Message from the Board President

Season’s Greetings and Best Wishes for a Happy New Year!

As we approach the joy and gaiety of a holiday season, it is time to reflect on our many blessings and accomplishments during the past year. Asian Pacific Community Counseling (APCC) had a successful year having served hundreds of API clients and their families to address their mental health needs. Our clinic, programs and staff provided mental health clinical services, counseling, and preventative and outreach services to bring about positive change in the lives of the underserved and underrepresented clients. Empowering individuals and families with tools needed to be productive citizens is a winning solution for our communities. This is the principle that guides our APCC staff and board members. It is during these challenging economic times that the need for services is at its peak because clients have nowhere else to turn.  APCC has done a commendable job of bridging the gap between mental health needs of API communities and service provision, informed policy makers of the needs of our community, and brokered partnerships with other community service providers.

We have dedicated, caring and resourceful staff who are committed to serving the community, state and local funding agencies who are supportive of our innovative programs, community partners who stand by us, and, more importantly, supporters and well wishers who have supported us and celebrated with us over the years as we developed into a synergistic, multi-program organization in the Sacramento region. Thanks so much for joining us in raising the awareness for mental health services and education for the API community here in Sacramento and across the state. We really appreciate your generous support.

Message from the Executive Director

Asian Pacific Community Counseling, Inc. (APCC) has come a long way from its humble beginnings dating back to 1976, when a group of Asian Americans saw a gap in mental health and counseling service for persons of Asian and Pacific Islander (API) descent and decided to do something about it.  Formally known as “Stepping Stones”, Asian Pacific Community Counseling incorporated in 1977 as a community-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit agency to promote the mental health and wellness of API communities through culturally and linguistically relevant outreach, prevention, education, therapy, counseling, and recovery support services. 

As we approach the end of 2010 during this holiday period and look ahead to 2011, it is an honor to commend the staff of APCC for another successful year of providing services to Sacramento’s API communities.  The Transcultural Wellness Center, a mental health program that was successfully launched in 2007 through a contract with Sacramento County, Division of Behavioral Health (SCDBH), meets the mental health needs of the underserved API communities in Sacramento.  Our Youth Prevention program, Youth Against Drug Abuse, in partnership with SCDHB, works with youths in the South Sacramento region to deter substance abuse/use and to develop youth leadership through best practice youth development principles.  Our Access for API Seniors program, made possible through our partnership with Area 4 Agency on Aging, provides outreach, counseling, and linkages for older Korean adults.  Our fee for service program provides parenting education and anger management training/counseling to our API communities.

APCC is fortunate to have a diverse Asian and Pacific Islander staff that are bi-lingual/multi-lingual consisting of Cantonese, Vietnamese, Hmong, Japanese, Mandarin, Cambodian, Korean, Mein, and Tongan.  Through this diversity, APCC is capable of serving the majority of the API communities directly or with interpreters. 

Looking into the New Year, there is so much work still to be done to improve access to mental and physical health care, and social services to API communities in Sacramento.  APCC is poised to be a lead contributor in making this come to fruition.  Many thanks to our community partners, our Board, our funders, and our community for helping us succeed.  2011 will offer many challenges and we ask for all your support in making the New Year, a year where we can strengthen the well being of individuals, families, and communities.