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Links and Other Resources

In this section you will find helpful links and resources including:

Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health
Public Mental Health Outpatient Clinics
Community Counseling Centers
Los Angeles County Jail - Mental Health Numbers & Information
L.A. County Department of Mental Health Court Program
L.A. County Conservatorship Information
Other Organizations

You will also find information that may help you understand your loved one’s response to mental illness and medication.

Stages of Adherence to Medications
Predictable Stages Of Emotional Responses To Mental Illness

You are always welcome to contact us for more information 818-994-6747
If this has been helpful to you, please share with others.
Also, here are resources that may help:

Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health

Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health Access Line
800-854-7771 (services directory)
Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health Website
http://lacdmh.org

Public Mental Health Outpatient Clinics in
San Fernando Valley / Santa Clarita Valley / Glendale

Center for Family Living
14545 Sherman Circle, Van Nuys, 91405
818/901-4854
(Serving: Encino, Sherman Oaks, Van Nuys)
Hillview Mental Health Center
11500 Eldridge Av, Lakeview Terrace, 91342
818/896-1161
(Serving: Arleta, Pacoima, Lakeview Terrace, Sun Valley,
Sunland, Kagel Canyon)
MacDonald Carey East Valley Mental Health Clinic
11631 Victory Bl, #203, N Hollywood, 91606
818/908-3855
(Serving: North Hollywood, Studio City, Toluca Lake,
Burbank-west of Buena Vista, Universal City)
San Fernando Mental Health Clinic
10605 Balboa Blvd, Granada Hills, 91344
818/832-2400
(Serving: Sylmar, San Fernando, Mission Hills, Granada Hills,
North Hills, Panorama City)
Santa Clarita Mental Health Clinic
23501 Cinema Dr., #210 Valencia, CA. 91355
(661)288-4800
(Serving City of Santa Clarita, Newhall, Valencia, Bouquet Canyon, Saugus, Val Verde, Canyon Country, Castaic, Sulpher Springs,
Agua Dulce)
Verdugo Mental Health Clinic
1540 Colorado St., Glendale, 91205
818/244-7257.
(Serving: Glendale, Montrose, Verdugo City, Eagle Rock, Glassell Park, Atwater, La Crescenta, Burbank—east of Buena Vista,
La Canada/Flintridge.)
West Valley Mental Health Clinic
7621 Canoga Av, Canoga Park, 91304
818/598-6900.
( Serving: Westlake Village Los Angeles County, West Hills, Chatsworth, Canoga Park, Northridge, Porter Ranch, Winnetka, WoodlandHills, Tarzana, Reseda, Hidden Hills, Calabasas, Agoura Hills)

Community Counseling Centers in San Fernando Valley

Asian Pacific Counseling & Treatment Centers - San Fernando
Valley Center
5900 Sepulveda Blvd. #425 Van Nuys, CA 91411
(818) 267-1100
(Hours M-F 9:00am - 5pm)
Medi-Cal / Medicare / Healthy Families / Private insurance accepted
Jewish Family Services - Sherman Oaks
13949 Ventura Blvd Suite 320 Sherman Oaks, CA 91423
(818) 464-3333
(Hours M-Th 8:30am - 5pm)
Sliding Scale $100 maximum
Private Insurance / Victims' Assistance accepted

Jewish Family Services - San Fernando Valley Region
22622 VanOwen St West Hills, CA 91307
(818) 464-3333
(Hours M-Th 8:30am - 5pm)
Sliding Scale $100 maximum
Private Insurance / Victims' Assistance accepted

Magnolia Counseling Center
18345 Ventura Blvd Suite 510 Tarzana, CA 91356
(818) 757-7600
By Appointment Only - Sliding scale

Neighborhood Counseling Center
5635 Balboa Blvd Suite 221 Encino, CA 91316
(818) 788-2738
Sliding scale $25 - $100

Nurith Community Counseling Center
14416 Hamlin Street 1st floor Van Nuys, CA 91401
(818) 787-9255
(Hours M-Th 9am - 7pm : Friday 8am - 3pm)
Sliding scale from $30
Medi-Cal / Medicare / Private insurance accepted

Pacific Asian Counseling Center
San Fernando Valley Office
6851 Lennox Avenue Suite 401 Van Nuys, CA 91405
(818) 989-9214
(Hours M-F 9am - 6pm)
Sliding scale
Medi-Cal / Medicare / Private insurance accepted

San Fernando Valley Counseling Center
8350 Reseda Blvd Northridge, CA 91324
(818) 341-1111
(Hours M-Fri 9am - 5pm)
Sliding scale $20 - $100 ( Initial Evaluation $20)

Valley Beth Shalom Counseling Center
15739 Ventura Blvd Encino, CA 91436
(818) 784-1414
(Hours M-Th 9 9am - 8pm : Friday 9am - 1pm)
Sliding scale

Valley Counseling Clinic Inc.
17547 Ventura Blvd Suite 310 Encino, CA 91316
(818) 995-0386
(Hours M-F 9am - 9pm)
Sliding Scale $40 - $130
Private insurance accepted

