Inclusivity Committee Update

The Inclusivity Committee is excited to announce two upcoming projects scheduled to launch later this year:

• Multi-Media Group: A community group focused on sharing resources, art projects, events, and books from diverse and inclusive backgrounds.

• Consultation Group: A space for clinicians to collaborate with other chapters on diversity and inclusivity, sharing collective resources to better serve a wide array of members.

If any Marin CAMFT member is interested in joining the Inclusivity Committee or would like further information, please reach out to our Director of Inclusivity Hamaseh Kianfar, LMFT, at  inclusivity@marincamft.org.

Trauma Resource Team

The Trauma Resource Team (TRT) committee has been busy hosting peer-led Trauma Talks alongside our new offering of Book Nights (online discussion of professional books) to enhance our members' knowledge and understanding of working with trauma.

In April, Shai Lavie led us through somatic and mindfulness techniques to use with trauma.  With role plays, we experienced first hand the clarity of these techniques, as well as the intersection of shame & trauma which he will be speaking about in more depth later in the year.  In May, our co-chair, Kathy Ries led a lively discussion about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) and their use in the therapeutic setting.  June’s Trauma Talk introduced the idea of creative expression in trauma treatment.

The next Book Night will be onWednesday July 8th at 6.30pm on Zoom.  Further details have been sent out by email.  Please contact Kathy at kathyriesmft@gmail.com if you would like to join us to discuss Good Morning Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery by Catherine Gildiner.  

Upcoming Trauma Talks held on Zoom at noon (each is an hour of informal presentation  & discussions with Marin CAMFT peers, no CE’s) 

• July 17 - Katharine will host, topic to be announced 

• August - no TRT meeting

• Sept 18 - Dr Lauren Ogren, Marin CAMFT President, will address how and why EMDR works for trauma processing: techniques to calm the nervous system

• Oct 16 - Maria Willett will present the second set of case studies honoring stories of trauma recovery with DBT, Attachment based therapy and Somatic Healing.  

• Nov 20 - Shai LaVie will guide a discussion on Shame and Doubt from his extensive experience with Hakomi and Somatic Experiencing.  

• December 18 - End of Year Group social TBD

In addition, we host trauma focused consultation groups and peer led vicarious trauma support groups.  You can sign up for those on the Marin CAMFT website here: https://marincamft.org/trauma-resource-team.  

If you would like to know more about the TRT, please do look at our part of the Marin CAMFT website or contact co-chairs Kathy Ries (kathyriesmft@gmail.com) or Katharine Spencer (katharinespencertherpay@gmail.com) for more information.  

We look forward to seeing you at one of our offerings the third Friday of the month at noon.

Harvesting Connection Across Our Community By Rachel L. Barr, LMFT Director of Marketing, Marin CAMFT Hello Marin CAMFT Community! As we head into the second half of the year, I am feeling incredibly energized by the vibrant, face-to-face connections we’ve been building. There is a unique magic that happens when we step out from behind our screens and gather as a professional community, and our recent events have truly highlighted the strength of our network. Celebrating Our Recent Gatherings First, a huge thank you to everyone who stopped by or volunteered at the Mill Valley PRIDE Kick-Off Party! Managing our resource booth was a wonderful opportunity to show up for our local LGBTQIA+ community, share vital mental health resources, and represent Marin CAMFT with pride. We’ve also seen incredible momentum with our recent educational and social events. The energy at our recent, highly attended presentation by Dr. Peter Aston was palpable, reminding us how much we thrive when learning alongside one another. Additionally, our casual networking gatherings at local shops around Marin have been a massive success—offering a relaxed, fun way to support local businesses while catching up with colleagues and making new professional friends.

