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Tyler Bennett is a cis-gendered gay man and Berkeley City College (BCC) student transferring to UC Berkeley, Fall 2021, majoring in Social Welfare/Public Health. Tyler grew up in two northeast Ohio counties spending formative years at the edge of Appalachia and adolescence in a “football” town. His personal struggles throughout school provided the impetus for his [...]
I'm always grateful for a lot of people who help and accompany me to get through the challenges in my life. As an international student who had mild autism during childhood, I can relate to people's feelings of suffering depression and mental stress. But thanks to my family and friends, especially my parents, who never give [...]
A solid internship can be a major turning point for a student’s career journey. Shabana Ali, age 23, knows this well. She is grateful to have experienced that kind of internship at Alameda County Behavioral Health (ACBH) in summer 2019. “I really liked it because it was different than some of the other internships that I've [...]
An internship with Alameda County Behavioral Healthcare Services (ACBHCS) was more than a résumé boost. “It was a life-changing experience!” she said. In the summer of 2018, Monica was entering her senior year at Skyline High School in Oakland when she took on the five-week paid summer internship. She learned professional skills such as creating spreadsheets [...]
Elaine Peng is on a mission to help the Chinese community. “It’s time to get people to open up and talk about mental health,” says Peng, president of the Mental Health Association for Chinese Communities. Her passion for mental health advocacy comes from her own life. Peng was happily married, teaching Chinese, and raising her wonderful [...]
Young adulthood can be challenging, especially if you lack support while dealing with a mental health issue. Markeeta Parker, 31, recalls being a TAY, or transitional age youth, looking for help. “When Markeeta became a TAY, she was afraid of change,” Parker says of her former self. “She stayed in the same home, where she dealt [...]
“If anybody tells you get to over it, remember you’ve got to get through it, “advises peer specialist Michelle Mateo. Mateo, 49, has gone through a lot, which she believes led to her battling depression and alcoholism. She was two when her mother, a military nurse, died by suicide in their San Francisco home. Mateo’s mother [...]
Ashley King, recently interned at Alameda County Eden Children’s Services, was a recipient of Alameda County Behavioral Health’s (ACBH) Graduate Intern Stipend Program. The stipend program provides financial incentive to eligible students to build a diverse behavioral healthcare workforce. This program is funded by the Mental Health Services Act. King is one of the hard-working awardees [...]
Darren Linzie’s smile is as vibrant as the comic books he creates. Linzie, 47, has been drawing since the age of two. Drawing comics is one of his passions, but it also helps with his mental health. “The cartoons put me at ease,” he explains. Like comic books heroes, Linzie has gone through his own journey [...]
Consumers, individuals with mental health and substance use conditions, work as peer counselors in Alameda County. They are an essential resource for recovery and work with clients to help them develop new meaning and purpose for their lives. The journey of mental health recovery is a deeply personal and unique process. Peer counselors share how they [...]
