Our Programs

LACDC at Camino Nuevo Charter Academy:
In 2005, LACDC began a partnership with Camino Nuevo Charter Academy, a “mini-district” of charter schools in the Mc Arthur Park neighborhood comprising 2,500 students on three campuses, from early childhood through high school. Now in our 5th school year, LACDC provides culturally competent, free mental health services to Camino Nuevo’s low-income and uninsured students and their families. In addition our therapists and consultants support the teaching staff, administrators and resource specialists in addressing the mental health needs faced by the whole school population. The program is staffed by bi-lingual and bi-cultural mental health professionals and interns who reach a community on their home ground who have until now gone unattended.

LACDC at the Culver City Middle and High School Youth Health Center:
In Culver City the LACDC offers mental health services to all the students of the Culver City Middle and High School and the Culver Park Continuation School, our primary target population being the children of the working poor. At the Health Center, we run ten simultaneous groups and offer services to over 3,500 teenagers facing every sort of psychological challenge from depression, anxiety, parental abuse, fear of gangs, to suicide. Equally important, for over 25 years, we have trained a cadre of mental health professionals who can provide the mental health services children need in the venue which allows the best and easiest access to those services.

LACDC at the Accelerated School:
In 2008, the LACDC established a third partnership in our school community, a joint venture with The Accelerated School in South Los Angeles. The Accelerated School began in 1993 as a small community charter and now encompasses an Early Learning Preschool, a K-8 campus, a high school and an additional dual-language school for grades K-5, totaling approximately 1500 students. In each of these parts of the Accelerated program, we offer both individual and group counseling to students and consultation with parents, teachers and administrators. Simultaneously, we are training future therapists to work in the diverse school population that Accelerated provides.