Seneca Family of Agencies

Seneca Family of Agencies helps children and families through the most difficult times of their lives.

In many cases, we are the last hope for young people who have come to see failure and discouragement as a way of life. Here at Seneca, we offer each child a simple but profound promise: You will be supported every step of the way, no matter what challenges you face.

By supporting each child and family in identifying and building upon their resources and strengths, we enable them to approach the future with renewed optimism and a stronger sense of the possibilities for creating a new and different story for their lives.

Mission

Unconditional Care | Helping children and families through the most difficult times of their lives.

Service Philosophy
Seneca Family of Agencies is a leading innovator in the field of education, community-based and family-focused treatment services for children and families. Seneca’s success with the most challenging children rests upon the agency’s commitment to five core service principles:

Unconditional Care
Once accepted into care, no child is ejected from Seneca due to challenging behaviors or service needs. Seneca tailors treatment and support services to address those behaviors and meet those needs, even as they change over time. (For more information on Unconditional Care and Seneca’s book, click here.)

Parent-Driven, Strength-Based Service Planning
At Seneca, we form partnerships with parents and focus on families’ strengths and competencies when planning and delivering services.
 

Individualized Care
To enable troubled children to succeed at home, at school and in the community, Seneca works with each child and family to design and provide an individualized package of services tailored to meet their unique needs and circumstances.
 

Cultural Competence
Seneca’s culturally and ethnically diverse team of professionals respect client strengths, talents and cultural heritage, working with each child and family in the context of their histories and experience.
 

Interagency Collaboration
Seneca staff work closely with county agencies, school districts, and other community-based providers to ensure that children and families receive the supportive services they need to achieve lasting success.

Seneca Institute for Advanced Practices

Seneca's Institute for Advanced Practice provides high-quality education and trainings to Seneca employees and other providers. Our trainings provide opportunities for professional development and growth in a variety of topics related to supporting children, youth and families. 

We welcome applicants from all different backgrounds and provide the training and support to help you succeed in your career at Seneca.

New Employee Orientation - Upon starting, every employee at Seneca goes through a paid basic training series that provides an orientation to the agency, the work we do and the population that we serve.

Clinical Training - Our clinical trainings provide in-depth information from experienced professionals, plus the opportunity to earn BBS CEUs in the process.

Specialty Training - Our specialty trainings provide insight into an array of topics such as permanency, resiliency, child trauma, evidence based practices and special education, plus group home administrator and foster care trainings.

Internships (Graduate Clinical Fieldwork)

We partner with local universities to provide clinical fieldwork placements for students in a variety of related programs.  We have fieldwork students working on degrees in Masters of Social Work (MSW), Master's of Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT) and Doctor of Psychology (PsyD).  Our placements are limited in number and applications are open for only a few months each year. Please visit our website for more information about our clinical internships in the Bay Area or Orange County Area.

Exactly what does Seneca do? How far do our services reach?

Permanency 

Building permanent families through family finding, kinship care, foster care and adoption

• 241 Finalized adoptions
• 1017 Kinship caregiver families supported
• 11760 Family finding searches
• 806 children served in foster care

Education 

Establishing inclusive and supportive learning environments where every child can learn and succeed

• 10,336 students who received whole-school interventions
• 76 School partnerships
• 1635 students served

Mental Health 

Helping each child to heal and thrive by ensuring access to community-based therapeutic services when and where they are needed most

• 1968 youth and families received in-home mental health services
• 1156 youth received clinic-based services
• 1534 youth received crisis intervention and stabilization services

Innovation

Creating innovative solutions for serving children and responsive strategies for developing professionals

• 13202 hours of training offered at the Seneca Institute for Advanced Practice
• 33702 Providers and employees trained, including providers at more than 300 partner organizations

*All statistics on this page were taken from the 2015-2016 Seneca annual report