Dear Friend,

I’m writing today because, like you, Joyful Heart has made a difference in my life, and I’d like to tell you how.

As Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health psychologists, we deal with the most severe and heartbreaking situations—we assess children being removed from abusive or neglectful homes. 

We see families at their worst, and children at their most vulnerable. We assess the baby who is losing his eyesight as a result of shaken baby syndrome. We witness the pain of a teenage girl who is removed from the only home she’s ever known, because her father molested her. And we meet the boy, so broken down by years of abuse, that he carves words into the flesh of his arm. Their stories are haunting, and we hear them, in vivid detail, every single day.

Joyful Heart’s Heal the Healers program was a wake up call for me. The program offered education about vicarious trauma and self-care practices, but most importantly, Heal the Healers gave me the space to realize that our minds and bodies can only take so much.

The wake up call has lasted, and thanks to Joyful Heart, the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health is now revolutionizing our approach to working with trauma. We are learning how to ensure that those of us in the trenches have what we need to thrive, so we can offer families compassion and the hope of something better.

I was fortunate enough to be one of over 2,000 served by Joyful Heart’s Heal the Healers program. Your gift today—which will be instantly matched up to $50,000—will guarantee that many other healers, and the people they support, will benefit from Joyful Heart’s work, including Heal the Healers. 

With gratitude,

Sonia