Mental Health Association in California

Reaching out to Underserved Communities Project

Overview/Purpose

Participating Organizations/Counties

Statewide Steering Committee

Los Angeles County

The local MHA is serving as an active participant on this project. We have held meetings in October and December 2005 with former Endowment Grantees under the Mental Health Initiative funding in this county to get further input on our overall project. With further input from MHA-Los Angeles and the County Mental Health Director, we will initially be targeting the Latino Community with emphasis on Latino TAY and GLBT populations for our initial outreach forum. It will be held in proximity to Service Area 7 (Southeast LA County), which currently holds 27% of the county population but only receives 3% of direct mental health services.

The local Mental Health Association has very strained resources but still is able to dedicate a staff person and an intern to this project. We have held three meetings with MHA staff and community leaders to develop a sense of what community outreach is essential and what the community needs are.

The community has identified the following goals as important ones to focus on during the implementation of this project:

Increased availability of information about mental health and where services are provided.
Determine what approach is best for most in the community about understanding how to eliminate problems before they become problems.
Identification of individuals that would be willing to assist the community with voluntary therapeutic services that are not connected to any government entity, due to a common fear within the community of anything related to government which creates a barrier to accessing services.
The beginning of dialog with those that would like to become more involved with ongoing planning for culturally appropriate services that would be based within their own community and would not require extensive and complicated travel. (Community members identified that to receive any appropriate mental health services, individuals that use public transportation are subjected to several bus transfers and up to 3 hours on local busses to reach their destinations.)

Given the vast size of the Los Angeles area, many unserved populations exist. We continue to meet with local organizations and government representatives to determine an effective way of reaching these populations.