Dear Friends, 

It's been another wild year, no?

As we approach the end of 2021 ((but what is time really, anyway?)) I continue to find myself deeply invested in my work at The Relational Center, the non-profit community mental health and counselor training center that has been my second home for a few years now. In addition to continuing to see clients at TRC, I've been so excited to take on the role of Foundational Trainer this past year, in which I get to support incoming trainees in learning our model of social justice-oriented counseling. More recently, I've stepped into a new position as TRC's Training Coordinator, helping the organization to further develop our Foundational and Advanced Training curricula and create even more professional development opportunities for our change-making counselors. 

I've taken on these roles because I believe The Relational Center is really on to something. The standard approach of the mental health field sees the suffering we each face as a matter of individual pathology. Diagnose the illness, fix the person, and supposedly, that alleviates the suffering. But I believe this approach so frequently harms as much as it helps. And if the last couple of years have shown us anything, it's an ever-deepening revelation of how interconnected we all are, how much the systems we navigate each day are stacked against the most vulnerable among us, and how much of our suffering is the result of our disconnection from each other's humanity. In light of this, I am so grateful to The Relational Center for helping me and my colleagues to develop ways of practicing that depathologize suffering, recontextualize the challenges folks face, and help generate personal and collective empowerment.

During the pandemic, our regular fundraising opportunities have been severly compromised, making our year-end fundraising appeal more critical than ever. Despite the collective challenges, in the past two years, TRC has increased both the number of folks served and the number of counselors-in-training on our staff by 45%, in an attempt to meet the ever-growing demand for financially accessible, compassionate mental health support. In additional, we've started two new programs in these past two years -- we are working with Immigrant Defenders Law Center to provide therapy to folks in the asylum process, and with an organization called ChildHelp to provide counseling to Transition Age Youth in Los Angeles.

As a non-profit, we rely on donations to keep our lights on and doors open. If you're able to make a financial contribution, no matter the size, please join me in supporting this rare gem of an organization. It would mean the world to me and help so many.

Lots of Love,
JJ