Becky Enos, Executive Director of Save Our Schools Community Counseling
Our guest speaker for December 7, 2023, was Becky Enos, the Executive Director of Save our Students Community Counseling. Becky is a Santa Rosa native and graduate of Santa Rosa High School. She obtained her bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin. She also studied special education and non-profit administration at Penn State and the University of San Francisco. She is the single parent of a teenage daughter and has worked in non-profit sector most of her life. The original SOS was started with the help of 5 local rotary clubs a number of years ago. Since those days, SOS has morphed into a counseling service serving students in schools throughout Sonoma County.
SOS’s Mission Statement is to “Provide healing throughout Sonoma County as a training agency that delivers collaborative, compassionate and accessible care.” SOS provides access to counseling services regardless of financial status. SOS employs 27 pre-licensed social workers in 3 main programs. These pre-licensed workers are either in their final year of a master’s degree program or are working on their hourly requirement before they can become fully licenses. SOS delivers its services through 3 main programs: the Clinic Program, Team Success, and Juvenile Justice. The Clinic Program follows a traditional private practice model, with an office downtown. Its counselors work in individual, couple, group, and family counseling. Team Success is a derivative of the County’s older program called Project Success. When the County closed this program due to budget cuts, the therapists continued as “Team Success.” It serves students at Cotati-Rohnert Park, Cloverdale, and Windsor. The therapists actually work on these campuses.
Juvenile Justice serves Rohnert Park, Windsor, Healdsburg, and Cloverdale. SOS places therapists at school sites working in collaboration with the Police Dept. These youth come via referrals from the school or through the PD. This is a 10-week program in which students meet weekly with a therapist, who tries to address the student’s behavior issues.
SOS provides critical mental health services to students throughout Sonoma County. It also trains the next generation of mental health therapists. However, SOS faces significant financial obstacles. The pandemic transformed SOS by providing larger than usual grants and donations, but this funding has dwindled, leaving SOS programs vulnerable to cutbacks. SOS is a training agency for mental health therapists and makes a makes a heavy financial investment into each therapist. Once they obtain their licenses these therapists often leave to start work in their own or other programs. Also, the programs have lots of non-billable hours worked by interns and students, who can’t bill for their services. It is actively seeking ways to manage its programs to meet the current financial stresses. SOS is now reaching out to community leaders, including Rotary clubs, to reactive its historical partnerships as part of an effort to revitalize its donation and grant funding.
Thank you, Becky, for all of your work on behalf of the youth of Sonoma County. We look forward to again being an important part of SOS’s mission.
Click HERE to view a limited time recording of Becky Enos' presentation.
