Letter from Catherine S. Clark
April 11, 2006

[To:] Opinion Editor Leon Worden

    Don Rimac, a resident of Santa Clarita for many years, and a member of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church for just as many years, sent me the Opinion section of The Signal dated April 2, 2006. The lead article ["Newsmaker of the Week" interview] is about Liz Seipel, CEO of the Child & Family Center. The following is a correction to her statement about the starting of the Center.
    The Julia Ann Preschool Psychiatric Center (let me just refer to it as JAPPC, for brevity's sake) of Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, should be given credit for the beginning of the Center. JAPPC, in the early 1970's, had begun an innovative program for treating very young children and their families. The major innovation was training parents in how to manage their children's behavior at home, rather than hospitalizing the children. In addition, JAPPC trained interested others in the child's life to be therapeutically helpful. The theory was that the child and family would improve faster by remaining a unit, especially if the larger community could provide appropriate responses to the family.
    I was the director of St. Stephen's Nursery School, earning a Master's degree at CSUN, and seeking further resources for students whose behaviors were of concern to their families and to me. A professor suggested I contact JAPPC. I did, and was immediately invited for training. I trucked on in to JAPPC, very much liked what I saw and heard, referred a family concerning me at the time, and began the training. Skipping details, I was asked, in 1975, to start a replication project in Valencia, as the staff at JAPPC believed the distance to Cedars-Sinai discouraged northern L.A. County families from taking advantage of their services. Skipping a lot more details, an agreement was established between St. Stephen's Church and JAPPC to authorize me to begin the project.
    When I was first asked to start the replication, I went right away to Liz (then Curwen) to ask her if she would like to help start a new kind of pre-school. She was one of my staff members at the time, and I knew her teaching qualifications, the theoretical underpinnings of her actions, and her dedication to the children and families we served. She was first startled at the size of the idea, and then immediately interested. She talked to her husband, and with incredible speed, the two of them readjusted their lives to make room for the new project. (That is another great story.)
    Earlier in this history, I had gone to other near-by preschools to invite their staff members to take part in the training offered by JAPPC. Several of the staff at Little Shepherd at the Presbyterian Church took advantage of the offer. Carol Gelsinger was among them. When she heard of the beginning of the replication project, she came to me and volunteered to be part of it. I can't remember now just how I knew of her qualifications, but I do remember how excited I was when she volunteered.
    Thus a threesome began.
    JAPPC continued to be the entity that supervised the program and was responsible for its meeting all necessary requirements of California's various regulating bodies. JAPPC was generous with its staff, sending them out to talk at community meetings as well as to give on-site supervision. But soon, distance and logistics dictated that the replication project become a separate entity. I modified my studies, and became licensed as a Marriage, Family, and Child Counselor in order to meet the requirements for the needed change. In 1976, the project became "St. Stephen's Special School." (Jim Seipel, minister of St. Stephen's at the time, chose the name.)
    The growth of St. Stephen's Special School is knit with the names and hearts of so many people of the community that was itself burgeoning. Volunteers found us and made our laughable budget possible by the gift of themselves. The replication that began with a clientele of one, doubled, and doubled again, and doubled again.
    The program was then in need of an administration branch. Skipping lots more details, I asked Liz to step into the role of Executive Director, while I would remain Program Director. I knew Liz had the bedrock of conviction of the — what I can only call the "rightness," the "fitness" — of the program that would allow her to go out asking for the funding needed, and to build the formal administrative structures needed to secure the program in the community. I love being right.
    If the story interests you, and you want to check sources, The Signal itself has done many articles over the years. I was honored as Woman of the Year in 1992. If I were still in Santa Clarita, I would want to honor Cedars-Sinai and JAPPC for their incredible contribution to Santa Clarita's families. The roots of The Child and Family Center are impressive.