Connecting Our Community: News & Updates

The Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health’s (LACDMH) Gloria Mendez, Psychiatric Social Worker II and Brian Navarro, Psychiatric Social Worker II, led the Service Areas 4 and 5 Clergy Collaborations to Los Angeles’ Holocaust Museum in Pan Pacific Park on May 22. The event’s highlights were hearing from Joe Alexander, a 102-year-old Holocaust survivor, artifact donations, and a museum tour. 

Alexander, a U.S. resident since 1949, was a 16-year-old Polish Jew when the Nazis invaded in 1938. His family was forcibly displaced to the Warsaw Ghetto before he was sent to the first of many concentration camps. Throughout his time in different concentration camps, Alexander went face-to-face with the “Angel of Death,” Josef Mengele, at Auschwitz. He was sorted by the German officer into a group to be led off for death but miraculously snuck his way from the extermination line into another line for forced labor. Alexander also persevered through death marches and forced labor to survive the war.

Alexander, a U.S. resident since 1949, was a 16-year-old Polish Jew when the Nazis invaded in 1938. His family was forcibly displaced to the Warsaw Ghetto before he was sent to the first of many concentration camps. Throughout his time in different concentration camps, Alexander went face-to-face with the “Angel of Death,” Josef Mengele, at Auschwitz. He was sorted by the German officer into a group to be led off for death but miraculously snuck his way from the extermination line into another line for forced labor. Alexander also persevered through death marches and forced labor to survive the war. 

An emotional audience dabbed at tears as a stoic Alexander rolled up his left sleeve to reveal a tattooed identification number and shared his harrowing tales of overcoming death through hope before being rescued by U.S. soldiers in Landsberg am Lech in 1945.  

“The Americans were there, and I was safe,” Alexander told the Los Angeles Daily News and FBI agents in 2024. “I survived. Hitler didn’t.” 

Eventually, Alexander made his way to Pennsylvania through New York City in 1949 and eventually to Santa Monica in 1950 to live alongside his cousin. 

The event also featured an artifact donation to the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum by Abel Acuna and led by Chaplain Ruth Belonsky, a member of the LACDMH Faith-based Advocacy Council and Service Area 5 Clergy Roundtable. Acuna disclosed to the group that his home was destroyed in the Palisades fire, with only a few remaining memories tucked in storage.  

Acuna’s family survived the Holocaust and moved to Argentina. His aunt passed along a vest and an armband with a golden star — a signifier of being a Jew during the Nazi occupation — which Acuna kindly donated to the museum for preservation. 

There was a shared ominous feeling among visitors who viewed the museum and listened to Alexander. Museum tour guides took LACDMH staff and visitors through exhibits showing how Germany used racism, book burning, propaganda, lies and media manipulation to exterminate Jews, people with disabilities, Poles, Romani, and more. 

The Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health (LACDMH) celebrated May is Mental Health Awareness Month with the Take Action for Mental Health L.A. County campaign. The annual celebration highlights the importance of mental health to all communities throughout Los Angeles County and is in partnership with the California Mental Health Services Authority (CalMHSA).

The Take Action movement promotes wellness and wellbeing while sharing the vast array of resources and services provided by the nation’s largest behavioral health department. The Take Action events bring communities together in wellness and encourages everyone to pay attention to their own needs and those around them. 

This year’s edition featured eight events at local colleges with a final countywide event at Gloria Molina Grand Park. Events took place all around L.A. County — from Lancaster to Wilmington and Santa Monica to Whittier. Every event included free wellness activities such as yoga, meditation, art, music and community resources.  

The 2025 campaign featured high-profile social impact partners, including the Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Sparks, Los Angeles Football Club, Univision, and Meruelo Media. The month-long celebration also featured more than 100 free non-LACDMH celebrations throughout the county hosted by more than 65 community-based organizations. 

We look forward to seeing everyone again at next year’s Take Action LA County!

View the event photo gallery for this year’s events.

LACDMH’s Alternative Crisis Response (ACR) program launched an awareness campaign this month to make County residents aware of the Department’s non-law enforcement mental health crisis support teams. The campaign features members of the program’s Field Intervention Teams (FIT) to foster trust in the County’s first responders for mental health crisis support.

IDEO, an international design and innovation firm, designed the campaign that features a revamped webpage, public awareness videos available on YouTube, billboards, posters, and social media assets, highlighting FIT members who apply their skills and experience with mental health in helping individuals and families during a crisis.

The Department’s ACR team is a unique operation of field workers who are dispatched through the department’s 24/7 Help Line and 988. When appropriate, FIT members are called to a scene in pairs with one mental health clinician and one community health worker in plain clothes. Once on-site, the team engages with family members or loved ones to stabilize and de-escalate the situation.

