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Best Practices: Perinatal Mental Health Screening and Case Finding

Los Angeles County Maternal Mental Health Access (LAMMHA) is a five-year program funded by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF) to support community health centers in identifying and treating perinatal mental disorders in primary and prenatal care. Depression is one of the most common complications of pregnancy and the postpartum period, affecting at least one in seven childbearing persons in the U.S. Early identification is essential to prevent suffering, reduce family impact, and improve outcomes for both parent and infant.

To reflect on the experience of depression screening and linkage to care, we spoke with Dr. Ian Bennett, a family physician providing prenatal, postpartum, and pediatric care in a community health center and Dr. Amritha Bhat, a perinatal psychiatrist and associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington. Drs. Bennett ...

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Improving Perinatal Mental Health Care in LA County – Cohort 2 Reflections on Implementing the LAMMHA Collaborative Care Model

With the goal of improving perinatal mental health care, the Los Angeles County Maternal Mental Health Access (LAMMHA) program is funded by The California Health Care Foundation (CHCF) to support Los Angeles County community health centers in the identification and treatment of common perinatal mental disorders. TCC Family Health (TCC) and St. John’s Community Health (St. John’s) joined LAMMHA as part of the second cohort. During their two-year participation, they received intensive on-going support and training to implement and sustain the evidence-based collaborative care model (CoCM) used to treat common mental health conditions in primary care.  As they near the end of their LAMMHA support period, their clinical teams reflect on the experience and impact of implementing CoCM with their perinatal patient populations.

Why did your organization join the LAMMHA project? What were some of the benefits of your participation?

St. John’s: LAMMHA gave ...

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Facing Dark Days for Health Care, Let’s Not Forget How Far We’ve Come

CCALAC President & CEO Louise McCarthy reflects on the community health center movement this National Health Center Week.

National Health Center Week is underway, and while community health centers celebrate their patients, staff and partners, this year’s celebrations feel more subdued in the face of multiple challenges to the health center movement. In this moment, however, it’s important to reflect on how far the movement has come since its beginning in the Civil Rights Era.

While some health centers in Los Angeles trace their roots back to the early 1900s, it was in the 1960s that the health center movement began in earnest nationwide, and in the 1990s that Los Angeles’ health centers galvanized to work together toward their common mission.

Thirty years ago, LA’s health system was on the edge of collapse and the county was on the brink of bankruptcy. In ...

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HRSA Awards LA Health Centers $1.45 Million to Improve Patient Care through Information Technology

LOS ANGELES – August 4, 2025 – The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) announced awards of more than $53 million in funding to 52 Health Center Controlled Networks (HCCNs) across the nation. Among the awardees, the Community Clinic Association of Los Angeles County (CCALAC) will receive $1.45 million per year over the next three years to support 46 health centers in Los Angeles County. This is CCALAC’s fifth consecutive award.

HCCNs provide technical assistance to community health centers, leveraging health information technology and data to enhance how they deliver affordable, accessible, and high-quality primary care.  The HRSA awards will enable HCCNs nationwide to support more than 1,300 health centers.

In the last three-year grant cycle, members of the Los Angeles network received nearly 6,000 specialized technical assistance support hours, resulting in enhanced patient and provider experiences, improvements in data exchange, and data ...

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Resources for Providing Perinatal Psychopharmacology

The Los Angeles County Maternal Mental Health Access (LAMMHA) program is a five-year program funded by The California Health Care Foundation (CHCF) to support community health centers in the identification and treatment of urgent but common perinatal mental disorders in primary care. Participating organizations are provided training and support to implement the evidence-based Collaborative Care Model (CoCM) for their perinatal population.

Context within LA County

Los Angeles County is home to nearly 10 million people living in 88 cities and unincorporated areas. Unfortunately, it also has the biggest gap between the supply and demand for perinatal mental health specialists. Within Los Angeles County, one in five women experience perinatal depression, yet the County is simply too big, with too many births a year, to provide individual perinatal mental health care to all the patients who may need it. PROMISE offers one solution. PROMISE is ...

