About Us
Who we Are
About California Mental Health Network
At California Mental Health Network, we are committed to breaking barriers, fostering equity, and transforming mental health care across California. Founded on the principles of culturally responsive care and community-driven healing, our mission is to ensure accessible, high-quality mental health services for all, especially for underserved populations.
About Our Founder – Andrew Harris
Dr. Andrew Harris is the founder of California Mental Health Network (CMHN), a behavioral health organization established with a mission to expand access to high-quality, culturally responsive mental health services for individuals, families, and communities that have historically experienced barriers to care.
With nearly two decades of experience in behavioral health and systemic work, Dr. Harris has built his career across child welfare, youth corrections, community corrections, public education, behavioral health agencies, and community-based systems of care. His approximately 16 years of experience working within and alongside complex systems has given him a unique perspective on mental health that extends well beyond the therapy room. He has worked directly with children, adults, and families while collaborating with schools, social service agencies, courts, correctional systems, government entities, and multidisciplinary teams.
These experiences have shaped Dr. Harris's belief that improving mental health outcomes requires more than effective clinical treatment. It also requires recognizing and addressing the systemic barriers that influence whether individuals can access services, trust providers, engage meaningfully in treatment, and remain connected to care.
Before founding California Mental Health Network, Dr. Harris established Colorado Mental Health Network, the only Black male-owned mental health clinic licensed by the Colorado Behavioral Health Administration. Through this work, he has developed partnerships across public and community systems to provide therapy, psychological assessment, substance use treatment, family-focused services, and other behavioral health supports. His leadership experience has reinforced his commitment to building organizations capable of effectively serving populations whose needs are often unmet within traditional systems of care.
A significant focus of Dr. Harris's professional work has been supporting underserved and historically marginalized populations. His approach emphasizes trauma-informed practice, cultural responsiveness, accessibility, and collaboration. Clinically, he incorporates evidence-based approaches including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), while recognizing that successful treatment also requires understanding the cultural, familial, socioeconomic, and systemic environments in which clients live.
Dr. Harris's commitment to systemic change is also reflected in his doctoral research. His dissertation examined racial and cultural concordance in mental health services and its relationship to initial engagement in care, with particular attention to the perspectives of professionals responsible for helping individuals navigate behavioral health systems. His research explored how race, culture, provider representation, and professional systems can influence preferences for providers, delays or refusals of services, and access to care.
His research identified significant differences in expressed provider preferences based on race, professional role, and years of experience. It also found significant racial differences in reports of individuals refusing or delaying services and in experiences related to waitlists. These findings reinforced an important principle underlying Dr. Harris's work: representation in behavioral health is not simply about diversity; it can have meaningful implications for trust, engagement, accessibility, and whether individuals ultimately receive care.
Dr. Harris also has extensive experience within public school systems, providing culturally responsive consultation, psychoeducational assessment, parent support, and therapeutic intervention. His work with educators, families, administrators, and multidisciplinary teams has focused on understanding how mental health, trauma, culture, family systems, and environmental factors intersect with children's behavioral, emotional, and academic functioning.
His background in child welfare, youth corrections, and community corrections has further shaped his systemic perspective. Working with individuals and families involved in complex government and community systems has provided firsthand experience with the challenges people face when navigating multiple agencies simultaneously. Dr. Harris understands that individuals experiencing behavioral health concerns are often also navigating schools, courts, social services, probation, child welfare, housing, healthcare, and other systems. This understanding has strengthened his commitment to creating behavioral health services that collaborate with, rather than operate separately from, the systems surrounding clients.
Dr. Harris earned his Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) from the University of Colorado Denver. In addition to his clinical and organizational leadership, he is an author and educator who uses storytelling as another avenue for promoting conversations about mental health and identity. His novel, Dr. Mind and the Biracial Misfit Part I, explores themes of identity and mental health, while his children's writing seeks to introduce these conversations in developmentally accessible and affirming ways.
Through California Mental Health Network, Dr. Harris is bringing together nearly two decades of systemic experience, clinical expertise, research, and organizational leadership to build a behavioral health network centered on access, representation, cultural responsiveness, and community partnership.
California Mental Health Network's mission is grounded in a simple principle: effective mental health care must meet people where they are—not only clinically, but culturally and systemically. By developing a diverse network of clinicians and strengthening partnerships with communities, schools, government agencies, and other public-serving organizations, Dr. Harris seeks to reduce barriers to treatment and help create a mental health system in which underserved communities have greater access to providers who understand, respect, and reflect the populations they serve.
