Thank you for making the hard choice that will help your child get the help they need.
Everyone’s afraid to make the hard choice. Afraid of “What if it goes wrong, what if it’s not right?”
It takes a lot of courage to do these things. And it’s a risk.
But the payoff is immense.
Nina Horne
A mom who’s been there and back.
Nina Horne is a public policy expert, social entrepreneur, advocate for positive maturation, and founder and CEO of Oakland-based Samara Family Service. Most important, she’s a mom who’s been there and back.
Working in tandem with educators and clinicians, Nina and her team help families with teens and college-aged students who are struggling at home and in school. She has devoted her career to social and emotional skill-building and fostering effective communication, providing a high-touch, strength-based whole-family support system that reduces counterproductive behavior and turmoil, and increases resiliency, hope, and ease.
Nina is recognized for her work improving processes, communication, and effectiveness within large public and private organizations, with an emphasis on enhancing positive outcomes for all.
This diverse background in public service, academics, and engaged, strategic motherhood has become an invaluable game-changer for families in crisis.
Nina began her career in the classroom, teaching living skills to developmentally delayed adults, teens, and children so that they could function more independently. Then, devoting:
8 years to evaluating and making grants to hundreds of youth development programs, understanding what helps kids learn, grow, and achieve better life outcomes
10 years to developing systems to tackle big problems and know how to build systems that bring about lasting change
25 years to working with leading educators and researchers in their fields to understand what works best for young people, adapting the science into tools that transform lives.
When it came time to help her own daughter navigate rough waters and thrive, Nina was up for the challenge. Infused with tenacity, consistency, love, and practical, proactive tools – of her own design – together, they turned the tide. Nina’s professional experience helped her analyze how her 16-year-old learned and what she needed in the moment. Working with her daughter’s clinicians, Nina built a comprehensive, customized web of support that got her teen the services she needed. Developing tools and systems to respond to her family’s needs, relationship patterns, and learning styles, she created a web of daily practice and instruction that changed the ways her family interacted and responded to stress. By tracking daily progress and refining the program weekly to meet shifting needs and improvements, Nina built a system that heals.
Out of this rich foundation of knowledge, wisdom, personal experience, elasticity, and drive, Samara Family Services was born.
In addition to starting Samara, Nina is working on improving standards and quality in the residential care and youth development industries, as well as humane technology practices.