Link Center Rejects Proposed Cuts to Certificate Programs
The Community and Public Health department's resource center calls on City Hall to protect the city’s vulnerable populations
By Andrew Ciscel, Derrick Williams, and Madi Allen
We are City College of San Francisco students, staff and faculty, writing to urge Mayor Lurie and the Board of Supervisors to reinstate funding for the following programs: Addiction & Recovery Counseling (ARC) certificate, Community Mental Health (CMH) certificate, and Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialist (MCPSS) certificate.
These career training programs provide the essential workforce that support the mental health and substance abuse recovery of San Francisco’s most vulnerable residents. At a time when our city is already facing a critical shortage of trained public health professionals, this proposed $800k budget cut will further debilitate a workforce pipeline that is crucial to addressing our existing mental health, homelessness, and substance use crises.
These funding cuts will eliminate the CMH and MCPSS programs, along with severely reducing course offerings for the ARC, eliminating supportive services in all programs that are essential for student educational success, and result in plummeting graduation rates. As the only free educational programs that train a significant portion of San Francisco’s frontline providers, these programs impact lives across the city every single day.
Beyond the services provided to residents, these programs have changed the lives of students who complete this education, as we are often members of the same communities we serve: most of us are students of color, low-income students, formerly justice-involved students, LGBTQ+ students, immigrant students and/or students in substance use recovery. We bring invaluable lived experience that, when matched with the training these certificate programs offer, results in the talented case managers, counselors, peer support specialists, substance use disorder counselors, and other direct-service providers that San Francisco relies on. These cuts would severely restrict our continued access to educational attainment and professional development.
While we understand that the city faces a significant budget deficit, this specific cut is counterproductive to our city’s recovery. We ask that Mayor Lurie and the Board prioritize the workforce needed to protect San Francisco’s most vulnerable populations.
Andrew Ciscel is a graduate of the Community Mental Health certificate program and the Link Center’s program manager. Derrick Williams is a Trauma Prevention and Recovery certificate student. Madi Allen is an Addiction and Recovery Counseling certificate student.
