Funds Granted for Asian Center

Funding for an Asian mental health center in Rosemead has been approved by the county Board of Supervisors, clearing the way for matching funds from the state and allowing the center to begin operations.

The board recently agreed to provide $28,000 of the $304,000 needed this year for the Asian Pacific Family Center, which is scheduled to open early next month at 3907 N. Rosemead Blvd.

The center, staff members said, will help Asians, especially new immigrants, adjust to major changes in their lives.

For psychiatric problems, the center will offer treatment of loneliness, depression and stress; the treatment will include psychotherapy and medication. Counseling will be available for marital problems and cultural adjustment, staff members said, and the center will sponsor public education programs in schools and churches.

The 12 staff members will include social workers, licensed psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists who will speak a number of Asian languages, among them Chinese in several dialects----Mandarin, Cantonese, Tai-san Cantonese and Taiwanese--Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese and Tagalog, the language of the Philippines.

‘A Great Need’

“There is a great need in the community,” said staff member Eva Lu, a psychiatric social worker who is versed in the Chinese language. “But in the Asian population, many will not acknowledge the need. Instead they may try to keep things within the family.”

Lu said cultural differences often result in fights among white and Asian students in Alhambra, South Pasadena, San Marino and Monterey Park schools. But she said that while services in the San Gabriel Valley are geared toward helping the general population with such problems, there is none that focus exclusively on Asians.

Areta Crowell, San Gabriel Valley regional director for the county Department of Mental Health, said the state Department of Mental Health will provide the balance of funding for the center.