for Veteran Families Program is the leading program in the county for re-housing homeless veterans and their families. Lastly, our Life Skills Parenting & Education Program provides psychoeducational groups to parents and other vulnerable populations at no cost.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
New Beginnings employs 39 full-time staff members. Our Executive Director, Kristine J. Schwarz, is a licensed psychotherapist. Our Clinical Director, Shana Burns, is also a licensed psychotherapist who oversees the work of our Counseling Center. We have more than 30 all-volunteer masters and doctoral-level counselors who provide mental health services to our clients. Our work is overseen by about a dozen all-volunteer Clinical Supervisors. All of our program staff in our Safe Parking and Supportive Services for Veteran Families Program are SOAR-trained and receive extensive training each year. Our organization is accredited by the Commission on the Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities, which ensures our programs are client-centered.
We have more than 50 years of experience providing quality mental health services in our community. Our Safe Parking Program is the first of its kind in the country and has served as a model for dozens of communities throughout our nation looking to implement similar programs of their own.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
We have provided mental health services to tens of thousands of community members over the years. Our Safe Parking Program has grown into the model program in the nation and has helped dozens of communities implement programs of their own. We sell a best practice manual that teaches people how to develop programs of their own. We have provided safe, overnight shelter to thousands of community members and have moved over 2,000 community members into permanent housing. Each year, we also house approximately 100 veterans and their families throughout Santa Barbara County.
In the last eight years, we have grown our agency revenue by more than 250% and have more than doubled the number of clients that we serve. We are a county-wide organization and are thrilled with all of the progress we have made.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
We don't have any major challenges to collecting feedback
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
NBCC
Board of directorsas of 02/13/2024
Jacqueline Kurta, MFT
Diane Pannkuk
Jacqueline Kurta
Ziad El Kurjie
Dan Engel
Mark Cardona
Karen Kelly
Warren B Ritter
Stasia Huiner
Steve Baird
Scott Sanford
Suzanne Grimmesey
Ronnie Shahbazian
Kathryn Keene
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Transgender Identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data