A comprehensive foster & adoption agency providing behavioral health, parent advocacy, family strengthening and community training.
A comprehensive child & family services agency providing mental health care for children, parent advocacy & mentorship, family strengthening, parenting classes and community trainings.
12/04/2025
If someone you care about is struggling, you can make a difference. Join us for Mental Health First Aid training and learn how to have conversations that truly matter this holiday season.
In this training, you will learn how to:
• Reduce stigma
• Step in with an effective, compassionate plan
• Increase mental health literacy
• Practice talking about hard topics
Live instructor-led course via Zoom
Thursday, December 18th, 2025
9:00 AM – 4:30 PM
Together, we can support the people who need it most.
Hosted by A Better Way in partnership with Mental Health First Aid® / National Council for Mental Wellbeing.
12/02/2025
Your gift today goes twice as far.
On this Giving Tuesday, every dollar you give to A Better Way will be matched up to $2,500 — helping children, youth, and families across the Bay Area access the care, stability, and support they deserve.
Our Social Services Programs (SSP) team — including ARS, PEP, and FRS — brought so much heart to Hayward this weekend at their 6th Annual Holiday Food Basket Giveaway.
With generous support from Shiloh Church Oakland and local store partners, the SSP team distributed 175 bags of food, 60 turkeys, and enough groceries to support over 90 families. Families arrived early by car, on foot, and by rideshare, and every one of them left with a warm smile and a full basket.
Please join us in celebrating the SSP team for spending their Saturday uplifting our community with compassion and joy. ❤️✨
11/21/2025
Our Parent Engagement Program (PEP) team had a wonderful team-building Painting Luncheon this week — and we had to share some of the smiles and artwork! 🎨💙
PEP Parent Advocates walk beside parents involved with Alameda County’s Child Welfare System, offering guidance, education, and hope during some of the hardest moments a family can face. Because they’ve navigated the system themselves and successfully reunified with their own children, they bring a level of empathy, understanding, and courage that is truly extraordinary.
Moments like this retreat help our team recharge and strengthen their bond — so they can continue showing up for families with compassion and confidence.
11/21/2025
Our new Impact Report is here! 💙
Every page is filled with the real-life impact of your kindness. You will see how children, youth, and families are getting mental health support, parent advocacy, and family strengthening services because people like you care.
Our offices are closed today in observance of Veterans Day. We honor and thank all who have served — and their families — for the courage and sacrifices made in service to our country. 💙
11/06/2025
ONLINE TRAINING
Thurs, Nov 13th | 9:15a-1:15p
Supporting System-Involved Youth and Families in Navigating Conflict
Description:
Conflict is often avoided, feared, and seen as negative. In a world of “cancel culture” and hypercriticality on social media, the “good/bad” binary persists and perpetuates the idea that there is only one right way to exist.
How can we shift the concept of conflict and understand it as a means for deeper connection and more trusting relationships with one another and ourselves?
In this interactive workshop, participants will explore their own experiences with conflict in the way they were socialized from childhood to adolescence and into adulthood. We will look at models for giving and receiving feedback and engage in small group discussion about the way conflict pushes our shame buttons and how we can co-regulate and self-soothe to stay present and accountable.
The main goal of the course is to support the work providers and clinicians do with system-involved youth and families who are navigating conflict. We hope participants will leave with useful tools, language, and resources, as well as a deeper contextual framework for the “why” behind the complexity of conflict in personal, interpersonal, systemic, and cultural ways.
🚨EMERGENCY FOOD DRIVE 🚨
We’re getting urgent requests from our clients for food assistance. Your donation will be used to deliver grocery store gift cards to families affected by SNAP funding delays.
Right now, families across the Bay Area are struggling to put meals on the table after losing vital SNAP support. For parents already doing their best, this loss means going without groceries—or skipping bills just to feed their kids. But you can change that. Your gift today gives a grocery gift c...
11/01/2025
Happy Halloween from A Better Way! 👻
Wishing everyone a night filled with laughter, imagination, and just the right amount of spooky fun!
Whether you’re trick-or-treating, passing out candy, or dressing up with your family, we hope your evening is safe, joyful, and full of sweet surprises.
💜 Thank you for helping make our community a kinder, brighter place — today and every day.
10/31/2025
If your children are trick-or-treating this year, keep them safe with these tips: ⚠️
- Add reflective tape to costumes so they’re easier to see.
- Make sure shoes fit and costumes are short enough so they don’t trip.
- Always have an adult go trick-or-treating with them.
🍎 Need Food Support? 🍇
If your SNAP (CalFresh) benefits are paused or you’re struggling to afford groceries, free food assistance is available now through The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP).
TEFAP provides free groceries and shelf-stable food to low-income individuals and families across the Bay Area — no ID or citizenship proof required.
Here’s how to get help:
✅ Live in a Bay Area county.
✅ Self-certify that your income meets the guidelines (at or below 235% of the federal poverty level).
✅ Find your local food bank or pantry and ask about “TEFAP commodities” or “emergency food assistance.”
✅ Bring proof of address (like a utility bill) if asked.
✅ You can still use this program even if you already receive SNAP or WIC.
Let’s make sure no one in our community goes hungry.
💛 Please share this post to help spread the word.
10/30/2025
Bay Area folks: Call 211 if you are in immediate need of food assistance. For more information visit https://211bayarea.org
Call 211 If you are in immediate need of food assistance, please dial 2-1-1 from a phone and speak with someone about services available in your area (2-1-1 is a three-digit dialing code, similar to 4-1-1). Lines are open 24 hours a day. Most but not all areas provide 2-1-1…
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A Better Way Inc was founded in 1996 as a Foster Family Program. Since then, we have grown into a comprehensive foster and adoption services agency, providing adoption, community training, parent advocacy, and behavioral health services to children and families at risk or involved with the foster care system. The mission of A Better Way is to empower children and families to develop the insights, life skills, and permanent relationships that promote their social, emotional, educational and economic well-being.
Since 1996, A Better Way has provided foster care placements to more than 2,000 children and has finalized 300 adoptions. We are the one of the few organizations in San Francisco and Alameda counties with expertise in assessing and providing behavioral health services to children 0-5 involved in the social services system through pre- or post-adoption, outpatient mental health, and reunification services.
A Better Way has provided behavioral health services to close to 2,500 children, many of whom live in our communities’ most impoverished and violence-ridden neighborhoods. In addition to behavioral health services, we provide intensive support and case management for parents pursuing reunification through our Parent Engagement Program with the help of parents who have successfully navigated the reunification process.
As a training center for foster parents and service providers, A Better Way provides about 2,000 hours of training per year in Alameda and Solano Counties – primarily through Title IV-E Training contracts with Chabot-Las Positas Community College. We coordinate and provide comprehensive training on an array of topics to professionals from other agencies, A Better Way staff, County personnel, and foster and birth parents.
Annually, A Better Way serves over 450 foster and adoptive children and families though behavioral health services and the Parent Engagement Program. All of A Better Way’s programs emphasize a strengths-based, capacity-building approach that helps parents and families achieve lasting success.
