Seneca Family of Agencies

Seneca Family of Agencies (formerly Seneca Center) was founded in 1985 as a small Bay Area residential and day treatment program with a simple but powerful mission: to help children and families through the most difficult times of their lives. Since then, Seneca has expanded to provide a broad continuum of permanency, mental health, education, and juvenile justice services, which today reach over 18,000 youth and families throughout California and Washington State each year.

The agency’s growth has been guided by a commitment to our Unconditional Care® model – doing whatever it takes to help children and families thrive, even when faced with tremendous challenges. As a clinical practice model, Unconditional Care integrates three streams of assessment and intervention: relational, behavioral, and ecological. This philosophy and approach has remained central to all programs and is best articulated in our book, Unconditional Care. As a leading innovator in family-focused treatment services for children and families across the fields of education, mental health, permanency and juvenile justice, Seneca is driven by our commitment to Unconditional Care, strengths-based service planning, individualized and trauma-informed care, cultural humility, and interagency collaboration.

Seneca’s mission is to help children and families through the most difficult times of their lives. We are driven by the fundamental belief that children and families do not themselves fail, but rather are failed by systems unable to meet their complex needs. Guided by our core agency values of love, compassion, joy, hope, courage, respect and curiosity, Seneca refuses to fail the young people and families we serve. We offer each child and family a profound promise: you will be supported every step of your journey, no matter what challenges you face along the way.