News | CIRCLE Clinic | UC Davis Children Hospital

• October 11, 2021 (UC Davis Health News) - CIRCLE Clinic donors bring trauma-informed comprehensive health services to Sacramento foster youth
• October 11, 2021 (The Davis Enterprise) - UCD Health begins trauma-informed services to foster youths
• January 29, 2021 (Roseville Today) - Sacramento CIRCLE Clinic for Foster Children a First

Background and History

The Comprehensive Integration of Resilience into Child Life Experiences (CIRCLE) Clinic was conceived by Dr. Katy Carlsen and Dr. Albina Gogo, and developed with the help of many partners and advocates within child welfare, behavioral health and health care systems in Sacramento County. Drs. Carlsen and Gogo noted the uneven quality of care children received in foster care, and the difficulties they had accessing mental health and developmental and behavioral pediatric health care. They and their colleagues pointed to the difficulties with information sharing between agencies, which in turn made follow through and referrals difficult, leading to fragmentation of care.

With the help of private foundation funding, the group launched the CIRCLE Clinic in November 2020, ensuring that every patient saw a pediatrician, a mental health professional, and, if appropriate, a developmental and behavioral pediatrician to assess developmental concerns. In March 2021, the clinic received additional funding through the Sacramento County Trauma-Informed Network of Care Project (spearheaded by the Sacramento County Office of Education and funded by ACEs Aware), which supported the addition of ancillary services such as family navigation and care coordination. These staff were able to support families by facilitating connections with community resources and making referrals to specialized care providers.

Currently, the CIRCLE clinic includes a pediatric team from UC Davis Health Department of Pediatrics, mental health clinicians from the CAARE Center of UC Davis, and developmental pediatric specialists from the MIND Institute, a care coordinator and family navigators from the CAARE Center, and office and medical support and nursing staff provided by the Sacramento County Health Center.

CIRCLE Clinic was made possible by a generous gift from an endowment for sustained support.