My name is Jakenda Williams, and I am from Menlo Park, California. I am a passionate and dedicated mental health professional, an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (AMFT), and a graduate of Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont, where I earned my Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology.

Mental health is not just my career—it is my calling.

I hold dual professional training in Marriage and Family Therapy and Licensed Professional Clinical Counseling, and I have spent years working in both inpatient and outpatient mental health settings, serving individuals, families, and youth in crisis. I have supported clients through trauma, acute emotional distress, and life-altering moments—using compassion, evidence-based care, crisis intervention, and trauma-informed practices to help them find stability and hope.

Through this work, I’ve seen a painful truth far too often: too many youth are hospitalized when what they truly need is safety, structure, and therapeutic care in a home-like environment.

That is why I am raising funds to open a short-term residential therapeutic program for youth—an alternative to psychiatric hospitalization. This program will provide intensive therapeutic support in a nurturing, non-institutional setting, helping young people stabilize, heal, and return to their lives with strength and dignity.

This dream is also deeply personal.

I am following the path paved by my grandmother, a woman who once ran a residential home for adults with Down syndrome and behavioral support needs. From her, I learned the most important lesson of all: love your clients. Always.

Not just treat them. Not just manage them. But truly see them, protect them, and believe in their potential.

Her legacy lives in this vision.

With your support, I can create a space where youth are met with compassion instead of fear, care instead of confinement, and hope instead of labels. A place where healing happens because love is at the center of treatment.

Thank you for believing in this mission, for supporting mental health, and for helping me turn this vision into a life-changing reality.