DMH Programs Video Profiles
The Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health provides services to children, youth, adults, and older adults of all ethnicities through directly operated programs in the County’s 8 Service Areas, ranging from the high desert of the Antelope Valley, to the crowded Downtown and Harbor areas to the diverse communities of South, West, and East LA, and the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys. All programs emphasize hope for clients struggling with these complex disorders through the provision of varied services supporting wellness and the vision of long-term recovery.
San Gabriel Valley
Max Emadi, Arcadia Wellness Center Supervisor, comments about the challenges of providing services in the San Gabriel Valley:
Arcadia is in the San Gabriel Valley. We’re kind of a very suburban community. I think that in some typical ways, a lot of our services and community organizations are really set far apart from each other. People have maybe a more independent kind of lifestyle here, do a lot of driving. We don’t have the best public transportation, can be a barrier for our clients. It’s quite a mixed community. We have a large Asian population so we do try to provide, and have available, multiple language capabilities in our staff. We have a relatively large population of Latino clients and community members. So in some ways it’s kind of a upper-middle class community, that has special language needs and it’s a little bit challenging for our clients with the community resources that are not as available as in some metropolitan areas.