Family Service Agency of San Francisco, one of San Francisco’s Oldest and Largest Social Service Organizations, is Changing its Name to Felton Institute
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (July 18, 2014) After 125 years of continuous service to San Francisco and greater Bay Area, Family Service Agency of San Francisco (FSA) is transitioning into the Felton Institute.
This change is in recognition of the fact that FSA has become a national research and training center. The name Family Service Agency of San Francisco will be retained as a division within the Felton Institute, operating the organization’s San Francisco-based social services.
The new name honors Catherine (Kitty) Felton, the founding Director of the organization and a pioneer in the creation of new social service approaches to meet emerging human needs. Felton led San Francisco’s relief efforts after the 1906 earthquake. During her 40-year career, she created the San Francisco foster care system, advocated for licensing for social workers, and founded early initiatives to aid orphans, the working poor and homeless people.
Felton Institute will continue FSA’s 125 year legacy of providing indispensible social services to the City and County of San Francisco. Services include family and individual counseling, early childhood education, family support, mental health treatment, and a broad range of supports services for San Francisco’s older residents. Currently the Felton Institute serves 12,000 individuals per year, of every age and ethnicity, in 12 major languages, in every neighborhood of the city. Additional services are offered in Alameda, San Mateo, San Joaquin, and Monterey Counties.
Among the programs of national significance that inspired the name change:
PREP (Prevention and Recovery of Early Psychosis) which is a national model for effective prevention and treatment of recent onset schizophrenia. PREP won the 2014 “Science to Service” award from the National Behavioral Health Council in Washington, D.C. It was one of 105 treatments selected by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services as a potential model treatment under the Affordable Care Act.
Felton Institute is a pioneer in the use of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Psychosis (CBTp), an approach developed in the United Kingdom and initially brought to the United States by the Institute. CBTp is a state-of-the-art treatment for individuals suffering from psychosis.
Each Year, Felton Institute offers training throughout California to therapists serving this population.
Felton is also responsible for creating the Motivational Care Management (MCM™) training program and mPOWR, a suite of software assessments that facilitate equal dialogue between counselors and their clients. These treatments are currently being evaluated at treatment centers both inside and outside of California.
Felton is a proud partner of the Patient-Centered Research Institute (PCORI) of Washington, D.C., which is funding a three-year evaluation of mPOWR in partnership with the University of New Mexico.
President and CEO of Felton Institute Bob Bennett describes the breadth and depth of the Institute’s mission as follows, “Felton is bringing science to the service of real people to help them take control of their own lives.”
For more information, visit felton.org and prepwellness.org.
About Felton Institute
For over 125 years, the Felton Institute has been responding to human needs by providing cutting edge, evidence-based social services that transform lives. Formerly the research arm of Family Service Agency of San Francisco, the Felton Institute serves as the umbrella organization for all social services provided in San Francisco and Northern and Central California counties. The Institute includes Children Youth and Family, Adult and Older Adult service divisions as well as the award-winning PREP (Prevention and Recovery in Early Psychosis) program, and a nationally-recognized Research and Training Division, which combines evidence-based practices to address some of the most pressing mental health needs today.
PREP is funded in part through a Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation Award, through Funding Opportunity Number CMS-1C1-12-0001. The contents of this press release are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of HHS or any of its agencies.