Meet Our Staff
Counseling & Psychological Services (CAPS) at UC Santa Cruz is a part-centralized, part-decentralized service, with professionally trained master's- and doctoral-level clinicians located in our central counseling office within the Cowell Student Health Center complex, as well as in various locations across campus. Our staff members come from diverse backgrounds and have a special interest in and experience with helping students explore a wide range of issues. We offer a variety of mental health and wellness services to UCSC students and the broader UCSC community.
Please note that while some of us have particular areas of specialization, all of us at CAPS recognize the social pressures and cultural factors that affect different groups in unique ways. We have been trained in aspects of multicultural counseling, including working with LGBTQIA+ students, addressing rape and sexual abuse, and supporting students with disabilities. CAPS staff also engage in ongoing mandatory and voluntary continuing education to further enhance their skills as mental health professionals.
The following is a list of our staff members and their locations. Note that we do not provide drop-in counseling, so if you are interested in finding out about and/or starting services with CAPS, please stop by our central office or call us during business hours at (831) 459-2628. You can also find more information about our services on our Counseling Services, Psychiatry, and Groups & Workshops web pages.
- Title
- Psychotherapist, Complex Mental Health
- Division Student Affairs and Success
- Department
- Counseling & Psychological Services
- Student Health Center
- Mail Stop CAPS
- Mailing Address
- 1156 High St
- Santa Cruz CA 95064
Summary of Expertise
Jacob's clinical interests include severe and persistent mental illness disorders, process addictions including gambling, sex, eating and pornography disorders, substance use disorders, mood disorders and clinical supervision. Jacob has served several populations including sex offenders, incarcerated adults and youth, adolescents and adults struggling with substance use, mental health and drug court diversion clients, college student-athletes along with working within settings, including inpatient, outpatient, partial hospitalization, community mental health, residential and locked psychiatric hospitals.
Biography, Education and Training
-
Jacob was originally born in Palo Alto, Ca and settled in the central california area. He completed his MSW in Social Work at California State University, Stanislaus in 2012. Jacob started his career in human services working as as an alcohol and drug counselor in 2007 providing services for drug court diversion juveniles placed within a residential facility. Jacob has served several institutions within california, nevada and washington. Jacob previously served as a mental health clinician as california state university, bakersfield, evergreen valley college and the culinary institute of america. Along with serving as a mental health clincian Jacob has also served as a lecturer and professor at palo verde college, hartnell college, college of the sequoias, eastern washington university, pacific oaks college, and nevada state university. Jacob also completed education in chemical dependency counseling, psychosocial rehabilitation and psychology. Jacob practices clinical social work from an existential, harm-reduction and resilience perspective, incorporating cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialetical behavioral therapy (DBT) solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT), motivational interviewing (MI), resilence counseling (RC) and narrative therapy (NT).
-
Teaching Interests
Jacob has served the california community college system, and california state university system as a lecturer in the areas of social work, human services, addiction students, counseling, and psychology.
