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Clinical Psychologist and Founder, Dr. Willa Meylink, established Counseling4Kids in 1997 to provide mental health services to children in Los Angeles County’s foster care system. Her concern was that very few children were receiving the therapy needed to heal from the abuse and neglect they had suffered. There was funding for evaluation, but very limited funding for actual treatment. The opportunity to provide treatment services came when the State of California began allocating EPSDT (Medi-Cal) monies to fund expanded mental health treatment to foster children.
Initially, the Fostering Healthy Kids (FHK) program had eight therapists providing treatment services for 25 clients. Today, Counseling4Kids has 70 therapists working with over 800 children each year providing more than 30,000 hours of treatment. In addition to the Fostering Healthy Kids program, our Trauma Treatment Program (TTP) works with children who have experienced extreme trauma from severe abuse and neglect and exhibit symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The Multidisciplinary Assessment Team Program (MAT) collaborates with other community partners (i.e. drug rehabilitation programs, domestic violence programs, schools, extended family members, etc.) to determine the needs of the entire family when a child enters foster care. As part of the assessment team, the MAT therapist advocates for the necessary services to meet the child’s mental health needs. Counseling4Kids’ range of services include: individual therapy, family therapy, psychological evaluation, medication support, permanency planning, case management, and referral to community resources.
Counseling4Kids’ mission is to provide high quality, effective treatment to as many at-risk children and families as possible. To achieve its mission, Counseling4Kids uses only licensed therapists and a “clinic without walls” model of in-home service delivery. The benefits of this model are numerous;
- therapists can follow a child through multiple home placements,
- the child misses fewer treatment appointments, and
- the home environment can be monitored.
Looking to the future, we will expand our continuum of care to include prevention and early intervention programs that target vulnerable young children ages 2–6 who are at-risk of entering the foster care system. Therapists will use the Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) program model, which is supported by research to be highly effective. This program will emphasize strengthening the parent-child relationship, parenting skills, and family stabilization.
With your support, you will be partnering with us in our expansion of programs to benefit the lives of Los Angeles County’s at-risk children and families.
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