Press Releases

Risky Business can be a Sign to Mental Health Problems

May is Mental Health Awareness Month and to kick off our social media presence on Facebook, we’ll be sharing 40 mental health tips and tidbits in the next 40 days beginning on May 1. This year’s Mental Health America theme is “Risky Business.” The organization’s website states, “We believe it’s important to educate people about […]

Connecting Families to Community Services for the Summer

As part of Mental Health Awareness Month in May El Centro de Amistad (ECDA) is partnering with Pacoima Charter Elementary School for the school’s first ever community resource fair in late May. The school, which serves 1,450 students who are in high need of services, will host the event during its annual spring open house […]

Creating Safe Relative Homes for Children in Foster Care

Recent legislation to overhaul the foster care system and ensure that youth and families receive necessary services and supports has presented a new way of streamlining the process for resource families who are either related or close to the child who was placed out of the home. As part of the Continuum of Care Reform, […]

Second Chances to Make a Difference

When Sonia Rodriguez was a client at a mental health agency, she never thought her path would lead to helping other individuals with similar experiences. Having been involved in a domestic violence relationship for seven years, Sonia understood what it was like to have post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety. Now a peer partner at El […]

How finding a vision set the direction for a new life

Without any real purpose or direction when she was in college, Sonya Cha, El Centro de Amistad multidisciplinary assessment team (MAT) program coordinator, found herself majoring in international business, even studying abroad in Korea. After meeting college friends who were spiritual and attending several services, Sonya became “more open to the spirituality part of me.” […]

How to help children with loss during the holidays

With all seasons we experience transitions. Perhaps in California we don’t see the seasons manifested so distinctly as in the East Coast yet we feel them inside. The fall is a season of internal reflection. We make room for this mental activity when the long summer evenings have been replaced by the changing of the […]