- Building healthy families in underserved communities.
Overview
Founded in 1925, El Nido Family Centers is a nonprofit with six sites across Los Angeles County dedicated to creating pathways to stability, opportunity, and wellbeing for youth and families. El Nido serves more than 12,000 Angelenos each year through 12+ no-cost trauma-informed programs focused on mental health, early childhood development, education, housing stability, food access, community building, and career & life readiness. With deep roots in LA’s highest-need neighborhoods, El Nido meets families where they are—at home, in schools, churches, and community centers—to deliver comprehensive direct services across generations. The Simms/Mann Family Foundation supported El Nido’s Promoting Positive Attachment program for several years.
Desired Impact
El Nido’s Promoting Positive Attachment program served 50-60 families with young children each year. The program provided one-on-one counseling for 12-plus weeks in the family’s home or online. Through this program, parents learned strategies to bond with their baby or toddler while learning to manage traumatic experiences in their own lives.
In 2021, the Foundation trained El Nido’s clinicians on how to introduce the CuddleBright® Experience toolkit to families to support the therapeutic relationship and promotion of a positive attachment between parent and child. Dozens of families received the CuddleBright® toolkit and individualized coaching on how to incorporate it into their daily lives.
