Did you know? Both youth of color and LGBTQ+ young people are disproportionately over represented in foster care and often face barriers to finding therapists who understand their culture, lived experiences, or that affirm their identities.
Building Practice in Community (BPIC) is a national network of therapists transforming access to culturally attuned mental health care. By investing in therapists and the relationships that sustain their work, BPIC creates pathways to grow, lead, and thrive. Together, we’re expanding who has access to care—and who gets to shape its future.
Mentorship & Community
Peer mentorship, licensure support, and guidance for building and sustaining a private practice.
Training & Advancement
Continuing education, specialized clinical training, and opportunities to pursue advanced clinical certifications.
Fellowship
An immersive opportunity to deepen clinical practice, strengthen leadership, and build meaningful professional relationships.
Lived Experience at the Center
The experiences of people impacted by foster care shape how we learn, grow, and serve.
Did you know? Research shows that clients who share a cultural background or identity with their therapist often feel more understood and stay in therapy longer — which is exactly why foster youth asked A Home Within for providers who reflect their lived experience.
Dr. Amanda Medrano, Psy.D., is a clinical psychologist based in Walnut Creek, California, specializing in perinatal mental health, attachment, and relational trauma. Her work integrates psychodynamic, attachment-focused, and systems-informed approaches, with clinical experience across community mental health, integrated medical settings, and foster care–impacted populations. She serves as a Volunteer Clinical Professor with UCSF’s Department of Psychiatry, where she provides supervision and training to psychiatry fellows. Dr. Medrano’s teaching emphasizes reflective practice and the use of the therapeutic relationship as a central site of understanding and change.
Her areas of research and publications are consistently focused on incorporating strength-based outlook on healing and mental health recovery which she has found important in her research background and clinical knowledge of various traumas faced in communities of color.
Adanna Eke, LCSW, PMH-C
Director of Building Practice in Community
Co-Clinical Director, LA Chapter
Candice Simonds, LCSW
Chief Program Officer
BPIC Founder
Keturah is a committed advocate for culturally responsive, community-centered care. She works to expand equitable mental health resources for people with lived experience of foster care across Los Angeles County through her leadership as Co-Chapter Director of A Home Within’s Los Angeles Chapter and within BPIC.
Kevin is a trauma-informed, attachment-based therapist. He supports adoptive and foster families while advancing community mental health initiatives that uplift marginalized voices. As a dedicated BPIC leader, Chapter Director in Portland, and EMDR Consultation Group facilitator, he mentors clinicians and helps expand access to culturally congruent care.
Jordan Johnson, Graduate Student Intern at Capella University, is committed to serving her Los Angeles community through a focus on women’s health, maternal wellness, and culturally grounded mental health. Her work as a doula supports women during pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. She also supports people with lived experience of foster care through her professional A Home Within internship.
Michael provides culturally responsive, evidence-based care to individuals, couples, and families using EMDR and somatic approaches. His specialty focuses on athletes, performers, and high-stakes professionals. He helps expand culturally attuned care for people with lived experience of foster care through his leadership and volunteerism with A Home Within and BPIC.
Sonia is a licensed psychotherapist and the founder of Vida Libre Therapy. With a deep commitment to empathy, social justice, and healing, Sonia has pursued a career in social work since 2007, transitioning to psychotherapy in 2013. She brings a wealth of experience from her work across the Bay Area in non-profit agencies and public schools. Her career has focused on serving low-income youth and families facing adversity and complex mental health challenges.
Founder and Executive Director of Cultural Connections Therapy, Mariana was raised in Brazil and Spain and opened her practice to address “what is often lost in translation” in the American healing process. Mariana speaks Spanish, French, English, and Portuguese fluently and helps families from the Latin diaspora navigate the challenges of acculturation.
Kevin’s clinical practice includes a systemic perspective of therapy which centers on the significance of context and interaction in development of problems and their resolution. In addition to operating a private practice serving the needs of interracial adoptive and foster families, Kevin has provided leadership to A Home Within by facilitating a BIPOC consultation group since 2020.
Nichole has her Doctorate in New Testament from Fuller Seminary and is trained in numerous evidenced-based modalities. She has been a community-based provider for families involved in Child Welfare and the Juvenile Justice systems. Nichole’s clinical posture invites those she serves and clinicians to engage in faith-based interventions to support healing and resiliency at any point in the stages of development.
Candice is the Chief Program Officer at A Home Within and oversees the strategic plan to advance the organization’s initiatives. Additionally, she brings experience working in a variety of clinical settings and is currently operating Simonds Counseling, a private practice which is dedicated to compassionately discovering new possibilities and modalities to respond to psychosocial stress related to multi-ethnic cultural identity. Candice is licensed to practice in Califonia & Ohio.
Watch the Highlight Reel above of Symposium 2 presented by BPIC titled Visibility, Vulnerability, and Care: Black Men and Mental Health.
BPIC members have access to a growing slate of trainings and learning pathways designed to deepen skills and expand culturally responsive practice, including:
(Availability may vary over time; please check the registration links or BPIC newsletter for current offerings.)
