COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY
A Home Within is committed to honoring and manifesting the diversity of our communities. We embrace and nurture diversity on every axis: racial and ethnic identity; language and culture; gender and sexual identity; economic circumstances; geographic location; training, discipline, and modality. We acknowledge the existence of systemic oppression and commit to breaking down barriers to accessing mental health services for all people experiencing oppression by and within systems. We advance our mission and strengthen our organization by actively engaging with the unique experiences and perspectives of every individual with whom we collaborate. We commit resources to fostering the interconnectedness of our community, and continuously strive to ensure that we welcome and celebrate the diversity of our staff, volunteers, young people, and audiences.
HISTORY
A small group of psychotherapists founded the organization as the Children’s Psychotherapy Project in San Francisco in 1994 with a mission to heal the wounds of complex trauma and ambiguous loss for current and former foster youth by providing individual, open-ended, relationship-based psychotherapy free of charge through local networks of volunteer clinicians. Incorporating as the non-profit A Home Within in 2001, AHW rapidly grew to its current network of 20 chapters of volunteer clinicians across 11 states serving over 500 young people currently or previously in foster care.
VISION
Our vision is that all children who experience foster care are provided this essential support, ensuring that as they transition from foster care, regardless of which stage of life they are in, they have the inner tools they need to thrive. By matching youth with experienced therapists, we address the trauma and disruption inherent to foster care, help youth manage stress and anxiety, and develop the inner tools they need to become healthy adults.
MISSION
With a mission to create and support lasting, caring relationships for children and youth in foster care, A Home Within identifies, recruits, trains, and supports a network of licensed therapists who each provide free, weekly, one-to-one therapy to a single foster youth "for as long as it takes." For foster youth who often watch people move in and out of their lives, our model creates an anchor of support.
