Our Organization’s History
Our Team is commited to providing low-cost, affordable mental health counseling to members of the community
San Fernando Valley Counseling Center was founded by Claire Greene in 1971 with the mission of making mental health counseling services available to those who needed the support but simply couldn’t afford it. Working from the basement of First United Methodist Church in Van Nuys, California, she established SFVCC with a team of volunteer mental health paraprofessionals, under the direction and supervision of psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, and licensed marriage and family counselors. As a small organization with a large impact, SFVCC has continued to use this model, in addition to incorporating trainees and associates, to improve the mental health and wellbeing of thousands of low-income individuals and families.
Revamped in 2014, the San Fernando Valley Counseling Center (SFVCC) is a nonprofit mental health center that provides low-cost mental health counseling on a sliding scale basis. SFVCC believes that the benefits of counseling to a person’s growth and development should be available to everyone regardless of their income or insurance status. Through the dedicated commitment of highly-trained and supervised trainees, interns, and volunteer counselors, we provide access to quality, affordable counseling for individuals, couples, children, and families, struggling with a wide range of mental and behavioral health issues.
Over the past half century, SFVCC has provided low-cost counseling and mental health services to approximately 60,000 individuals totaling more than 200,000 visits. Much of the counseling is provided by graduate students who SFVCC trains and supervises on their journey to becoming licensed therapists.
Meet the SFVCC Team
board of directors
City of Los Angeles, Senior HR Analyst
Jason Lopez, Board Chair/ President
Jason has a strong passion for making a difference in the community. Currently, he serves as Chair of a mental health counseling center, where his leadership and guidance have been pivotal in advancing mental health resources for those in need. He has also worked with a nonprofit organization that provided free mental health counseling to veterans and their families, highlighting his commitment to giving back to those who have served. As a forward-thinking professional, Jason strives to make a positive difference to those around him including those in underserved communities. In his free time, Jason indulges his love of language by reading dictionaries and researching the etymology of words and phrases.
Jason Lopez is a senior HR analyst with the City of Los Angeles. His experience ranges from general to specialized HR work. He is well-versed in handling workplace investigations, grievances, arbitrations, training, and casework regarding leaves and workers’ compensation claims. Currently, he is utilizing his expertise to assist the City in implementing new systems to enhance City HR and payroll operations.
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
Family Connection Counseling, Inc., CEO
Tiffanie Y. Turner, Secretary
Tiffanie Turner has worked in counseling centers, Adoption Promotion Support Services, and as a substitute teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District. Currently, she works virtually in private practice. In her desire to make counseling accessible and affordable for everyone, she welcomed the opportunity to serve on the San Fernando Valley Counseling Center Board of Directors. She strongly believes services offered at SFVCC are essential to the community in which they serve. She feels privileged to be a part of maintaining the high-quality standards on which the center was founded.
Director of Philanthropy, Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation
Mallory Staley, Member
Mallory Staley is a fundraising professional with consulting, nonprofit management, and sales experience. She worked with dozens of nonprofits as a fundraising consultant at AmPhil from 2016-2023. Now she serves on the fundraising team for the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation. An Arizona native, Mallory graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Political Science and a minor in Business Management. She lives in Santa Clarita.
Lorraine Barak, Psy.D., LMFT
Lorraine Barak, Member
Lorraine Barak, Psy.D., LMFT, has a private practice, assisting clients and employing associates. As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Lorraine also has a doctorate in psychoanalysis.
Lorraine worked at the San Fernando Valley Counseling Center for many years as the Intake Director, where she encouraged some of the counselors to participate in screening potential clients, which was excellent experience for their future careers. Lorraine was a supervisor, teacher, and mentor to the trainees who came to SFVCC to learn to do therapy and accrue hours toward their graduation. Her goal was always to help them develop their therapeutic skills and deepen their understanding of the human psyche.
Lorraine is very proud of SFVCC for being one of the few counseling centers to train paraprofessionals. Several of the paraprofessionals have stayed many years at the Center and because of their years of training have become accomplished therapists and role models for the new trainees. With this being said, Lorraine is even prouder to serve on the SFVCC Board of Directors, continuing to support this initiative to help more trainees realize their goals of becoming licensed therapists!
Partner, Windes
Miriam Kaplan, Treasurer
Miriam is a partner at Windes, a California-based public accounting firm. She is a seasoned financial professional with a passion for driving organizational growth through sound financial management. With over fifteen years of experience in accounting and finance, she has become a trusted advisor to numerous companies seeking to expand and thrive.
Beyond her technical skills, Miriam is known for her dedication to fostering long-term partnerships with clients. She takes the time to understand each organization’s unique goals and challenges, tailoring financial solutions that align with their growth aspirations.
Miriam joined SFVCC’s board in 2023 with the goal of helping the organization achieve its mission to provide affordable mental health services to the community. As an advocate for mental health accessibility and inclusivity, Miriam firmly believes that everyone deserves the opportunity to receive the care and support they need to lead healthy and fulfilling lives. Her dedication to this principle fuels her passion to help reduce stigma, increase awareness, and promote accessible mental health services.
