Acknowledge Alliance promotes lifelong resilience in children and youth, and strengthens the caring capacity of the adults who influence their lives.

Acknowledge Alliance envisions a world where youth feel more competent and cared about in schools and in their lives; educators feel more supported and enriched in their work with students and colleagues; and education settings create safe, compassionate and nurturing environments where everyone there feels cared for, competent and resilient.

Since 1994, Acknowledge Alliance (formerly the Cleo Eulau Center) has been building thriving school communities where students are equipped with lifelong resilience and teachers are empowered to be their best selves. Acknowledge Alliance was founded on the belief that when a child has a caring adult in their life who believes in them and their abilities, they can succeed despite adversities. By serving K-12 schools in the San Francisco Bay Area, we cultivate these transformative relationships at all levels of learning through our Collaborative Counseling and Resilience Consultation Programs.

Our Collaborative Counseling Program psychotherapists build long-term therapeutic relationships with at-risk youth, providing individualized treatment focused on healing underlying trauma and issues. Collaborative Counseling Program clients, many of whom are from socioeconomically high-need families, are receiving high quality care that could otherwise only be accessed through private practice clinics. Rather than being limited by treatment timelines or overly restrictive insurance criteria, our therapists are focused on what is truly best for their patients. 

Our Resilience Consultation Program counselors and consultants support the social emotional wellbeing of entire school ecosystems - from teachers to students, principals, administrators, and family members. They strengthen school communities by facilitating social-emotional learning lessons that focus on building student and classroom resilience skills, and by being an encouraging on-campus presence for educators, guiding them as they navigate challenges in the classroom and beyond.

Due to the pressures in education today (whether peer pressures or test scores and performance), many schools are becoming a place where teachers and students alike are left feeling frustrated, alienated and lost. 

Educators face a challenging environment. They are charged with raising test scores and performance metrics while also striving to keep classroom climates well. Students represent a broad diversity of backgrounds, experiences and learning styles - many factors outside of the classroom impact their engagement and behaviors. When a student’s social emotional well-being is not addressed, they are not able to open their minds to learning.

Teachers are the most important influence in these young peoples’ lives, next to immediate family. We acknowledge that it takes only one teacher or caring adult to change a student’s life for the better. At Acknowledge Alliance, we provide the support and resources from one to many educators, school administration and youth that result in life-changing effects that go far beyond classroom walls.

MAJOR FACTS

• The adult-student relationship is the most powerful variable for learning and success

• Teachers perform best after being in the classroom for at least five years

• However, 46% of teachers leave the profession before their fifth year

• Burn out, poor working conditions and emotional stress consistently rank as primary reasons teachers leave the profession

• Schools and districts nationwide spend $2.2 billion per year recruiting and training replacements

• Over 3 million elementary and middle students are suspended each year

• The prevalence of mental disorders among youth in the general population is estimated to be about 22%; the prevalence rate for youth in the juvenile justice system is as high as 60%

• Approximately 20% of teenagers will experience teen depression before they reach adulthood

• Untreated depression can lead to academic failure, bullying, eating disorders, substance abuse and even suicide

• Suicide is the leading cause of death among young people 15-24

• A positive child is one who feels valued and comes into the classroom "ready to learn"

• The whole child approach prepares young people for long-term success beyond school

In our work in helping to create healthy schools, we recognize our responsibility to establish inclusive and equitable policies and practices for the agency.

Our commitment to Diversity Equity Inclusion Justice (DEIJ) is crucial to our ability to partner and provide access to our schools to face some of the biggest challenges. We will work to ensure that you see our commitment to anti-racist action and to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in everything we do. We commit to developing, advocating for, and speaking out about this vision and sharing data on our progress as openly as possible.

Acknowledge Alliance was founded in 1994 as The Cleo Eulau Center to help children rebound from adversity by nurturing their individual strengths and resilience.

Cleo Eulau was a distinguished clinical social worker whose celebrated career spanned decades of service in the mental health field. She was the first woman and first non-psychiatrist to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from the department of psychiatry at Stanford University as well as the recipient of numerous other awards and recognitions. She also served as an inspiration, mentor and role model to countless mental health professionals.

The Cleo Eulau Center was established by a dynamic group of Cleo’s colleagues and former students to honor her lifelong commitment to support at-risk youth in achieving productive and happy lives. At the heart of the agency was to acknowledge that every child has the ability to succeed and thrive and that everyday interactions between adults and kids are central to the positive development of each child.

Today, Acknowledge Alliance strives to further Cleo’s dedication to excellence through our innovative programs and highly qualified staff and board with expertise in the fields of mental health, education and program management. We serve K-12 public and private schools in the Greater Bay Area and Silicon Valley, but our discoveries can apply to school communities nationwide.

Acknowledge Alliance is honored to continue Cleo’s legacy, and we are committed to uphold the ideals that she embodied. She will forever be the heart of the agency and the enduring inspiration for our work.

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