It was an eventful January 2023, and we have quite a few Masada updates to share. Keep reading to learn more!
🧸 TBS Holiday Toy Drive
Masada Homes TBS continued our annual partnership with our sponsor New Century Health (NCH). TBS Program Director Cesar E. Gonzalez collaborated with Alejandra Valenzuela in coordinating the Holiday Toy Drive for 2022. New Century Health employees were paired with our clients who then donated gifts listed from the Client’s Amazon Wishlist.
The gifts were mailed directly to the Gardena office where we had Santa helpers organize and wrap all of the gifts. Thank you to Cecilia Lopez, Patricia Tindbaek, Kelly Asato, and Andrea Urrea for volunteering!
Thereafter, our mobile Santa’s (TBS Specialists) delivered all of the gifts to their clients with a festive spirit during field based sessions. Thank you to all the TBS Specialists for your dedication to the clients and their families: Hao Nguyen, Karla Cruz, Rocio Herrera, Noel Villa, Anthony Gonzales, Tremaine Peters, Ekene Chukwuma, Veronica Rodriguez, Veronica Sanchez, Jose Jimenez, and Maria Rivas.
NCH donated about 70 gifts ranging from dolls, board games, sports gear, art supplies, and even clothes. We’d like to take this opportunity to express our heartfelt gratitude to NCH. The joy and excitement that the children experienced when they received their gifts was memorable captured in the shared photos. Your continued support, especially through the pandemic has truly been a blessing to our clients and their families.
Thank you once more for the 2022 Holiday Toy Drive!
🎄 Happy Holidays from the QI Team
On January 27th, the QI Team was finally able to hold their holiday celebration with a delicious lunch at Marmalade Cafe. Everyone was able to catch up after the holidays and convey plans for the upcoming year. And the more the merrier, QI’s honorary member Khai Nguyen was able to join in the festivities as well. Before the meals were served, QI played games like “Pass the Gift” and “Christmas Poem” so everyone could win a little special prize.
Adding to the holiday cheer, QI squeezed in a belated birthday celebration for all of its team members whose birthdays were from November to January. While everyone enjoyed a slice of Porto’s cheesecake, everyone exchanged their secret Santa gift. Each gift was generous and thoughtful– a reflection of QI’s considerate character.
Thank you Masada Homes for providing QI with this wonderful time!
🏆 Lancaster Parent Skill Building Group
SA 1 Wraparound Parent Partner Monica Nunez will be facilitating an in-person English and Spanish Parent Skill Building Group at the Lancaster office.
English Parent Skill Building Group
Spanish Parent Skill Building Group
👏🏽 2nd Quarter Staff Recognition
Congratulations to our 2nd Quarter Staff Recognition Nominees!
Thank you for representing Masada core values of Strength-Based Approach, Communication, Collaboration, Integrity, Respect and Accountability for the overall benefit of our clients and their families.
Sandra has worked as an outpatient therapist at Masada for the past year. Over the past year she has demonstrated a great work ethic and has consistently gone above and beyond her duties and responsibilities. She always participates and gives great feedback in group supervision and her good work has been recognized by clients and caregivers.
Her hard work and dedication to our clients is admirable and a great representation of the quality of care that Masada provides. We are happy to acknowledge Sandra as an outstanding member of our outpatient team this quarter.
Sonia has been with the Gardena Outpatient program for a little over a year as a Community Therapist and this year has been a busy one. She has gotten certified in both MAP and TF-CBT at the same time that she was building up her caseload, covering clients when other therapists were out on leave or PTO, and taking on transfer clients when needed.
Despite all these changes, Sonia works hard to get her notes entered and her Notes Aging stays under 2 days consistently. She is consistent with meeting Productivity standards as well, and when the incentive was offered for exceeding Productivity, Sonia was able to take advantage of that bonus every month. She is always helpful with others, and has supported our newer therapists by offering to have them shadow her intake assessments so she could show them the ropes.
Sonia is always open to constructive criticism about clinical issues so that she can develop as a therapist. She builds rapport well with clients and even the most defensive of caregivers; she maintains her cool and calm demeanor even when she has to set boundaries. We are so glad that Sonia decided to make the Outpatient Department her new home after many years in other Masada Homes departments.
Samantha Zamora joined our Masada Homes team in 2017 as a Wraparound Parent Partner and, since then, has been developing excellent relationships with the families she serves, the teams she works with, and external systems of care. She is proactive and supports team members by sharing responsibility for developing, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating wraparound action plans. Samantha uses her life experience to support, empower, and motivate caregivers.
Samantha is accountable and regularly engages biological, foster parents, and family supports through effective communication and a strength-based approach. Recently, Samantha transitioned to tier 2 due to consistent high performance in her work ethic. She is always seeking opportunities to be more productive, has a positive attitude, and is detail-oriented, which reflects positively in her work. We are so proud of Samantha!
