2 CSU Campuses Receive $77M to Support Mental Health in L.A.

The Ballmer Group has donated $77 million to two California State University campuses to improve mental health services in the Los Angeles area.

The investment company, which makes grants to boost economic mobility for children and families, awarded $48 million to Cal State LA to train more than 1,000 new counselors and social workers to help alleviate the region’s youth mental health crisis, particularly in East L.A. In addition, the firm donated $29 million to California State University, Dominguez Hills, to educate hundreds of new mental health professionals to serve children and families in South L.A.

The gift to Cal State LA marks the largest in the institution’s history and the sixth largest in CSU history. It will double the capacity of the university’s one-year master of social work and school-based family counseling programs and increase head count in the two-year M.S.W. program by 50 percent. The bulk of the funding will support student scholarships.

“By growing our extraordinary M.S.W. and SBFC programs, we will prepare more graduates who are academically excellent, culturally responsive and deeply committed to public service,” said Cal State LA provost and vice president for academic affairs Heather Lattimer. “The impact will be felt in schools, public agencies and nonprofit organizations across Los Angeles for years to come.”

The gift to CSUDH is also the largest that campus has ever received, and brings the Ballmer Group’s total support to nearly $53 million. The funds will help launch Toros Heal L.A., an initiative that aims to build a stronger “culturally responsive, community-rooted” local mental health workforce, primarily by funding scholarships, licensure preparation and emergency aid for students pursuing community and mental health training.

“Our students’ lived experiences strengthen them as practitioners and create opportunities for building a thriving behavioral health infrastructure within the populations they come from,” said Mi-Sook Kim, dean of CSUDH’s College of Health, Human Services & Nursing and a leader of the initiative. “The majority of our graduates take the transformative education they receive here and go on to work in their home communities, maximizing the impact of this gift outside the classroom.”