An Early Pioneer in Community Empowerment Continues to Break the Cycle of Poverty

Forty years ago, Liz Herrera was studying to become a social worker at UCLA. Herrera told her field advisor that she wanted to work at an organization that was doing the best community work with families, children, and youth.  

“I am not interested in working in a traditional mental health setting,” she remembers telling the instructor. “I want to work within the community, as part of the community.” 

His response: Then you need to go to El Nido Family Centers. 

Since 1925, El Nido Family Centers has been working toward its bold vision of ensuring that Los Angeles’ families and communities have the resources to thrive and break the cycle of generational poverty.

Herrera, the Center’s Executive Director since 2002, says that when she joined back in the 1980s, the agency was a pioneer: working across sectors with community partners, in schools and in homes directly with families and children in need. 

El Nido staff still favor this holistic, hands-on approach. Last year alone, their dedicated team of more than 150 credentialed counselors, therapists, and family coaches guided more than 12,000 individuals through a breadth of challenges, offering education and resources for new parents to ensure infants grow up healthy, mentoring struggling students and preventing youth from joining gangs, providing career guidance and financial aid to young adults, and providing rental assistance and services to keep struggling families housed. 

A core focus for El Nido is helping vulnerable youth: They have robust youth development programming designed to provide comprehensive support to vulnerable young adults on their road to a college education. As part of this effort, they recently developed a Culinary Arts program, which offers a teaching kitchen that provides youth with entrepreneurship, business, and leadership skills. 

“If we intervene at the right moment in a young person’s life, we can change the trajectory of their lives,” Herrera says.

“El Nido absolutely believes in the power and potential of every Angeleno,” says Lisa Carloss, President of El Nido’s Board of Directors. “Our goal is to level the playing field, provide the opportunity, and watch clients soar on their own.”