By The Long Beach Trauma Recovery Center will open its doors to the public in an open house this Thursday, showcasing the second center of its kind in California.
The center, which was funded by the California Victim Compensation Program through a $534,579 grant, means to treat victims in the Long Beach community who have been mentally traumatized by violent experiences, according the Cal State Long Beach website.
The California Endowment also awarded $40,000 to establish the center, according to the website.
Dignity Health St. Mary Medical Center, which houses the LBTRC, is expected to accommodate victims who are low-income or uninsured, given the demographics around the facility; however, the center is free and open to anyone.
“This is a CSULB program, but we intentionally located ourselves at St. Mary’s because we researched the area and found out that many victims of crime live in the 90813 area code, which is where St. Mary’s is located,” said Bita Ghafoori, advance studies in education and counseling professor and the LBTRC director.
The grant funds LBTRC for one year, during which the center intends to provide its services for an estimated 300 victims, Ghafoori said. The LBTRC began its operations on April 18 and already began treating patients.
Currently, Ghafoori said that the center is already planning to acquire funding for another term by renewing their grant and asking for donations on their website.
Ghafoori said that the LBTRC sets to achieve four main goals during its term which include providing evidence-based, comprehensive services to victims, training programs for graduate students studying social work and family therapy, educating the community with outreach events, and most importantly, gathering research on the center’s population and the efficacy of its services.
“Research is a really essential component to what we are doing because we want to understand this population better,” she said. “There’s very little research on effective services on victims of crimes, and so, we want to know what works and how much of what we’re doing works…”
After the center gathers its research, Ghafoori said that the findings will be available to the public.
CSULB President Jane Close Conoley and Ghafoori, among other citywide officials and collaborators, are expected to attend the open house.
Also involved with LBTRC is the Long Beach Police Department, Los Angeles County District Attorney, Long Beach City Prosecutor and Long Beach City Manager’s Office — all groups that were drawn from the City of Long Beach’s Violence Prevention Plan, which began this year.
The open house will last from 5:30 to 8 p.m. and is located at 1027 Linden Ave. at the St. Mary Medical Center in the Health Enhancement Room.
For more information on the open house, call at 562-491-977 or email at LBTRC@csulb.edu.