The program is coming off its most successful year to date. In 2024, FIT members were dispatched 21,000 times which is up 35% from 2023 with 94% of those calls resolved without law enforcement involvement. To meet increasing Countywide demand for this resource, the ACR Program has doubled capacity over the last two years to include 71 FIT teams.

This year marks the 10^th anniversary of the Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) Program, also known as Laura’s Law. Enacted after the tragic death of Laura Wilcox in 2001, AOT was created to support individuals living with severe mental illness who are at significant risk of decline or detention due to poor treatment adherence.

AOT focuses on engaging those with repeated hospitalizations, incarcerations, or a history of harm to self or others. The program starts with intensive outreach, encouraging voluntary treatment. If efforts are unsuccessful, AOT may petition for court-ordered treatment to ensure safety and stability. Ultimately, the goal is to reduce hospitalizations and law enforcement encounters by connecting individuals to long-term support through Full-Service Partnership (FSP) or Enriched Residential Services (ERS).

Over the past decade, AOT has bridged the gap between the mental health system and those most in need. By fostering collaboration between the courts, County Counsel, Public Defender’s Office, Patients’ Rights advocates, law enforcement, and mental health providers, AOT offers a more coordinated and compassionate path to recovery.

None of this would be possible without the dedication of AOT staff. Elida Fuentes, a Medical Case Worker with the Little Tokyo team, has been part of this journey for five years. She highlights how stigma often prevents individuals from seeking help. Through consistent outreach and trust-building, she’s seen people once resistant to care begin their mental health recovery.

Fuentes emphasizes that success often hinges on relationships. “When clients know you’re genuinely there for them,” she said, “It can break down walls and open the door to healing.” Her compassionate, non-threatening approach has proven especially effective with those who’ve had negative past experiences with treatment. For Fuentes, this work is deeply meaningful — and she is grateful to witness the change.

For the last 10 years, AOT has stood beside those often unseen and underserved, offering hope, support, and a path toward a better quality of life.

Know someone who might benefit from AOT? Submit a referral today. Let us help — there is hope.

For questions related to AOT, please email AOTLAOE@dmh.lacounty.gov or call 213-738-2440. The AOT-LA Website includes details about the AOT program, the referral form, and brochures in multiple languages.

Submitted by:
Ulma Romero-Garcia LCSW, Psychiatric Social Worker II
Venus Ngai LMFT, Program Manager I

Commentaries from the Edge: Mental Health on the Frontlines

Episode #13: Bac Luu at LAPD Headquarters

Good news from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD): A partnership, decades in the making is changing how mental health crises are handled. Bac Luu, a Mental Health Clinical Program Manager I with DMH, shares insights on how embedding mental health professionals within the LAPD is improving outcomes for both law enforcement and the community.

Since 1993, programs like the Systemwide Mental Health Assessment Response Teams (SMART) and Case Assessment Management Program (CAMP) have paired police officers with mental health professionals to respond to crises. Over the years, this collaboration has expanded, earning national and international recognition. Luu continues the work pioneered by Chuck Lennon, proving that teamwork between policing and mental health services benefits everyone.

Episode #14: Reuben Wilson & the 988 Crisis Lifeline

LACDMH’s “Who Do I Call for Help?” campaign highlights the importance of 988 — a 24/7 national crisis number providing immediate support. Reuben Wilson, head of the Alternative Crisis Response (ACR) Unit, explains how this initiative diverts mental health emergencies from law enforcement to trained professionals.

With years of experience in crisis response, Wilson is leading efforts to expand awareness of ACR and 988 across Los Angeles County. In partnership with Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, DMH ensures that those in distress always have someone to call, someone to respond, and somewhere to go for continued care.

Episode #15-16: Miriam Brown and Francisco Tan

As May as Mental Health Awareness Month approaches, so does our focus on community emergency outreach at the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health (LACDMH). One thing is clear: innovation is making a real difference.

The final two episodes of our podcast features Francisco Tan, psychologist and head of LACDMH’s Psychiatric Mobile Response Team (PMRT), who takes us into the field to explain how his eight Teams operate. Each team may include a social worker, nurse, community health worker, and often a peer — someone with lived experience of emotional distress. Available 24/7, PMRT can be reached at (800) 854-7771. Teams respond directly to individuals in crisis, providing on-site evaluation, collaboration with other agencies, consultation, and connections to ongoing care. Their primary goal is to help individuals remain in their communities with the support they need — a goal shared across LACDMH’s Emergency Outreach and Triage Division.

At the helm of this division is Miriam Brown, Deputy Director of Emergency Outreach and Triage. With deep experience and unwavering dedication, Miriam brings a broad vision to how LACDMH responds to emergencies across Los Angeles. Her leadership has helped position the department as a national model for mental health crisis response.

