Thank you to everyone who attended the Holiday Party and Annual Meeting! Happy Holidays!

California Association of Marriage & Family Therapists

East Bay Chapter

2021 Annual Report

This year started strong with nine board members who were committed to providing a full calendar of events for our chapter. Since we did not have a President Elect for 2021, I continued as President, as per the chapter bylaws. John Kravitz was elected as President-Elect and spent the year helping in various committees and learning the ins and outs of the EBCAMFT board. Jennifer Brookman did an amazing job as Secretary, keeping the meeting minutes and setting up surveys, in addition to posting regular news and information on all of our social media sites. Susan Kelsey held two positions; she has been the Treasurer, keeping track of our chapter’s finances and managing our administrative assistant, Sandy Smith, while also serving as Co-Program Director with Aliss Wang. Nanci Finley became the Membership Director this year. Tanya Jacobs continued as Pre-Licensed Director - Student Representative and Nalini Calamur continued as Pre-Licensed Director - Associate Representative, though she later had to step down. Khea Gumbs joined the chapter in January as Member-at-large.

As usual, the year started out with the Board Retreat and the Chapter Leadership Conference, though this year, they were both held via Zoom, as were all of the continuing education events we provided over the year. We had a clear objective in 2021 to provide a full roster of CE events to our members with a focus on racial justice. Our first CE event was Suicide Risk Assessment and Intervention, presented by Judy McGehee, LMFT and Sherry Shockey-Pope, LMFT. This is a newly required training for MFT license renewal, so we made sure to provide this early in the year and it was well attended. The next event was a member presentation, Zooming with Kids: Helping Kids Heal Via Telehealth and Beyond, by Susan Kelsey. In April, in collaboration with CAMFT, we provided both a Law and Ethics Workshop, presented by the CAMFT staff attorneys, and the State of the Profession presentation by the CAMFT Executive Director, Nabil Hassan El-Ghoroury, Ph.D. In July, Dr. Maryam Jernigan-Noesi presented a training on Racial Trauma: Assessment and Treatment Across the Lifespan. In October, the Road to Licensure, a guide for pre-licensed members, was provided in conjunction with CAMFT. And finally, we finished the year with a training that was free of charge to chapter members on Implicit Biases: What They Are and What We Can Do About Them by Dr. Julie A. Garcia.

As things began to feel safer with the Pandemic, our Membership Director, Nanci Finley, hosted an in-person outdoor networking brunch. It was clear that members were eager to meet with one another in person. We are grateful that there is at least one therapist networking group that continues to meet monthly and has moved it’s meeting to a restaurant with outdoor seating. Thank you to Annia Raysburg for keeping this going. We welcome anyone else who may wish to start a networking group to let us know, as we post these events on our website. The E-tree continues to be a great resource for networking and finding resources.

We are currently in the process of redesigning the EBCAMFT website and the EBCAMFT logo. We are excited about the progress toward freshening up our site and attracting new members to the chapter. We also want to provide an attractive site for prospective clients to find our talented east bay therapists. A survey monkey has been sent out to get member feedback on the new logo and we look forward to hearing your suggestions.

Financially, our chapter is doing well, with approximately $53,500 in assets. A formal reserve account is in the process of being established. Due to the ongoing Pandemic, we have not been able to return to in-person CE events and have found that the video presentations are often more highly attended than previous in-person events and more cost effective. We are saving money on venues and food needed for in-person events, which allows our financial resources to be used to pay for the cost of updating the website, hiring professional speakers and providing events to members at a lower fee.

Goals for the 2022 year include providing more programming and support for pre-licensed members, launching the new website, providing great programming, and possibly having more in-person networking and social events. However, we are still in need of Program Directors for the coming year, as well as multiple other important seats on the board. If you are interested in sitting on the board and giving back to your east bay therapist community, please contact me or incoming President, John Kravitz at president@ebcamft.org.

It has been a pleasure to serve you as the East Bay Chapter President this year and I am proud of all that we accomplished. I look forward to continuing to serve on the board in the coming year.

Thank you,

Beth Hermosillo, LMFT

President, East Bay Chapter of CAMFT 2021