SAVE THE DATE! THE FALL CELEBRATION IS COMING!  Building on this momentum, I am thrilled to invite you to our annual Fall Celebration! This year, our focus is all about expanding our circles and deepening our roots. We're especially excited to announce that State CAMFT Executive Director Joy Alafia will be joining us as special guest! Please save the date:  Theme: Harvesting Connection Sunday, October 4th 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM Marin CAMFT Annual Membership Meeting from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM IN PERSON: McInnis Park Golf Center, 350 Smith Ranch Road in San Rafael (Google Maps) This will be a joyous, friendly, and celebratory evening dedicated to building your network of therapists in and around Marin. We will be hosting delicious food and beverages, and we have special gifts for all attendees, alongside some truly awesome raffle prizes! Expanding Our Community In the spirit of "Harvesting Connection," we are doing things a bit differently this year. We want to cast a wider net and foster regional collaboration, so we are officially inviting our neighboring CAMFT chapters, county mental health employees, and encouraging all of our members to bring a "therapist friend" along. Whether you are a long-time member, new to the area, or a clinician working in the public sector, this event is for you. Let’s gather, celebrate our shared passion, and cultivate the relationships that sustain us in our vital work. Keep an eye on your inbox for registration details—we can't wait to see you there!

Ever thought about getting more involved with your chapter? Several Board positions will be up for election this Fall!

Marin CAMFT is looking ahead to our election season which will happen in November. In preparation, we wanted to plant the seed and ask: Are you interested in participating more actively with your chapter?

The offices of President Elect, Treasurer, Membership Director, and Pre-Licensed Director will be up for election.

Some of our current board members in those positions may generously volunteer to continue service for another term. However, each year we recruit a President Elect, who will serve one year in that role before becoming President the following year.

We are putting the idea out there now in case you might want to consider stepping up for that or one of our other board positions. Interested members curious about any of the open positions can reach out to President Lauren Ogren at president@marincamft.org to start the conversation. We will need a candidate statement and photo submitted by mid October in order to prepare the ballot.

We will share more information on these opportunities in the Fall Quarter Marin CAMFT Connections.

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Pre-Licensed Happy Hour: July 8th

Pre-licensed members:Please join the Marin CAMFT 3,000 Hour Club for a Happy Hour on Wednesday, July 8th from 4:00pm to 6:00pm at Flatiron in San Rafael. Appetizers will be provided. 

Questions on this event or the 3,000 Hour Club? Please reach out to our Pre-Licensed Director Bradford Lessor at prelicensed@marincamft.org.

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Marin CAMFT has a new phone number!

(415) 347-6038 

If you had our old number saved in your contacts, please update it now.

Please note that this is a voicemail-only phone line. We do our best to return messages within 2 business days.

Email is usually the best way to reach us: info@marincamft.org

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Bridging the Bay Hiking Series Continues

The April showers did not scare off a small group of adventurous hikers in our return of the Bridging the Bay hiking series. East Bay CAMFT hosted the first of this year's series in Briones Regional Park. The members who braved the elements got wet and muddy, but it did not seem to dampen spirits as you can tell from the smiles in the photo. The next shared hike will take place in Marin on July 18th at the Marin Headlands.

That will be followed up by SF's hike on October 24; look out for details closer to the event. The weather should be better for those hikes, so come out and join your fellow Bay Area CAMFTers in appreciating the vistas together. 

Continuing Education Programming
at Marin CAMFT

We hope you have enjoyed our programming so far in 2026! Marin CAMFT Continuing Education takes a break from our live presentations over the summer, however we have some Fall programs already lined up, including:

• Friday, September 11th from 12pm to 2pm on Zoom:
  Career Counseling with Immigrant Bicultural Youth of Color

Consider joining the Continuing Education Committee to help us put on our programs

We invite Marin CAMFT members to participate in the CE Committee's monthly meetings, to help us continue our tradition of planning high-quality trainings for our community of therapists.  The CE Committee meets quarterly to review programs and presentation ideas. 

Please reach out to our Director of Programs to learn more:  programs@marincamft.org

Check out our ever-expanding catalog of on-demand programs!

 Marin CAMFT On-Demand Training now offers an ever-expanding library of content. We have been excited to see how many of you have already taken advantage of this new offering. Watch these courses and earn CEs at your convenience!

A selection of titles recently added include:

• Understanding Diabetes and Mental Health through the Eight Dimensions of Wellness with Dawn Davis, LMFT

• The Grammar of Therapy at the Borderlands with marcela polanco, PhD
• Adaptive Information Processing in Clinical Conceptualization Psychiatry with Kenya Rocha, LMHC
  
• Integrating DBT Skills into Family Systems with Dr. Kavita Ajmere and Dr. Haleh Kouchmeshki

All are offered for free or at low cost for Marin CAMFT members, and reasonable rates for non-members. Members need to log on to your membership account at marincamft.org to get the code.,Marin CAMFT on-demand course catalog.