Miriam acknowledges that it takes a certain kind of person to face the relentless challenges of emergency mental health outreach — work that often requires coordination with police, fire, public health, probation, schools, and community organizations. For decades, she has cultivated strong partnerships with these agencies to ensure the best possible outcomes for those in crisis.

The scope of her team’s work is vast: school threat assessments, mental health-related criminal behavior, volatile family disputes, individuals exhibiting high-risk behavior, and more. This outreach reflects LACDMH’s proactive commitment to reaching every corner of the community — to prevent unnecessary incarceration or hospitalization and to help people with mental illness live safely and with dignity.

Miriam’s steady leadership continues to make Los Angeles a healthier, more compassionate place.

Click here to listen to Commentaries from the Edge on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Click here to read about episodes 1-2, 3-8, and 9-12.

The Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health (LACDMH) officially kicked off its annual May is Mental Health Awareness Month Take Action for Mental Health L.A. County campaign on March 24. The event, which took place at St. Anne’s Conference Center, featured many of the Department’s community partners and remarks from Department Director Dr. Lisa H. Wong, other LACDMH leadership, and the California Mental Health Services Authority (CalMHSA). 

The 2025 Take Action campaign is supported by CalMHSA and involves 68 local organizations that were granted more than $4.15 million to host mental health-related events throughout May. The Department and CalMHSA target all the events to support community mental wellness through activities like free yoga and meditation to art, music and community resources. Additionally, LACDMH is collaborating with high-profile, social impact partners, including the Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Sparks, Los Angeles Football Club and media partners Univision and Meruelo Media who will assist in promoting the events and the Take Action message.   

This year’s Take Action campaign features nine large-scale events hosted by the Department across the County and will take place at several local college campuses, including Antelope Valley College, Santa Monica City College, Pasadena City College and more. A final countywide celebration will occur on Saturday, May 31 at Gloria Molina Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles. LACDMH also has billboards and transit advertising throughout Los Angeles to encourage people to Take Action for their mental health. For a complete list of events and to learn more about the campaign, visit TakeActionLA.com. 

Commentaries from the Edge: Mental Health on the Frontlines

Episode #9: The HOME Team

In Los Angeles, California, there exists a “City within a City” where its citizens live and die on the streets. The numbers are staggering. At the last approximate count, over 75,000 people are struggling to survive unhoused, and thousands are dying each year. In response to this humanitarian crisis, LACDMH launched a pioneering and innovative initiative known as street psychiatry — a program often referred to as a “radical solution.” This approach provides critical medical and therapeutic care directly on the streets, creating a kind of outdoor emergency room.

On this episode, we hear from Aubree Lovelace, Chief Administrator of the HOME (Homeless, Outreach, Mobile, Engagement) Team. The HOME Team comprises psychiatrists, social workers, nurses, and peers who dedicate their efforts to saving lives as part of their daily work. In upcoming episodes, several HOME Team members will share their experiences confronting the most critical situations among those living on the streets. They work with individuals experiencing severe mental illness who are unable to meet their most basic needs.

Referrals to the HOME Team often come from other homeless outreach providers, law enforcement officers, family members, and community members. The program’s successes — such as helping individuals accept medications to stabilize their mental health — have led to its growth. Stabilization often marks the first step toward housing, reconnection with family, and reintegration into society.

The work of the HOME Team not only provides immediate relief but also reduces costly hospitalizations, clinic visits, and incarcerations. Expanding this dedicated team of mental health professionals is vital to addressing the crisis on the streets of Los Angeles.

Episode #10: HOME and Shayan Rab

Dr. Shayan Rab ventures where few psychiatrists have gone: into the streets where Los Angeles’ unhoused population fights to survive. He describes his work as “majestic,” a word that reflects the beauty and dignity he finds in saving lives and transforming systems to address this urgent humanitarian crisis. Dr. Rab began his journey in 2018, walking the streets and treating individuals on the brink of losing their capacity to survive due to severe mental illness.

At the program’s inception, Dr. Rab was the sole psychiatrist on the HOME Team, working alongside a multidisciplinary staff comprised of a nurse, social worker, medical caseworker, and peer. Today, thanks to the program’s remarkable success, the team has expanded to include 17 psychiatrists and over 200 staff members who cover Los Angeles County’s vast geographic area. As the HOME Medical Director, Dr. Rab not only performs his daily duties but also serves as a passionate advocate, demonstrating how communities can unite to solve what seems like an insurmountable problem.

In this episode, Dr. Rab shares his insights and approach to building trust with the unhoused population. His work embodies the LACDMH motto: “Hope, Recovery, and Wellbeing.” Through his dedication, he has pioneered a model of street psychiatry that serves as a beacon for Los Angeles, the nation, and the world.

