The mission of the Helen B. Landgarten Art Therapy Clinic is to serve the community by offering clinical art therapy interventions to underserved children and families who have experienced trauma or are facing very serious obstacles in life. Thanks to the generosity of donors to The Campaign for LMU, the clinic has been able to do just that.

“We are not building a building, we are building a community of therapists” is how Helen B. Landgarten described the clinic named in her honor at its inauguration last year. Landgarten is a pioneer art therapist and founder of the Graduate Department of Marital and Family Therapy at LMU. The clinic also serves the educational needs of the department’s graduate students by providing opportunities to participate in and observe art therapy services.

In their initial endeavor, Landgarten and other volunteer therapists have become frontline supporters to a group of adolescent single mothers. The teens visit the clinic weekly to learn how to become better communicators, manage their anger and enhance their parenting skills. So far, 20 young women have benefited from the program, which includes transportation to and from Thomas Riley High School in South Los Angeles.

All participants are at a great risk of dropping out of high school. Judy Flesh, volunteer therapist, says the girls are confronting an emotional and challenging growing process, and some give birth while in the program.

“It is rewarding to know how our services have empowered them,” says Flesh, “Being at LMU has made all of the adolescents want to go to college and imagine new possibilities.”

“The program resonates with LMU’s mission, because it is service-oriented and serves the disenfranchised members of the communities we live in,” says Debra Linesch, chair and professor of the Department of Marital and Family Therapy. “It is getting really well-known, and we are acting on opportunities to expand our outreach.”

Volunteers have also extended their services to the greater community, providing art therapy to victims of Hurricane Katrina and the San Diego brushfires, for example.

The next step, Linesch says, is to develop a cohort of trained crisis responders made up of licensed alumni, who will serve as crisis intervention experts during emergencies. “We are inculcating the idea of service and creating the opportunities for our alumni to become engaged by giving back,” Linesch explains.