Parents as Patients

I am the director of the Familybuilders In-Home Projects at Hillsides in Pasadena.

I agree with your article: that our society begin to look at what it values. If it values children, we need to develop policies and programs that support those values. But what do we , as individuals or as professional social workers do while society is looking at the “big picture”? Each of us tries to effect positive change to the clients we serve now and we do it in different ways in different kinds of programs.

You mentioned that here is no “family preservation” program in Southern California. In fact, there are three such programs in Southern California, one in San Bernardino County, one in San Diego County and one in Los Angeles County.

We at Hillsides in Pasadena, serving Los Angeles County, have had a “family preservation” project for the past three years in which licensed therapists are sent into “high risk” homes where they devote as much as 20 hours a week to family therapy and educating parents and children. We are available 24 hours per day, seven days per week. We work with families in Skid Row, East Los Angeles and under-served areas of Los Angeles County as well as the communities in the San Gabriel Valley. There are a total of eight pilot projects in California like us.

We are living in complex times with problems that have no simple solutions. We need to use all the effective programs already in existence until we do have better answers.

SYLVIA LEVITAN

Director, In-Home Projects

Hillsides

Pasadena