Alumna Ph.D. Student Returns to Girls Inc.

When Amaurita Kanai was growing up in San Leandro, her parents struggled at times to make ends meet. Her mother realized that her young daughters needed somewhere positive to stay after school while she worked, and placed them with Girls Inc. of Alameda County.

Today, decades later, Amaurita is in her doctoral program in Psychology. When selecting an organization to complete her last year of clinical internship, she immediately thought of Girls Inc. and wanted to “come back, and give back, and serve the population that I’ve been a part of.”

Amaurita was placed as a Girls Inc. school-based clinician in the same schools where she was educated, honing her skills in providing trauma-informed services for children and families. Amaurita will take her experiences at Girls Inc. into her future as a board-certified child psychologist.  She knows that “even though there are systemic inequities and challenges…. on an individual level we can each accomplish a lot.”