Contact: Carmen Ramos Chandler ,
(818) 677-2130
carmen.chandler@csun.edu

Kaiser Grant Allows Valley Trauma Center
to Expand Outreach into Latino Community

The money is going toward the development of the DATE Project, which raises community awareness of acquaintance rape and assault.

Dove Poock, the center's prevention education coordinator, said center officials were honored to receive Kaiser's Health Partnership Award.

"This award is providing an opportunity for us to reach out to the monolingual Spanish-speaking community in a way we have never done before," Poock said.

She said the center makes hundreds of presentations to thousands of people each year on sexual assault.

"The money from this award will enable us to strengthen our outreach programs by increasing the number of trained volunteers and developing bilingual materials to reach an even larger and more diverse audience," Poock said.

The Valley Trauma Center is a nonprofit organization primarily funded by the California Office of Criminal Justice Planning and is a program of the Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling at Cal State Northridge.

The center opened its Northridge location in 1984. It opened a second location in Santa Clarita in 1998. The two centers provide comprehensive services, including a 24-hour hotline, medical and legal accompaniment, and short- and long-term individual counseling and support groups for the victims of sexual assault.

The center is one of several recipients of the Kaiser Permanente Health Partnership Awards handed out by Kaiser Permanente's facilities in Woodland Hills and Panorama City.

The awards total nearly $300,000 and were given to agencies throughout the San Fernando, Antelope, Santa Clarita, Conejo and Simi valleys and Ventura County.

They are designed to honor programs in six service categories, including primary health care, health education and prevention, prenatal care and parenting education, teen pregnancy prevention, mental health/at-risk youth, and senior health and wellness.

Agencies received grants ranging from $5,000 to $12,500. Selections were made by a judging panel of the Kaiser Permanente Benefits Team.

The Kaiser Permanente Health Partnerships Awards program is an extension of its Community Services Fund program, which provides financial support to local nonprofit human service organizations that help disadvantaged populations in culturally diverse communities and focus on the health needs of children, women and the elderly.