The Village Family Services
6736 Laurel Canyon Blvd Suite 200 North Hollywood, CA 91606
(818) 755-8786
call for hours
Sliding Scale
Medi-Cal / Victims' Assistance accepted

Los Angeles County Jail - Mental Health Numbers & Information
Inmate Location in the Los Angeles County Jail System:
(Have the booking number if possible.)
Call 213-473-6100 or use the Internet: http:://www.lasd.org

At the Jail:
(Note: In Los Angeles County, arrestees are taken first to the substation where the arrest takes place, but usually within 24 hours the arrestee is transferred to the L.A. County Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles and remains there until court disposition of the case. When the inmates arrive at the Central Jail, they are processed through the Inmate Reception Center. The Department of Mental Health phone number in this reception center is 213-293-5414. If you are in time, you might try to inform this clinician of your loved one's mental illness).

In the jail, people with severe mental illness who meet the LPS criteria* for a
72 hour hold (per Sec. 5150 of Welfare and Institutions Code) are kept in acute psychiatric units within the jail and are referred to as "inpatients". Others whose mental illness is not so severe, are housed in special psychiatric units in the regular jail inmate population and receive their medication there. They are referred to as "outpatients." In this situation, both inpatients and outpatients
are still "in jail".

* LPS comes from the names of the California legislators who wrote the LPS Act in the 1970s: Lanterman, Petris, and Short and refers to a mental health conservatorship, either temporary as in a 72 hour hold, or long term in which one adult (called the conservator) becomes responsible for a mentally ill adult (called the conservatee) see below for more details.

Twin Towers Correctional Facility
450 Bauchet St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. (Los Angeles’ Central Jail)

Inpatient Psychiatric Unit Program: 213-893-5400
Men’s Outpatient Program (still in the jail): 213-473-6183
Women’s Outpatient Program (still in the jail): 213-893-5400
Central Juvenile Hall, Mental Health Services: 323-226-8829

When you call about your relative. Make sure the staff understands the nature of your loved one’s mental illness and the medication that he or she is taking or that has worked best in the past. It is important that you call because unless your loved one has informed the right jail personnel, the jail mental health personnel have no way of knowing that he or she needs mental health medications
and services.

L.A. County Department of Mental Health Court Program

The Department maintains a mental health counselor in many of the county’s court locations. When your relative is scheduled for a hearing, it is important that you discuss his or her case with that mental health counselor and that the judge, deputy district (or city) attorney and deputy public defender (defense attorney) knows of the mental illness. To find the name and number of the mental health counselor at a particular court, call the Department of Mental Health Court Program: 626-403-4370.

L.A. County Conservatorship Information

Legal Basis: According to the Welfare and Institutions Code, a conservator may be appointed for a person who is "gravely disabled" meaning that, as a result of a mental disorder, the person is unable to provide for food, clothing or shelter. Certain criminal defendants incompetent to stand trial may also meet the criteria.
Purpose: To provide for individualized treatment, supervision, and placement of the conservatee and to manage their financial resources.
How Is It Started? Only designated mental health treatment facilities, agencies or the courts can make a referral to the Public Guardian for LPS. Only the Public Guardian can petition the court for the initial appointment as conservator.
Medical Treatment: The Court usually authorizes mental health treatment only, including psychotropic drugs, even when against the
will of the individual.
Living Arrangements/ Placement: The conservator usually is authorized to place the conservatee anywhere in California, including locked mental health facilities, if consistent with the treatment plan.

WHERE TO CALL for further information:
L.A. Public Guardian Office: 213-974-0515
Emergency only, after hours: 213-974-1234

Other Organizations

Other Resources

211 - dial 211 in Los Angeles for
Health and Human Services Info

311 - dial 311 in Los Angeles for
City Services Directory

911 - dial 911 from any location for Emergencies
Emergency Services - emergency only
Your local police and paramedics can respond to 911 calls from any location but can identify our location more effectively if you call from a land line instead of cell

NAMI Merchandise on-line (http://www.3dasap.com/NAMI)

Schedule of Meetings & Classes

Click here for our Calendar.

Reading List

Click here for our Reading List.

Stages of Adherence to Medications

Lack of insight:
Over half of the individuals who go voluntarily to the hospital do not acknowledge that they are ill. They continue to deny their need for treatment even though their symptoms improve on medication. This feature of psychotic and/or manic process is so common it is now considered a reliable clinical sign of both these disorders. Depressed people will also fail to recognize that they are becoming dangerously ill, believing that their episode “isn’t really serious” or that “it will pass.” Lack of insight seems to be a part of the mental illness process, and may persist for the duration of the illness.

Protective denial:
It is important to know that our relatives go through many of the same emotional responses to their illness that we do. At some point, our loved ones realize
that something is terribly wrong, but they are not yet ready to deal with this
painful recognition.

During this denial period, “accepting” drugs is an admission of illness; refusing them maintains the protective illusion that “nothing is wrong.” Even if our relative agrees temporarily to medication, imagine how disturbing the typical side effects must appear to them at the denial stage of “not needing medication.”
From this point of view, quitting makes sense!

