The Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health opened a new office in the Healthcare Partners Building at 2600 Redondo Ave. Wednesday by hosting a ceremony and tour of the facility.
The location includes administrative offices and various programs such as Specialized Foster Care Administration, Service Area 8 Administration, the Long Beach Child and Adolescent Program, the Long Beach Mental Health Center and the SB-82 Mobile Triage Team.
The Specialized Foster Care Administrative office provides oversight to its foster-care programs that have previously co-located staff at the Lakewood and Torrance Department of Children and Family Services. The program offers services to address foster youth’s mental-health needs.
Service Area 8 Administration is the headquarters for all Department of Mental Health operations in Service Area 8. Its clinical program manager and administrative team provide oversight and programmatic support to eight directly operated programs, as well as 45 that are contracted.
The Long Beach Child and Adolescent Program is a directly operated county clinic that offers bilingual psychiatric services to children and adolescents who have mental-health disorders and emotional disturbances.
The Long Beach Mental Health Center is a large clinic that serves 3,000 clients monthly.
At Wednesday’s event, 4th District Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn explained that the SB-82 Mobile Triage Team is tasked with “going out on the streets” and identifying and assisting homeless individuals who have mental-health challenges.
“But we know that just a diagnosis doesn’t solve the problem alone,” Hahn said. “This facility will connect people with the consistent quality treatment they need to get well, long after they’ve found permanent housing. We know we can’t just treat people’s mental-health challenges and keep them on the streets. We also know we can’t just put them in a house and not treat their mental-health challenges. It takes both.”
Hahn also announced that last week Long Beach approved its first-ever 24-hour mental-health urgent-care center, which the County will oversee to provide around-the-clock psychiatric care for those in need, particularly the homeless. She thanked 2nd District Long Beach Councilmember Jeannine Pearce and her colleagues for their work in advocating for those in need of mental-health services.
Pearce, who was also in attendance, pointed out the prevalence of mental-health issues within the community and how they affect everyone. She also shared her personal connection to the issue by explaining a commonality she has with some of her good friends.
“It wasn’t until maybe 10 years ago that I realized that my closest friends and I all shared something in common that, really, you don’t want to share in common with anybody,” Pearce said. “We all lost our parents to suicide— three of us, three closest friends. I lost my biological mom to domestic abuse, my adopted mom to suicide in 2009 and both of my best friends lost their mom and dad at the age of 15 to suicide.”
Pearce also pointed out that, because one of her friends is a parole officer who deals with stressful situations regularly, she believes it is important that staff who work in psychiatric services are also well supported.
“We want to make sure that your mental health is there and strong,” Pearce said, addressing the mental-health workers who were present, “and that you’re talking to each other and building that community, not just with people that come in and out of the doors, but with those that work so hard to make sure this work is done.”
The new site, where 160 of those employees will be working, will centralize adult, child and specialty mental-health services, including homeless and foster-youth programs. It will allow for a continuum of care that is critical to the mental-health needs of the community, according to county officials, who also cited its welcoming environment for additional and enhanced client services, trainings and community meetings.
An information packet provided to media at Wednesday’s grand opening summarized the vision behind the new center: “We envision that this grand opening and open house, along with continued outreach efforts, will increase awareness in our community about the mental-health services available at our site and will promote collaboration between mental health, other service providers and the community in the development of our emerging ‘Health Neighborhood.'”