A few months ago, she also took part in a historical moment for the State of California as she became part of the first Parent Partners to pass the Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialist certification exam. Go Sam!
Congratulations to Ekene Chukwuma for winning the nomination for the 2nd quarterly staff recognition award of the 2022-2023 fiscal year, proudly representing the TBS Department. Ekene has been a member of the Masada Homes team since 2005, longer than his membership with Costco. Ekene began his career by working in group homes, and in 2007, Ekene transferred to TBS as a Specialist in the Gardena office. As his family grew, Ekene moved to another county and subsequently transferred his talents by joining the TBS team in the Rancho Cucamonga office.
Ekene’s quarterly recognition is due in part to going above and beyond his selected productivity tier, being below his progress notes aging requirement, meeting the needs of his clients and caregivers by working throughout the holidays, and increasing his collaboration with the Rancho Cucamonga Mental Health Service team. Ekene increased his services by taking Individual Rehabilitation, Parent Partner, and Targeted Case Management cases on top of his continued TBS cases.
Ekene’s genuine optimism, use of physical activities with younger clients, caregiver empathy, and meeting clients where they are in their lives, consistently leads to Ekene’s treatment success.
Jessica is new to Masada but after being at Masada for only 7 months she has made a strong impression. Jessica or “JT” is the first certified occupational therapy assistant we have had at Masada in many years. Along with having to learn a new job.
JT has had to help create a new role working with the adults in FSP. JT has been a strong advocate for her clients and shows an ability to build rapport with some of our most challenging clients. JT created and has been running a Social Skills group with the adults in Norwalk, the first in person group at Norwalk since we shut down for Covid. JT has been able to meet or exceed her productivity requirements and has always gotten her documentation in, in a timely manner.
JT has been a great advocate for her clients and her profession. In her personal life JT has 2 boys to whom she is a great mother. She has recently been enjoying bringing them to Disneyland.
We would like to recognize Linda Nakamura, Psy.D, QI Clinician. Linda has been with Masada Homes for 12.5 years and has been a great asset to the agency bringing in a depth of clinical, supervisory, and managerial experience.
Linda has done an excellent job in her role of a QI Clinician. She has been a QI Liaison for various programs. She is currently the QI Liaison for the Wraparound Program, which underwent several changes and Linda provided support throughout the implementation. Linda consistently goes above and beyond in accomplishing all her tasks along with many special projects. During this quarter, Linda has worked on several time sensitive projects in addition to her regular duties.
She exemplifies all of Masada Homes‘ core values of Strength Based Approach, Communication, Integrity, Collaboration, Respect and Accountability. She consistently receives positive feedback from others at Masada Homes. In addition, she continuously represents the agency in the community and has developed and fostered meaningful professional relationships with LACDMH QI/QA representatives. She is one of the first faces every new employee has the pleasure to interact with during their initial training.
Linda has been an integral part of the QI team and has contributed greatly to developing and maintaining our training materials as well as all our checklists and additional tools. Linda is an excellent team player and is greatly appreciated by the QI team and the agency.
🎄 December Raffle Winners
🥳 January Raffle Invitation
🏆 Happy Lunar New Year
May good fortune and health leap into your life this Lunar New Year! 2023 marks the year of the rabbit or cat.
The rabbit and cat symbolize patience, resilience, and prosperity–all energies we hope you embody for this year. Whether or not you are celebrating with dumpling soup and red envelopes, we also hope the new year will be a transformative time to reflect, rest, and reconnect with family and friends or relationships you cherish.
Open Positions at Masada
Below are the open positions we have at Masada. If you know of someone who is a great fit be sure to let us know!
A referral bonus of $250 will be provided to any current employee who refers someone that gets hired by Masada.
Rancho Cucamonga Office:
- No open positions at this time.
Norwalk Office:
- Full-Time, Full-Service Partnership Therapist – Adult
- Full-Time, Co-Occurring Disorders (COD) Counselor
Bellflower Office:
- Full-Time Child and Family Specialist/Rehab Specialist (Bellflower/Gardena)
- Full-Time Wraparound Parent Partner
Gardena Office:
- Full-Time Wraparound Therapist
- Full-Time Administrative Specialist
- Full-Time Wraparound Parent Partner
Lynwood Office:
- Full-Time Parent Partner (Lynwood/Gardena/Hawaiian Gardens)
- Full-Time Child and Family Specialist/Rehab Specialist
Lancaster Office:
- Full-Time Community Therapist (Hybrid)
- Full-Time Wraparound/IFCCS Clinical Supervisor
Los Angeles Office:
No open positions at this time