About Us

Children’s Mental Health Diagnostic and Treatment Services of Ventura County, Inc. was formed to address the problematic state of mental health services in Ventura County.  Over the years, there has been an increasing lack of organizations able to and/or willing to provide comprehensive, focused mental health services, especially diagnostics, for children and their families in a format that many of the residents of the county need, which is in the client’s home or at alternative sites such as, schools, camps, group homes, foster homes, and Residential Treatment Centers (RTC) or any other appropriate setting such as a visitation room at Children Family Services (Child Protective Services).

Based out of Simi Valley, California, CMHDTS provides family support services as part of its Mental Health Treatment program which includes connection to needed resources such as medical, speech and language, and community services.  Our organization is currently partnered with Change A Life Foundation of Irvine and works closely with City Impact of Oxnard and Girls Empowerment Center of Thousand Oaks, CA.  We have an ongoing relationship with the Amen Clinics of Newport Beach which provides diagnostic services including S.P.E.C.T. brain scans that our in-depth diagnostics program cannot provide.  To date our professionals are all volunteers and many of the services we obtain for the children and their families is through dedicated funding from sources such as grants from Change A Life Foundation.

Special population targets are those families with children that do not have the resources to obtain, high quality diagnostic and treatment services.  Also targeted are children who have been identified as victims of or at risk for any mental health issue, child abuse/neglect, family violence, or those who have developmental delays or medical syndromes with concurrent mental health problems who need immediate and ongoing treatment for themselves and their families regardless of socioeconomic status.  Served are children and their family members with any condition that may or will often lead to behavioral and social problems as well as educational failures.  Our clientele is often single or very young mothers who have children with mental health, emotional, behavioral, and/or developmental issues.  Others often served are the elderly and disabled.

Our services are primarily provided by licensed MFT’s (Marriage, Family Therapist) and pre-licensed MFT Interns, and by licensed and pre-licensed psychologists, and licensed, Board Certified psychiatrists.  All service providers are appropriately licensed, certified, trained, and qualified to provide the services that they give, and they have undergone thorough background checks in accordance with law and necessity.  CMHDTS service providers work from an adaptive site framework with an infrastructure that includes highly unstructured, flexible schedules.