Young Nak Outreach and Transformation (YNOT) Foundation announced on Thursday that it has received a $100,000 grant from the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health (DMH) to provide mental health services to the Los Angeles County community, free of charge.
The funding that has been given to the YNOT Foundation is part of the DMH’s budget for Prevention and Early Intervention (PEI) services. 40 different organizations applied for the one-time funding, of which 18 were able to receive $100,000 each to provide preventive and educational programs for mental health.
The YNOT Foundation in particular will be using the funding for a program called, "The First Aid for Emotion," in which YNOT will be offering seminars and workshops on 15 different mental health subjects to any groups who are interested in hosting the seminars. The seminar subjects include “Anger Detox,” a month-long workshop aimed at helping individuals find the root of their anger management problems and take steps to alleviate it; “Effective conversation methods between first and second generation Koreans”; “The different types of depression among teens”; “Menopause and depression”; “The health of the heart for elderly”; and “Healthy heart stories that religious leaders must know,” among many others.
Seminars and workshops, which will be held in both English and Korean, will be led by qualified experts in mental health who have Master’s degrees in Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT). These experts will come directly to the locations of the organizations and groups that have requested the seminars, including churches, workplace meeting offices, community centers, nursing homes, and the like.
In particular, the YNOT Foundation hopes that through this program, more Koreans in the Los Angeles community will be able to receive preventative care and treatment freely.
“Experts say that 70 to 80 percent of mental health issues are treatable,” said Jung-Min Suh, the program manager for "The First Aid for Emotion" program. “We’re offering these services in hopes that those in the 70 to 80 percent would receive help and become treated.”
Though the funding itself is aimed to help residents of the Los Angeles Community, the YNOT Foundation organizers stated that they would still be happy to offer services to people outside of LA County with “a heart of service,” and will not be using the funding from the LA DMH.
Groups or organizations that are interested in requesting the "Anger Detox" workshop must have a minimum of 11 people attending, and those who are interested in all other seminars must have a group of at least 31 people attending.
The YNOT Foundation's first "Anger Detox" workshop will take place on March 14 at World Mission Church, from 1 PM to 4 PM.
For more information, visit www.ynotfoundation.org, or email rumee@ynotfoundation.org.