In the Community

Jan 8 2008

Kaiser Permanente's Watts Counseling Center Celebrates 40th Anniversary

Southern California Permanente Medical Group leaders hired a young social worker in 1965 to help create a program for children in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, which had just been rocked by riots that left 34 people dead.

Today, the product of that effort – the Watts Counseling and Learning Center – has celebrated its 40th anniversary helping children and adults learn life and job skills. The center and its 30 Kaiser Permanente social workers, teachers, therapists and support staff deliver tens of thousands of service hours at little or no cost to recipients each year through funding from Kaiser Permanente's Community Benefit organization. Families need not be members of Kaiser Permanente to get services.

The center's story was recently featured in Hank magazine, a Kaiser Permanente publication that covers the organization's extensive partnership between it and 90,000-plus unionized Kaiser Permanente employees nationwide.

"Whatever we offer in this community should be on a par with anything available (in affluent neighborhoods) across town," said Winnie Allen, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist who is represented by SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West. "We have (people with) master's of social work (degrees) and Ph.D.s delivering services. Just because people get subsidized care doesn't mean it should be substandard. We're hard-wired for quality. It's what we do."

The longevity of this philanthropic commitment is rare, noted James M. Ferris, director of the Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy at the University of Southern California. "A lot of companies change their corporate giving portfolios as they change CEOs or senior leadership. Forty hears is a remarkable legacy of philanthropy in the community."

To learn more about Kaiser Permanente's Watts Counseling and Learning Center, read the latest edition of Hank magazine and view a slideshow on the Kaiser Permanente Labor Management Partnership's website.