Avoiding the subjective pain or boredom of sanity:
One of the great advantages of the anti-depressants is their ability to lift mood and enhance well being. But many other psychiatric drugs have the opposite effect. If someone’s mania* or psychosis* is grandiose and exciting, medications bring a painful return to the colorless world of “having a mental illness.”
Even when medications block a terrifying psychotic experience, there is this
“dull” after-effect.

Many people complain that neuroleptic* drugs interfere with their sense of the immediacy of perceptions and feelings; they relate that these drugs make them feel distant and inhibited.

Given these disagreeable options, it is not surprising that many of our relatives go through a period of experimentation “on-and-off-drugs,” figuring psychosis may actually be preferable to the bleak reality of their condition.

Rebellion against patienthood:
Even when a level of adherence is reached, our relatives will still surprise us by refusing to continue long-term treatment. Taking medications forever is like admitting you are chronically ill and will never get well. People with mental illness have an intense desire to get rid of their condition: when they start improving,
they will tell you they no longer need the medications. This is a normal response to feeling better and a seemingly logical plan to get psychiatric drugs out of
one’s life.

Reluctant or partial acceptance:
It is only when our relatives work their way through to acceptance of their illness on some level, that medication adherence ceases to be an ever-present worry and danger. They have come to accept the tradeoffs, albeit reluctantly.

Glossary of Terms:

mania: a form of psychosis characterized by exalted feelings, delusions of grandeur, elevation of mood, psychomotor overactivity, and over-production
of ideas.

neuroleptic: referring to a specific effect of a pharmacologic agent on the nervous system; specifically a drug whose principal effect is on psychomotor activity.

psychosis: a term applied to a mental disorder where there is personality disintegration and loss of contact with reality. The disturbances are without clearly defined physical cause or structural change in the brain. They usually are characterized by delusions and hallucination.

Predictable Stages Of Emotional Responses To Mental Illness

I. Dealing with the Catastrophic Event

Crisis/chaos/shock: Feeling overwhelmed, confused, lost. Something catastrophic is going on and we do not know how to deal with it. Our sense of emotional intactness is shattered.

Denial: A protective response giving us time to process the painful events that have turned our lives upside down. We decide all this is not really happening and/or there is a perfectly logical explanation for these events and/or it will pass, etc. We “normalize” what is going on.

Hoping-against-hope: The dawning of recognition and the hope that “this is not what I think it is”—that it is something easier to deal with. Here we assume that if we make a huge effort it will change everything and our lives will go back to normal. This usually does not work; another crisis or relapse dashes our hopes (families call this the “roller-coaster”).

Needs: *Support *Comfort *Empathy for confusion *Help finding resources *Crisis intervention *Prognosis *Empathy for pain *NAMI

II. Learning to Cope: “Going through the Mill”

Anger/guilt/resentment: We start to “blame the victim,” insisting that the ill person should “snap out of it” or “get back to work.” We feel fed up and do not want to handle it; we distance ourselves from the problem. At the same time, we harbor tremendous guilt, fearing that it is really our fault. Then we compensate and get over-involved with the problem. This ambivalence really drains us. We feel rejecting and too solicitous, all at the same time.

Recognition: The fact that a catastrophic illness happened to someone we love becomes a reality for us. It is clear something tragic occurred that has changed our lives together. We begin to mark time as before/or/after the event of illness.

Grief: We mourn the loss of the time before illness struck; we deeply feel the tragedy of what has happened to the person who is ill; we grieve that our future together is uncertain. If our loved ones have attacked or rejected us in their illness, we feel inconsolable. Because these illnesses are either episodic or chronic, our grief does not go away: it is “chronic sorrow.”

Needs: *Vent feelings *Keep hope *Education *Self-care *Networking *Skill training *Letting go *Cooperation from system *NAMI

III. Moving Into Advocacy: “Charge!”

Understanding: We begin to gain a solid, empathic sense of what our family members suffer in their illness. With some of our fear behind us, we find we can grasp what the inner experience of illness is for our loved ones. We gain real respect for their courage and fortitude.

Acceptance: Yes, we finally say bad things do happen to good people. We surely wish this trouble had not come into our lives, but it did, and we can accept our misfortune. It is not our fault; it is not their fault. It is a sad and difficult life experience, but we will hang in there and manage.

Advocacy/Action: With a measure of acceptance, we can now focus our anger and grief, and work to confront the system that has often failed us. We are ready to “come out,” to fight discrimination and to change the world that shames the mentally ill and their families. We join public advocacy groups. We get involved.

Needs: *Activism *Restoring balance in life *Responsiveness from system *NAMI

There are some important points to emphasize here:

None of these states are “wrong” or “bad.” They are normal reactions everyone experiences when struggling to cope with serious illness and trying to deal with critical disruptions in their lives.
This process is ongoing—for most of us it has taken years. The process is also cyclical; we will start it all over again every time our relative has a relapse, or suffers a serious setback.
Different family members are often at different places in the cycle, which is why we sometimes have difficulty communicating with each other and agreeing on what to do.
This developmental account is not about expectations. This is a human process that you do your way. If you know where you are in it you can be gentler with yourself. We think it offers hope to see that we do progress through pain and grief to acceptance.

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