Need Law & Ethics CEs?

Marin CAMFT members can register for state CAMFT Law & Ethics webinars throughout the year at a special discounted rate! CAMFT has a series of trainings offered throughout 2026. Marin CAMFT receives a small referral fee for each of our members who registers for a CAMFT training through us, so it's a win-win!

Coming up in August: 

Law & Ethics: Dealing with Issues Around Gifts, Advertising, and Termination

• 3 CEs

• Presenter: Alain Montgomery, JD, CAMFT Staff Attorney

• Date:  August 7, 2026

• Time: 9:00 am - 12:00 pm

• Marin CAMFT member price: $55 (regular price $85)

The webinars are recorded, so if you are unable to attend live, you can still register until the day of the webinar, and if you do so by that date you still receive the $5 discount! You'll have two months to view the recording, and the on-demand program is eligible for 3 CEs.  

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Stay On Guard for Email Scams 

As therapists, most of us have a presence on the internet so that we can make ourselves available to clients who we can help. This means our information is out there in the public, on our own website, and in directories including the Marin CAMFT Therapist Directory. Unfortunately though, that means we can become targeted by scammers through email. These online phishing attacks are becoming more and more sophisticated. Scammers can write computer programs to visit these websites and copy that publicly available information very quickly. This process is called web scraping and many professionals who serve the public are targeted, including lawyers, architects, and many others. The information is used in different ways, such as to "spoof" the identity of someone you know, such as a colleague, or a board member of our chapter, to send you an email asking for money or gift cards.

Receiving a scam email like this, which is sent as a "phishing" attempt, does not mean someone has hacked into Marin CAMFT's website or gained access to our systems. It simply means the scammer collected information that was already visible to anyone on the internet.

You may have seen the latest twist on these scam emails, which has come in the form of party invitations that seem to have been sent from someone in your network. Unfortunately, if you get any party invitations by email these days, you'll need to carefully investigate whether it's authentic or not. Many, many people have been duped by these party-invite scam emails, so if it happened to you, don't feel too bad. It was a new form of these attacks and we need to stay on alert to how the scammers change their tactics.

The good news is that these scams are usually avoidable by slowing down and checking a few things before responding or clicking:

• Be cautious of unexpected emails, even if they mention your name or an organization like Marin CAMFT that you recognize.

• Check the sender's email address carefully. It may look similar to a real account but contain small differences, such as spelling "bankofamerica.com" as "bank0famerica.com" with a zero instead of the letter O.

• Do not click links or open attachments unless you were expecting them.

• Be suspicious of messages that create urgency, such as claiming you must act "immediately" or "today."

• Never provide passwords, financial information, or verification codes by email or text message.

• If an email seems unusual, contact the organization using a phone number or website you already know is legitimate. Don't use any contact information that may have been included in the email.

• The nature of the internet is such that each of us need to be careful when reading messages that come in to our own inboxes.

For our members who participate on the Marin CAMFT listserv: Our listserv software provider employs industry-standard security measures and continuously monitors for malicious activity to help keep communications safe. While no email system can prevent every scam, this provider is a reputable and responsive company, and the controls set up with our listserv management processes help ensure that only active members of the chapter are participating in the discussions there. We also regularly review our website systems and security protocols in place as part of our operations of the chapter.

We realize these scam emails are concerning, and wanted to offer some explanations for how they occur, and share the steps that we take with the systems that run the Marin CAMFT chapter.

Have you updated your profile in the Therapist Directory recently? Make sure it is current and complete! Instructions for updating are on the Marin CAMFT How-Tos threads.

Invitation to the Marin CAMFT listserv

The listserv is our chapter's email community. It's a great resource for getting and giving referrals, making connections, learning about office space for rent, and more!

If you are a Marin CAMFT member and want to join the listserv, please send a message to MCAMFT+subscribe@groups.io and our listserv moderator will confirm Marin CAMFT membership and subscribe you.