A new, nonprofit mental health center for families who have been victimized by crime is scheduled to open Friday in downtown Santa Ana. Casa de la Familia arrives at a time of great need. The Mary Kay Ash Charitable Foundation, a nonprofit agency dedicated to ending domestic violence, reveals that 75 percent of domestic violence shelters in the U.S. have reported an increase in women seeking help since September, something 73 percent of these shelters attribute a rise in financial hardship.
Most counseling at Casa de la Familia will be provided at no cost by more than 40 qualified, bilingual professionals. The center opens with a ribbon cutting at 2:30 p.m. Friday in Nogales Plaza, 1650 E. 4th Street, Santa Ana. Among the invited guests are state Sen. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana), Santa Ana City Councilwoman Michelle Martinez and former California transportation secretary Maria Contreras-Sweet. Congresswoman Loretta Sancez (D-Garden Grove) is scheduled to appear via video.
Casa de la Familia's clinical director is psychologist Dr. Ana Nogales, whose new book, Parents Who Cheat, has just been published. Though the book is not directly related to the facility's opening, it does cite interesting statistics about the destruction of families: 87 percent of the children of cheating parents believe in monogamy; 96 percent say cheating is wrong; and 44 percent have themselves cheated on their mates. Within the pages, the author explains how adultery damages a child's understanding of love, marriage, and trust, threatening their relationships up through adulthood. More information about the book is available here.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.