Retelling Our Story

There are a few things I dread such as April 15th, going to the dentist, and writing blog entries. Right up there on my list is updating our website. It is an arduous task, costly, and usually filled with too many cooks in the kitchen with too many diverse opinions. When we developed our last website, our goal was to put every bit of information about everything we did on it. It began to look like my college era kitchen where my roommates and I made pasta almost every night and the only way all of us knew how to tell if the pasta was ready was to throw it against the kitchen wall and if it stuck it was ready. So, you can imagine what our kitchen walls looked like after a year. Just to complete the visual image, we decided to leave the pasta from each night stuck to the wall. And this, my friends was like our last website. As we added programs we threw them up on the website, and when we thought there wasn’t enough detail we threw more detail onto the website. And so forth and so on, until our website reminded me of a cross between War and Peace and the Manhattan phone book.

In addition, the other thing I learned along the way from visitors and staff, is that our last website did not “feel” like it does when you visit our programs, see our facilities and talk to our staff. As a non-profit, all of our staff and clinicians are passionate about providing mental health care to some of the most vulnerable in our community. To do so it is imperative that those seeking services, as well as other service providers in the community, understand how we can serve them and their clients. We had heard one too many times lately, “I had no idea what you all do here until I came to see your program,” which told us that we had failed somewhere in telling our story.

This time we took a different approach. First, we eliminated most of the cooks in the kitchen. We narrowed it down to a superb team of three. Actually a superb team of two, and me. Second, we spent several months screening prospective website designers. When we narrowed it down to three, we made them visit all of our programs, see all of our facilities, meet many of our staff and spend a couple of hours just listening to us talk about our passion for the work we do and the individuals and families we serve.

In the end we all voted for Loacom. We felt that they clearly understood what we were trying to convey, and were impressed with their talent and creativity. We appreciated their passion for the work they do in support of the Santa Barbara nonprofit community. Then, of course, came the part I was dreading as we hunkered down to start rewriting our story.

Our goal is that those individuals and families seeking services, as well as other service providers in the community, understand how we can serve them and their clients.

In my thirty-five years as the CEO of Sanctuary Centers, I have been witness to the incredible growth that the organization has experienced. My objective has always been to eliminate gaps in our system of care. My goal has been and continues to be to reward accomplishments and graduations and provide an easy path toward regaining a joy for life and a pride in accomplishment. At every transition, we look to remove obstacles and fill in the gaps in services that are needed.

At Sanctuary Centers, we are determined to continue to build a staircase to a lifetime of success and happiness. In order to do this we make sure the steps are solid, the steps are easy to navigate and the staircase is not too steep for anyone to climb. At Sanctuary Centers our desire is to ensure that our clients’ needs are being met on every step on this path. This has lead us to create what I believe is one of the most extraordinary and unique continuums of care in the country.

Barry R. Schoer, President and CEO

Please let me know what you think of our new website and of course don’t hesitate to call us or email me with your thoughts and questions.
Thanks!