Baldwin Park Expansion

Hillsides is a multi-service organization offering care for children, youth, and their families from Hollywood Hills to beyond Baldwin Park in San Gabriel Valley. The majority of services we offer are in schools, community settings, and resource centers in metro Los Angeles, Pasadena, and Baldwin Park.

Until now a small portable building at a school site in Baldwin Park served as the hub of our services in that city. Over the years, this office and treatment space has become inadequate so we have secured a new site, located at 13001 Ramona Blvd., Ste A, Irwindale, CA 91760.  Services have already begun. This is a significant development for Hillsides and one that points to not only the demand for services in that community, but our reputation for being a provider the community can count on to deliver essential care to very vulnerable children, youth, and families.

Janis Reid, one of our Family Center program directors overseeing this particular area, identifies the following services offered in Baldwin Park:

•  Cal Works, which includes job readiness and domestic violence groups as well as individual treatment
•  School Based Programs, offering individual, group, and family therapy groups
•  Programs for infants to 5 year olds, providing services with caregivers and children
•  Outpatient mental health services for children and families
•  Parenting groups
•  Psychiatric consultation
•  Psychological  testing

The additional space will also allow the Family Center to expand its services in Baldwin Park to include outreach to transition aged youth.

All this is the result of several years of slowly, but methodically developing our service capacity and faithfully delivering care to an underserved and vulnerable population. For many years the director of these services was a very capable woman, Rosario Espinoza, who passed away from cancer last year. Those who benefitted from her care and those who labored along with her established a beautiful memorial to her that is on the Hillsides campus in Pasadena. The memorial, composed of two chairs and a side table, is adorned with a series of tiles that depict staff’s appreciation for her dedicated service.

This week as we prepare to open the center in Baldwin Park I could not help, but think of Rosario, grateful for her dedication and leadership. As hopeful as we are for all that we might be able to accomplish in Baldwin Park, I know that it is not because we have a better equipped site in which to offer services, but more importantly, because we have an extraordinarily committed staff, who like Rosario, labor tirelessly to create lasting change for all they serve.

"Job" Well Done For YMO Residents and Employers

As many of you know, Hillsides sponsors a very innovative program of services for youth transitioning from the foster care system to independence called Youth Moving On. The services provided include supportive housing, counseling, educational orientation, job readiness and financial literacy.

When YMO was started several years ago I believe that one of the tenets of the program was to encourage the participating youth to pursue an educational program, whether vocational training or enrollment at the local community college. Our experience, however, has taught us that as important as education is as a fundamental component to long-term success, employment is the decisive factor to achieve independence.

So through the generous support of the Deutsch Foundation, Hillsides and a number of other providers of services to this population have set out to develop a curriculum. The curriculum aims to lead these young adults through a process that enhances their ability to secure employment and begin to establish the foundation of financial independence.

This past Sunday 60 Minutes aired a segment featuring a very innovative employment program that not only trains the unemployed, but also places them in jobs and pays them during an initial employment period. This mitigates the cost to employers who accept participants as interns. The end result is a dramatic increase in full-time employment. This program sounded very familiar to me because it is exactly what we do with the YMO residents that participate in our job readiness program.

Villa Sorriso in Pasadena

For the past several months we have paid the salary of a YMO resident who interned at a local restaurant. The restaurant provided this young man with professional training and a supportive environment and slowly, but surely he acquired skills and confidence. As the internship drew to a close, the young man applied for a position at the establishment and we got news yesterday that he has been hired as a full-time employee.

A4

This young man is just the most recent example of the success of this effort. To all the young adults who have persevered through these internships and have been rewarded with not just employment, but equally as important, confidence and hope, congratulations! And, of course, to the employers who partner with us to make this innovative program possible, especially Karen Tanji of Villa Sorriso and Mark Mertens of A4, thank you for believing in these young people.

One youth at a time, in spite of the challenges, YMO and Hillsides make the extra effort to help all we serve achieve their dreams with milestones like employment.