The Elizabeth Morgan Brown Center

The clinic is named after local teen Elizabeth Morgan Brown, who died by suicide in 2018 after struggling for years with depression and anxiety. Elizabeth’s parents, David and Seong Brown, struggled to find appropriate care for her, and after her death have committed themselves to bring more treatment options to Sonoma County. Elizabeth was an exceptionally intelligent, highly accomplished and poised young woman with a kind heart. Despite her struggle with mental health she volunteered her time helping people in need including with the National Alliance on Mental Illness sharing her story with her peers to end silence, erode stigma and change attitudes toward brain illness.

“Elizabeth accomplished more in her short 19 years than most people do in a lifetime,” said Seong and David Brown, Elizabeth’s parents. “We believe that her spirit and the amazing inspirational work of One Mind with the Elizabeth Morgan Brown Center will have a huge impact on youth in Sonoma County and beyond. This Center will not only save lives but assist youth in becoming healthy and happy adults.”

With key financial startup support from Kaiser Permanente Northern California Community Benefit Programs and One Mind, the Elizabeth Morgan Brown Center is the inaugural clinic of One Mind’s ASPIRe initiative. ASPIRe - Accelerating Serious Psychiatric Illness Recovery - aims to enable 100 percent of youth with early serious psychiatric illness to access gold-standard care, compared to only 8 percent today, and for the proportion of patients who recover from serious psychiatric illness to rise from 22 percent today to 75 percent by 2040.

Operated by Aldea Children & Family Services, the clinic is staffed by professional mental health personnel, including psychiatrists and nurse practitioners. The clinic is part of EPI-CAL and the University of California Davis Early Psychosis Learning Health Care Network, which helps share data and best practices to improve mental health care across the state.

Aldea’s SOAR program employs the UC Davis Coordinated Specialty Care (CSC) EDAPT (Early Diagnosis and Preventive Treatment) model, a recovery-based treatment approach which has demonstrated efficacy with individuals within the first two years of the onset of full psychosis and those at risk of developing psychosis. The goals and anticipated outcomes of the SOAR program, housed within the EMB Center are, through early detection, assessment, and treatment of psychotic illness, to empower clients and families to understand psychotic illness in general and the client’s illness in particular, to fully engage clients and families in their own recovery process, and thereby to reduce their symptoms so they may reach their personal, educational, and occupational goals. This team-based model prioritizes the client and family as central to treatment and recovery and respects the client’s right to self-determination while fostering an understanding of the importance of psychoeducation and family support. The goal of the program is to intervene as early as possible in order to prevent the development of illness-related deficits or treatment-related side effects for individuals who have recently developed a psychotic disorder, or who are at high risk for a psychotic disorder and are experiencing possible prodromal symptoms. Services provided include comprehensive psychiatric assessment; intensive case management, psychoeducation, crisis management, and problem solving; individual psychotherapy using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy; groups including Multifamily, Substance Abuse Management, Peer Support; support from Family Advocate; Supported Education and Employment; medication management.

Eligibility criteria includes:

1. Ages: 8-30 in Napa; 12-30 in Solano & Sonoma
2. IQ > 70, no significant medical illness/ injury associated with psychotic symptoms OR condition that impairs cognition (e.g. head injury, tumor, etc.)
3. Clinical criteria must include one or more of the following:
1. Onset of psychosis within the past two years; or,
2. Attenuated psychotic symptoms (of any duration); or,
3. Recent deterioration in ability to cope with stressors and have a parent or sibling with a history of psychotic disorder; or,
4. Diagnosis of Mood/Bipolar Disorder (with attenuated psychotic symptoms of any duration OR fully psychotic features with onset in the past two years).
4. Drug use is acceptable, but no dependence.

Clients most appropriate for referral to the program include those with caregivers or a support system willing to participate in the member’s treatment and benefit from the full scope of program supports. For more information, contact the Aldea SOAR Program Coordinator: