BRITTANY YEAROUT
News Assistant
As they have for the past several years, Pepperdine students journey to Skid Row in Los Angeles to help the homeless at the Union Rescue Mission, now in its 115th year of operation. The rescue mission houses a mental health clinic and legal aid clinic, that are supported by area universities, including Pepperdine.
“The clinics are supplementing and enhancing our services,” director of communication Liz Mooredian said. “They are taking our services one step further, and since they are able to be there and help us we are able to go beyond what we originally started doing back in 1891.”
The Pepperdine legal aid clinic opened in 1999. Students see client’s cases under the supervision of Professor Brittany Stringfellow Otey.
The four clinics are run by contributing universities. Besides Pepperdine, UCLA School of Nursing started the health center in 1984 and the newest addition is the USC dental clinic.
If it weren’t for these clinics it would take years longer for someone to get a job and get back on their feet.
The mental health clinic was established in 2001 when Pepperdine received a $100,000 grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. Since then-graduate students from the psychology division of GSEP have been providing psychological services to homeless men and women at URM.
There are eight students who go twice a week and carry a case load of six clients that they see on a weekly base.
First-year student Jennifer Brown said she decided to work at the mission because it is an area with the most need.
“It is really good experience because as an intern you get lots of hours and hands-on experience,” Brown said. “It really opened my eyes to another way that people have to live in the world and working down there put a face to everything.”
The students don’t work alone. They do psychological evaluations and then move to one-on-one psychological therapy with the supervision of Aviera, who is the director of clinical training for the doctoral program.
It is an enriched clinical training experience and because of the supervision and type of population it is a life-altering experience, according to Aviera.
“They learn so much about life and have a lot of respect for the human spirit because these are people who have been through horrific drama, and a lot of them have never had the opportunity to discuss it with a professional therapist,” Aviera said.
The mental health clinic is completely independent from the legal aid clinic; however they sometimes refer clients to the other clinic.
The classes are split into two groups, legal aid and family aid clinics, and for the first seven weeks students had class to help them prepare for their cases.
The clients referred by URM receive assistance with tickets, warrants, expungements and applications for homeless court. Also, the students working with family law provide assistance with parenting, custody, visitation and child support matters.
Third-year student Dana Gomez has about three ongoing cases, but said she has resolved a lot more. Gomez said it is a great experience because she gets to have direct client contact at her level.
According to Mooradian, the help of the legal aid clinic allows the homeless to get rid of the baggage that is keeping them from starting a new life.
“There are four [clinics], but we would like to have an eye clinic, and there are a lot of homeless people that have problems with their feet, so it would be great to have a podiatrist also,” Mooradian said.
The mental health clinic also hopes to expand in the future. The last grant the clinic received was in December for $600,000 and will help the clinic create a permanent endowment. However, money is still a problem.
“We have more students applying for the program than we can actually use because we don’t have enough money and enough supervision resources for our current funding,” program director Carry Mitchell said.
Besides working in the two clinics, any student has the opportunity to help URM at the Pepperdine Volunteer Center. Director of Urban Experience Jamaal Crowley said they will be going on Saturday to serve dinner and lunch.
03-29-2006