Our Approach

Through its dedicated staff, consumers, family members, volunteers and benefactors, Pacific Clinics provides innovative leadership in our communities, offering treatment, prevention, early intervention, program development and evaluation, research, training, public education and advocacy, frequently in partnership with other social services organizations.

More Than 80 Years of Service

Pacific Clinics, a private, non-profit community behavioral healthcare agency, was established in 1926 as Pasadena Child Guidance Clinic. Across the decades to follow, the organization has expanded its focus to address the mental and behavioral health concerns of families and individuals of all ages. Meeting changing needs is characteristic of Pacific Clinics, which today is nationally known for its innovative and culturally competent programs serving diverse populations in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties.

Our scope of service ranges from prevention and early intervention to recovery and wellness maintenance, still with a major emphasis on programs for children and families. Integrated treatment programs for persons with co-occurring substance abuse and mental health disorders engage individuals from preteen through older adult, as well as their family members.

Emphasizing consumers' abilities, not disabilities, we help them live to their fullest potential. We involve families and other community members whenever possible and collaborate with other local institutions. We focus on the culture and values of our consumers, who participate fully in their treatment plans and, along with their families, in guiding the organization itself. As part of its commitment to continual learning and improvement, Pacific Clinics seeks to develop or adopt the profession’s best practices and integrate them into all its endeavors. The pursuit of best practices keeps us on the leading edge in diversity, innovation and empowerment – benefiting those we serve and our staff.

Every year we make more than 500,000 contacts with consumers of all ages, most often by referral from designated governmental, educational and community agencies, sometimes from family members.

Levels of treatment vary by individual and circumstance. People with biologically-based -based disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, chronic or major depression – often co-occurring with substance abuse – are offered a comprehensive program of psychosocial therapies and case management, including monitoring of psychotropic medicines by an MD or nurse specializing in psychiatry. Our ability to help clients sustain recovery and wellness has grown tremendously as a result of our merger in 2007 with Portals, a Los Angeles-based agency with 50 years of expertise in psychosocial rehabilitation, vocational services and housing.

We have the capacity and know-how for response to crisis. But our work every day focuses on empowering consumers so that they may better confront the challenges of their illnesses, and avoid crises that disrupt their recovery progress and put their lives on hold.

With collaboration and partnering among our most important goals, office space at one of our Pasadena sites is made available at no cost to the San Gabriel Valley chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).

Pacific Clinics provides as much as $1 million in uncompensated care to uninsured individuals each year.