Third Thursdays

*If an organization you work or volunteer for has an upcoming event or opportunities to publicize, you can do a shout out. At a future event, we may ask you to update us on event or opportunities you presented.

Kavoos G. Bassiri
President & Chief Executive Officer, Richmond Area Multi-Services, Inc.

Kavoos G. Bassiri is a licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and a Certified Group Psychotherapist with approximately two decades of clinical and/or administrative experience in the field of mental health. He maintains a private psychotherapy & consultation practice and is a member of the clinical faculty with the Department of Psychiatry at UCSF School of Medicine.

He has traveled to Southeast Asia and other countries as an invited volunteer healthcare professional with Doctor to Doctor organization participating in educational conferences and providing assistance to other healthcare professionals in underserved places around the world.

He is known both locally, nationally, and internationally for his expertise in clinical cultural competence, group psychotherapy and facilitation, psychosocial rehabilitation, organizational development, and outcome-oriented practice in psychotherapy. His areas of interest include working with the culturally diverse and seriously mentally ill population, psychoanalytic theory and practice, applied psychoanalysis, and training on case formulation, treatment planning & clinical documentation.

Janie Hong, PhD
Department of Psychology, Stanford University

Janie Hong received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and is currently a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer in Department of Psychology at Stanford University (http://www-psych.stanford.edu/). Dr. Hong’s research focuses on clarifying how Asian cultural beliefs and values may challenge current methods of psychological assessment and treatment and on developing culturally sensitive models of mental health.

Dr. Hong is also committed to bridging the gap between Asian communities and mental health service providers. She has provided training workshops for mental health professionals, presented community lectures on the role of culture in mental health, developed outreach programs for Asian American parents, published and presented research findings, and worked at several different mental health clinics to offer services to Asian clients.

In September of 2007, Dr. Hong will join the San Francisco Bay Area Center for Cognitive Therapy (http://www.sfbacct.com/) to continue pursuing her research, clinical and community interests.

Helen Hsu, Psy.D.
Clinical Supervisor and Director of Training, Asian Community Mental Health Services

In addition to teaching, Dr. Helen H. Hsu is a consultant on Asian American mental heath and culturally competent practices in the delivery of psychological services. Active in the community, she is the Director of Training at Asian Community Mental Health Services in Oakland, California, where she supervises the professional training of graduate psychology student interns and staff.

She is also an invited member of the Alameda County children’s services advisory panel under the California Mental Health Services Act; a founding board member of the Chinese American Mental Health Network and of Family Support for Healthy Minds; and is certified in Disaster Mental Health, which enabled her to serve in the New Orleans disaster relief effort as a part of the federally funded Katrina Assistance Project.

Dr. Hsu is a graduate of the University of California Los Angeles and Alliant University in psychology and clinical psychology, with specializations in multi-cultural and community mental health. Dr. Hsu speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese.

Christina Shea, LMFT
Director of Child, Youth & Family Services, Richmond Area Multi-Services, Inc.

Christina Shea is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and has been working in the mental health field for almost twenty years. Prior to her appointment as Director of Children, Youth, and Family Services at RAMS, she was the original coordinator for the Fu Yau Project, a successful collaboration between RAMS, Inc. and Chinatown Child Development Center.

As a first-generation immigrant from Hong Kong and mother of two children, she is personally and professionally aware of the assimilation, acculturation, and developmental issues that are prevalent in the population in which RAMS serves. She has a deep commitment to underserved communities and expertise in providing bilingual, culturally competent mental health services to the children and families of San Francisco, with a unique specialty in working diverse populations - African Americans, Asian Americans, Chinese immigrants from China, Hong Kong, and South East Asian, severely emotional disabled adults, adolescents, children and families.