New Director of APA Family Support envisions building healthy immigrant families
After retiring from an administrative post at Stanford University, Rick Yuen returned to the place where he grew up, San Francisco Chinatown, to head the APA Family Support Services (APA) as the new Executive Director.
APA was founded in 1987 by Dr. Don Wong, who received a California state grant to help children and families in the Asian immigrant community to better thrive.
“The goal of APA is building healthy families,” said Rick Yuen. This 33-year community nonprofit is headquartered in Chinatown, and now has offices throughout the City providing free, comprehensive family-related services.
For example, service programs for newborns start before the baby is born, including teaching pregnant individuals how to breastfeed and change diapers. Some teenagers may face academic pressure and personal life troubles, so the behavioral consultation programs of APA could be for help. Other programs cover most aspects of family assistance, including child care and youth development activities.
In addition to parenting education and children's support, it also offers counseling for domestic violence prevention. Some Asian immigrant families might not reflect the “model minorities” impression but on the contrary, facing economic difficulties, and the parents may have fightings, abuses, mental problems, depressions, or other domestic violence. Sometimes drugs are involved and the parents end up losing child-custody.
Yuen said that in this condition, APA can serve as a bridge, hosting weekly family gatherings, allowing parents, children, and social workers to communicate and interact in a comfortable environment created by APA. “These meetings are often filled with laughter and tears.”
Currently, southeast San Francisco neighborhoods, such as Visitacion Valley and Bayview, are seeing an increasing trend of Asian residents moving in. Yuen hopes to expand services to these communities during his tenure. “I envision APA growing to meet emerging (family support) needs in the Bay Area.”
With the strong emphasis on helping immigrants, Yuen was proud that the organization staff members can speak up to seven languages, including multiple Asian languages, such as Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Cambodian, Thai, Vietnamese, etc.
According to data provided by the agency, in the fiscal year from July 2018 to June 2019, a total of more than 8,000 people participated in the services programs, including 679 newly registered children clients.
Yuen has been active in the San Francisco community for many years and has close connections with some local big names. He was the classmate with former SFPD chief Heather Fong for eight years during early school time; he had a marriage with former city Assessor-Recorder Mabel Teng for more than 20 years and divorced in 2005; while working at Stanford University, he was the mentor of former city Supervisor Jane Kim and hired Kim as a student worker for years. Yuen said he happily remarried five years ago.
This story was originally published in Chinese language by the World Journal on Jan. 4, 2020.