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Reckless Reconciliation Bill is Direct Attack on Health Center Patients

LOS ANGELES – July 3, 2025 – This week, the U.S. Congress passed a devastating budget reconciliation bill that jeopardizes health care for millions of Americans, including community clinic and health center patients. This dangerous and irresponsible new law will impose unnecessary and burdensome new bureaucratic hurdles, such as increased paperwork and more frequent eligibility redeterminations, that will force nearly 12 million people to lose Medicaid coverage over the next decade.

Los Angeles County clinics and health centers serve more than two million people each year, three quarters of whom have low incomes and rely on the Medicaid program for health care. Health centers already operate on razor-thin margins and will struggle to provide care without reimbursement to newly uninsured patients who lose their Medicaid coverage. Health center outreach and enrollment staff will be overwhelmed by the need to help patients ...

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California Budget Addresses the State’s Fiscal Challenges at the Expense of the Safety Net

LOS ANGELES – June 30, 2025 – Over the weekend, Governor Gavin Newsom signed California’s 2025-26 fiscal year budget – a budget that addresses the state’s fiscal challenges at the expense of its most under-resourced residents and the health care safety net. The budget comes as state leaders, health providers, and residents are struggling with high levels of uncertainty and anxiety about the future with the threat of federal cuts looming.

Starting in January, the budget will freeze Medi-Cal enrollment for adults who have unsatisfactory immigration status, and in July of next year it will eliminate full scope dental coverage for this population. These changes are a dramatic pullback from the state’s values and promises to expand health care coverage and access for all. Loss of coverage will undo years of progress in building healthy communities.

The budget will also eliminate Prospective ...

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Proposed State Budget Puts California’s Fiscal Challenges on the Backs of Health Centers and Their Patients

LOS ANGELES – May 14, 2025 – Today, Governor Gavin Newsom unveiled his May Revision budget proposal for the 2025-26 fiscal year. The budget identifies $12 billion in corrective proposals to balance the budget and maintain reserves. The Governor attributes a projected $16 billion reduction in state revenue to federal policies and actions but does not otherwise incorporate any projected effects of federal cuts currently under consideration in Congress.  

Health centers are dismayed to see proposals that will weaken recent Medi-Cal expansions and reduce access to care for our patients. The May Revision proposes to freeze enrollment for Health4All expansion adults starting in January 2026 and add a $100 monthly premium for those adults who remain enrolled beginning in January 2027. It also calls for the elimination of full-scope dental coverage, in-home supportive services, and long-term care benefits for this population. ...

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Improving Perinatal Mental Health Care in LA County – Reflections on the Implementing the LAMMHA Collaborative Care Model

The Los Angeles County Maternal Mental Health Access (LAMMHA) program is a five-year program funded by The California Health Care Foundation (CHCF) to support community health centers in the identification and treatment of urgent but common perinatal mental disorders in primary care. The first cohort of clinical teams from AltaMed Health Services and Eisner Health shared their experiences as they near completion of their two-year experience in implementing the evidence-based collaborative care model (CoCM).

Why did your organization join the LAMMHA project? What were some of the big benefits of your participation?

Eisner: Our primary reason for joining the project was to increase mental health access to our prenatal and postpartum patients. We believe we have met these goals, as we were able to reach these patients and more often provide them with in-house services versus having to refer them out. ...

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CCALAC Statement on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Confirmation as Secretary of Health and Human Services

Today Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed as the new Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In this role, Secretary Kennedy will oversee several agencies and programs that directly impact the health and wellbeing of Americans. 

HHS is a critical partner for community health centers (CHCs), whose mission is to promote the health of their communities and ensure access to high quality health care services. Through Medicaid, the community health center program, public health, and more, HHS can support access to comprehensive physical and mental health services, health promotion, and chronic disease prevention for under-resourced individuals and families. Without ongoing, robust support for these programs, the health and economic wellbeing of communities across America will falter. 

On behalf of Los Angeles’ CHCs, which serve over 2 million patients each year, the Community Clinic Association of Los Angeles ...

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