WILLITS, CA., 11/27/25 – Nurse practitioner Kimberly Silva is joining Little Lake Health Center, Mendocino Community Health Clinic announced Tuesday.
The Willits native is a board-certified nurse practitioner specializing in family and psychiatric mental health.
According to MCHC, Silva has more than 40 years of experience in psychiatric and mental health care. She spent 17 years at San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center and also previously worked for Humboldt County Behavioral Health.
Silva earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Dominican University and a master’s in nursing from Samuel Merritt University. She later received a psychiatric mental health certification from Johns Hopkins University.
Silva’s arrival is timely. Rural counties like Mendocino continue to face a shortage of mental health professionals — a gap that is widening as aging clinicians retire faster than new providers enter the field, according to the California Health Care Foundation.
As a result, many residents face long wait times or go without care entirely, increasing the risk of mental health crises and forcing some patients to rely on emergency rooms for support.
MCHC Chief Medical Officer Justin Ebert welcomed Silva to the team.
“Her love of community is reflected in the compassion and empathy she brings to every interaction with our patients,” he said in a statement. “I especially appreciate her passion for evaluation and treatment of mental health disorders in the setting of whole-person care.”
In her new role, Silva will provide both primary and mental health care, including assessing, diagnosing and treating conditions when appropriate, MCHC said. She describes her approach as “whole-person” focused, recognizing that patients thrive when their physical, mental and socioeconomic needs are supported.
Visit https://mchcinc.org/ for more information.
If you or someone you know is seeking mental health support in Mendocino County, call the county’s Behavioral Health crisis line at (855) 838-0404 or the national Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988.
Can’t wait for this mental expert to shovel SSRI into our youth and affirm that there gender does not fit their identity. All for a $250 insurance claim that the parents can’t afford. Hooray
I don’t know about the $250 copay, that’s likely insurance which, dont get me wrong, is BS. But I’ve been a patient of Kim’s in the past. She isn’t like that at all. In fact, she’s the one more likely to actually listen to you if you’ve been facing what you describe in other places. She’s more open to alternatives than you might expect… Sad she didn’t recognize me when I ran into her the other day. But I still can’t say anything bad about her as a provider in my experience.