Painted Brain
Creating Lasting Community Based Solutions to Mental Health Challenges and the Impact of Social Injustice through Arts, Advocacy, and Enterprise.
SERVICES
To Build Community
Groups
Our groups are facilitated using the psychosocial rehabilitation model through various mediums of art, music, and poetry.
Trainings
Our Medi-Cal Peer Support Certification program offers peers an opportunity to be certified as a Peer Support Specialist in the 17 Core Competencies. Our other trainings cover Digital Health Literacy, Digital Security, and Social Media Marketing for nonprofits.
community Center
Check out the Painted Brain Community Center when visiting the West Los Angeles area where you can meet like-minded individuals living with mental health and trauma challenges engage in enriching activities, developing life-long friendships.
Events
Have the Painted Brain team of peers support your agency in organizing an event which includes supporting with the technical setup, hosting/facilitating, and managing the administration end to ensure the planning, marketing, and execution is successful.
Certification
Become a Peer Support Specialist
In 2009, we began utilizing the arts and training to support people with mental health and substance use challenges. We are a leader in innovative peer-driven services and training in behavioral health, digital literacy, and the arts.
Our reach and staff are representative of the diverse communities throughout California, including the LGBTQ+, reentry, disability, and ethnically and linguistically diverse communities. Our peer-run program is a trusted provider of services that has been transforming lives in California for over a decade.
PB’s Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialist Certification Training program prepares peers to deliver valuable behavioral health support services by covering the required Peer Support Specialist 17 Core Competencies required for Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialist Certification Training through self-reflection, skill building, practice sessions, and guided group exploration.
Dr. Kristen Ochoa
“Painted Brain has been a great support for our clients, helping them feel valued, build community, socialize and engage positively and grow in their independence through group leadership opportunities. We are grateful for their partnership.”
Christopher Shnieders, Director of The Saks InsTitute
“Painted Brain is transforming lives and supporting our advocacy efforts on multiple projects to improve the quality of care and protecting the agency of those living with mental health challenges to get the adequate care they need to establish recovery.”
Tod Lipka, CEO of Step Up
“Connections to others and a sense of belonging is vital and essential to the recovery process. Painted Brain has provided exactly such an important connection and creative arts community, using the commonality of mental illness, for over ten years. Painted Brain has been of tremendous value to many Step Up members during that time.”
Get Involved With
Our Vision
.Join our community of peers redefining the mental health system of care to improve access and the quality of treatment.
more programs
State-Wide initiatives
September 25, 2020
We thank Governor Gavin Newsom for signing SB 803 (Beall). SB 803 will enable California to expand the behavioral health workforce by allowing certification of Peer Support Specialists. With the passage of SB 803, California will now be in line with the 48 other states that already recognize peers’ value.
Painted Brain is collaborating and heading statewide to nationwide research and program development. Learn more about our projects below and how you may be able to get involved.
Publications
Featured On
CALHOPE
Project New Start
Psychiatric Advance Directive (PAD)
Disability Roundtable
Join Today
Sign up to get access to support and resources in your area and join the community of Painted Brain members living with mental health, trauma, and justice-involved challenges.
LATEST BLOGS
Keep your fingers on the pulse of our mental health community
THE TIMELESS RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MENTAL ILLNESS AND CREATIVE GENIUS
Listen to this blog. The simplistic notion of the “mad genius” can bring with it the image of the reckless, bold, frenetic, and gifted visionary creating amazing art. Ernest Hemingway, Beethoven, Virginia Woolf, and Vincent Van Gogh are some of the many...
“Caribbean Black”: A Wonderful and Moving Addition to “Discovering a Place for Us”
Artists Claire Jones, Kareena Rivera, Davy Andrek, and Amaranthia Sepia collaborated to create a spoken word poem performance that highlights the traumas Black people experience at the hands of racism in the United States. Claire Jones (the narrator) speaks over...
Saito High School Art Exhibit — Making Meaning of It All
The pandemic has been a major source of a sometimes overwhelming sense of uncertainty. Art has allowed us to communicate when we’re far apart, generating positivity, gratitude, and hope during the trying times of COVID-19. It’s a way to free your mind and express your...