LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Child Guidance Clinic is opening a new facility to expand their efforts to support transition-age foster youth in LA County.
The Avis & Mark Ridley-Thomas Life Learning Center is scheduled to open this fall. The LACGC’s fourth venue, it is intended as a safe space for at-risk youth who are 16 through 24.
The center will provide a new space for advisory services and group counseling sessions to prepare young adults for life beyond foster care.
According to a study by the University of Southern California Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, 25 percent of California’s transition-age youth (TAY) population lived in LA County in 2013. This population shows a greater likelihood of having been sexually abused than younger children in foster care, it said.
The new center aims to help TAY avoid similar risks, while providing them the professional and emotional guidance necessary for adulthood.