Episode #11: HOME with Dr. Yelena Koldobskaya and Isidro Alvarez

We continue our series on Street Psychiatry, exploring the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health (LACDMH)’s HOME Team program. In this episode, we hear from Yelena Koldobskaya, M.D., Ph.D., Medical Director for the southern region of Los Angeles, and Isidro Alvarez, Medical Caseworker. Together, they are key to the program’s success, treating individuals as if in an open-air hospital to save lives.

They share their experience working with people who are homeless and in critical condition but refuse treatment. Dr. Koldobskaya and Isidro discuss their process of monitoring these individuals over time and attempting to establish a care partnership. When necessary, they initiate a Conservatorship, where a family member or guardian, if available, is given control over the person’s decisions to prevent them from dying on the streets. This extreme measure requires a court decision.

Dr. Koldobskaya and Isidro offer a firsthand account of their work, including the story of a woman living on a bus bench. When Dr. K’s medical expertise and Isidro’s experience with Conservatorship intersect, the result is a successful intervention — an example of the HOME Team’s impactful work. As many cultures say, “When you save one life, it’s as if you’ve saved an entire world.”

Episode #12: HOME with Elizabeth Cope

A few years ago, the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health (LACDMH) launched an innovative program to provide services in uncharted territory: the Street Psychiatry-HOME (Homeless Outreach Mobile Engagement) Team. This program was groundbreaking because it introduced new techniques for helping people with severe mental illness living on the streets. A psychiatrist provided care directly in the community, and the team — comprising nurses, social workers, and peers — worked together to save lives.

This episode, the final installment in a four-part series, highlights the successes of the program, featuring Elizabeth Cope, Administrator and Co-Manager of the team, which includes 220 staff members across Los Angeles. Cope’s dedication mirrors that of other leaders who, like her, bring enthusiasm and positive outcomes to the homeless community.

The program’s model requires vision, funding, and willpower to address the growing crisis of homelessness in Los Angeles, where people are living in dire conditions under freeway overpasses, in tents, and in other vulnerable situations. LACDMH is committed to this approach, guided by the department’s motto: “Hope, Recovery, and Wellbeing.”

Click here to listen to Commentaries from the Edge on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Click here to read about episodes 1-2 and 3-8.

The 16th Annual Global Day of Unplugging will take placing beginning sundown of March 7 until the sundown of March 8. This daylong observance encourages people to go tech-free with the goal of building and sustaining healthier digital habits. Research have shown that excessive screen time can impact well-being due in multiple ways, including reducing exercise, interfering with sleep and limiting social interactions—all contributors to poorer physical and mental health. To raise awareness of this issue and to counter the “constantly online” trend, the first Day of Unplugging commenced in 2009 to prompt people to disconnect from technology and invest their time and energy with their loved ones and communities.

To help people dive into “offline activities, real-life conversations, in-person connections and meaningful moments”, Global Day of Unplugging has curated a collection of over 200 activity ideas to do as well as a list of “unplugged gatherings” taking place on March 7 and 8. For more information about this observance and additional tips for a better relationship with screens, devices and social media, visit https://www.globaldayofunplugging.org/.

Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health (LACDMH) staff have been on the ground from the very first morning of the wildfires on Jan. 8 providing mental health support and in the recovery efforts at the Disaster Recovery Centers, evacuation centers and repopulation centers in Altadena, Pacific Palisades, Pasadena, Westwood and Malibu. 

County staff worked alongside the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), State agencies, County departments, City departments and nonprofits to provide relief to people who lost anything and/or everything in the devastating fires. 

LACDMH had more than 250 clinicians, community health workers, clinical pharmacists and other staff provide immediate and long-term recovery. Due to how the fires spread, people had very little notice before evacuation, so they were often missing medications, clothing and personal items. Staff provided these essential items, immediate mental health support and long-term resources.  

At the disaster recovery centers, LACDMH provided counseling to people reliving some of the worst days of their lives. They also spoke with the media to share available information about the recovery centers, including the wide list of resources available. Through the teamwork of Federal, State, County and local resources, people could walk into a disaster recovery center and walk out with a temporary driver’s license, an expedited passport, a birth certificate, a college diploma, and much more.  

LACDMH Director Dr. Lisa H. Wong and the rest of the Department express their deepest sympathy and support to all those impacted by the wildfires in Los Angeles County. As we navigate through this challenging time together, it’s important to remember that recovery isn’t just about rebuilding physical spaces but also about healing emotionally. The Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health is here to assist and provide support during this difficult time through our 24/7 Help Line at (800) 854-7771. Residents can also find mental health resources through dmh.lacounty.gov and the disaster mental health resources page.  

See more photos from our recovery efforts on Flickr.