1736 Family Crisis Center

Programs: Domestic Violence Shelters - the center operates four confidentially-located shelters offering 128 beds for domestic violence survivors and their children (boys and girls ages birth through 17). The shelters offer a highly effective blend of emergency and transitional stage care to domestic violence survivors in imminent crisis, many fleeing desperate and volatile homes or dangers from life on the streets, and also to those who are further along in their recovery and path to independence. Program activities are designed to help survivors overcome the devastating effects of domestic violence and other difficulties that impair personal and family functioning in order to achieve self-sufficiency. Comprehensive services for adult shelter clients include case management, professional and peer group counseling, legal assistance, life skills training, parenting education and role-modeling, job development and placement, financial empowerment, 24-hour advocacy and protection, and referrals for medical care, substance abuse rehabilitation, specialty services of all kinds, and permanent housing. Children in the shelters receive school enrollment/re-enrollment services, age-appropriate counseling and therapy, therapeutic free play, recreational activities, tutoring, and art/movement/journaling and other creative therapies to enhance their healthy social and emotional development and to facilitate recovery from severe traumas they have witnessed and experienced. The center recognizes that violence statistically escalates during pregnancy and accordingly welcomes pregnant women into the shelters, makes accommodations, and celebrates the birth of many newborns who otherwise would have been born into violent homes. The center's unique intake policies allow for the sheltering of survivors' adolescent children whether male or female (both supervisors and front-line workers specialize in teen development and behavior, allowing the center to house older teenage boys, who, by policy, are often excluded from other domestic violence shelters nationwide). Graduates of the shelters often participate in the center's aftercare program to ensure continued progress and also may volunteer at the center to support other participants in the center's prevention and treatment programs.

Runaway and Homeless Youth Shelter - the center's emergency youth shelter is a six-bed state licensed shelter that offers comprehensive services to runaway, homeless, abandoned, and throwaway girls and boys ages 10 through 17. Los Angeles county has only five licensed, non-DCFS restricted emergency shelters for minors, providing 59 beds altogether, despite increasing youth homelessness in the region and the rapidly rising and highly profitable trafficking of girls and boys who are swept up, on average, within 48 hours of running away from or being kicked out of their homes. The children who become the shelter's clients are often victims of severe parental neglect, sexual and physical abuse, emotional abuse, and abandonment. Many come from homes impacted by domestic violence between parents. Some live under bridges and freeways and prostitute for food and survival, even in the preteen age range, while others are rescued from sex trafficking. The program provides shelter, food, clothing and comprehensive supportive services to help youth address immediate, survival needs, overcome intense personal challenges, such as suicidal ideation, violence-related trauma, and forced prostitution, and obtain stable, longer-term housing. Shelter staff work with youth (and their families, when possible) to develop the skills and networks of support that will lead each child on a path toward safety and stability, and toward good life choices. The program has been successfully operating and serving the community since 1972, giving these children a safe and structured haven in which they learn about healthy alternative behaviors and build their self-esteem. Graduates of the shelter often participate in the center's aftercare program to ensure continued progress and may volunteer at the center after their stay to help other children, including through the center's youth advisory board and young leadership council.

Community-Based Education and Counseling Services - mental health therapy/counseling is a core service of the center's residential and nonresidential programs and is offered 24 hours a day at five of the center's shelters, and during business and extended business hours at three nonresidential clinic locations. Professional staff provide the service and supervisors with decades of training are on duty around-the-clock to assist. The clientele includes suicidal children and adults, rape and domestic violence victims, people in poverty or severe distress, homeless and troubled veterans, abused children, homeless preteens and teens, and others in great need. Five crisis/suicide hotlines are staffed 24 hours a day for people of all ages and demographics. The center operates a legal services department to help domestic violence victims, veterans and other clients with matters from restraining orders to credit repair to landlord mediation to court representation for divorce, housing, and child custody. The center is a recipient of a large City of Los Angeles grant (FamilySource Center) which enables it to serve as a lead agency in a community-wide service consortium, and provides for the subcontracting and funding of a number of community nonprofit organizations. The collective goal of these organizations is to address the needs of the entire family, with a current focus on two critical measurable objectives: increasing family income and increasing child/youth academic success. The Center has successfully performed in the lead agency capacity on this and its preceding initiative for approximately 14 consecutive years. Additional direct services include: job development and placement (for both residential and nonresidential clients); youth advisory board (a volunteer group of former youth shelter clients and community youth who are dedicated to assisting their peers by addressing topics of dating violence, bullying, lesbian/gay/bi-sexual/transgender/ questioning sexuality, substance abuse, peer pressure, problem solving and good choice-making); clinical internship opportunities under the supervision of licensed clinicians (in collaboration with many universities); legal internship opportunities under the supervision of licensed staff attorneys; and an extensive volunteer and community outreach program throughout Los Angeles County. The Center's staff experts provide educational speaking engagements in schools, youth fairs, churches, healthcare settings and numerous locations and venues throughout the county and beyond.

Veteran Families Program in Los Angeles and Orange Counties - 1736 Family Crisis Center assists homeless and at-risk veterans and their families to get off the streets, overcome complex and debilitating obstacles, and start whole new lives of productivity and promise. The Orange County program, which is based in Santa Ana, works in collaboration with Veterans Affairs and local nonprofit service providers to prevent homelessness among veteran families at imminent risk of losing their housing and end homelessness among those on the streets or in shelters, with a focus on extremely low-income households and the chronically homeless. Services include street outreach, case management, employment assistance, housing search and establishment assistance, short-term financial assistance including security deposits and rent. The Los Angeles County program provides the same array of services and is operated from locations in Torrance and Long Beach.