Meet Our Executive Team
Nychol Woods, BS, MBA, MIB
Nychol Woods, Executive Director/ SFVCC Board Secretary
Nychol Lyna has been successfully creating social connections through the arts for decades, but also has deep personal connections to the American Foster System and different socioeconomic marginalized subcultures. She has supported leading organizations like LACOE, Headstart, LAUSD, and various other school systems for over 10 years. While living in Spain, Nychol implemented an independent research study on women and children exposed to abuse and sex trafficking, leading to the establishment of Dream North LLC once returning to the states in 2016. She also has produced award-winning documentary films including "Path to the Draft" which gained national recognition and fiscal sponsorships, and obtained Spouses Education Scholarships for two years from the Congressional Black Caucus.
Nychol has also proudly received recognitions for her advocacy for marginalization populations from Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Vice President Kamala D Harris, Mayor of Los Angeles Eric Garcetti, Congresswoman Karen Bass, Senator Dianne Feinstein, and Rabbi Sharon Brous (Founder of IKAR). Most notably, Nychol Lyna published children’s book “Forgotten Baby” about a young girl named Mytaé who grows up without her biological parents, inspiring the creation of the “Story Time with Dream North & Friends” literary arts events for foster children and underserved communities through non profit organization, Dream North Foundation (established in September 2021).
To date, through the leadership of Nychol Lyna, Dream North Foundation has successfully secured partners and sponsors with Clark County Nevada, Clark County School District, Las Vegas Clark County Library District, Green Dot Public Schools, Los Angeles Police Museum, In-n-Out Burger Foundation, and more, and served more than 1,000 children throughout California, Nevada, Oregon and the Bahamas. As a Los Angeles native and current North Las Vegas resident, Nychol Lyna is adamant about making an invaluable impact on underprivileged demographics on a global scale.
Shawn LaRe Brinkley, Clinical Director
Shawn LaRe’ Brinkley, Licensed Marriage Family Therapist, Transformational Performance Coach, and Speaker/Trainer/Author is best described as a “people” person. Her group practice, Living Loved Pathways to Holistic Healing is in Encino, CA where she and her staff service individuals, couples, children and adolescents, and families. The “Living Loved Team” specializes in non-traditional therapeutic modalities such as mindfulness, sound baths, and use music, art, and movement as healing tools to help manage and ultimately help heal trauma. Her practice is also a field training partner in contract with University of Massachusetts Global where she works with first and second-year students of clinical social work as their practicum site supervisor.
Shawn LaRe’ brings vast knowledge and experience as she also is the organizing founder of a non-profit, the William Joseph Brinkley Center for Cultural Affirmation whose mission is to create a safe and supportive space where individuals of color can work towards achieving a positive sense of self, increase self-esteem, and develop a healthy self-concept. Also active in the community, Shawn LaRe’ serves on several boards and is currently the president of the San Fernando Valley California Association of Marriage Family Therapists.
Clinical Team
Tara DiPino, Intake Coordinator
With an M.A. in Clinical Psychology and a B.A. in Film Studies Theory and Criticism, Tara has a diverse background as an MFT Trainee. For six years, Tara worked as the Head of Personnel for the Hilltop Nursery Preschool in Silver Lake, assisting teachers with recreational and educational activities, emotional support and guidance and conflict resolution, along with learning about effective operations of a nonprofit institution. Tara is happy to be able to expand her work at SFVCC as Intake Screener so that she can help provide access to affordable mental healthcare for San Fernando Valley residents. With the goal to help people feel comfortable talking about their most vulnerable concerns, Tara encourages the San Fernando Valley network to reach out with any questions you might have about working with one of our therapists!
Mim Collins, Supervisor
Mim Collins is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice in the San Fernando Valley. She has been in private practice for nearly 5 decades. Mim’s first love is doing supervision with trainees and associates and has been supervising at San Fernando Valley Counseling Center since 1993.
In 2015 she became a Certified Supervisor through the California Association of Marriage and Family Counselors. Then in 1016 she acquired the designation of Approved Supervisor from The American Association of Marriage and Family counselors.
At the beginning of her career in 1975 she specialized in Sexuality for Women and trained with Lonnie Barback, the author of For Yourself, a book written about and for women struggles to attain orgasm. Mim formed and facilitated groups for women working toward sexual fulfillment. She taught these groups as a graduate student at California Family Study Center which later became Phillips Graduate Institute.
Later she focused on weight management issues and created groups that she called, "Understanding Overeating" which she took with her to Kaiser Permanente. At Kaiser she taught all the weight management classes, including the preparation for Bariatric Surgery. She was at Kaiser from 1994 through 2016.
In 2001, Mim received her doctorate degree from the Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies. While a student there she developed an extension class which she entitled, "Psychoanalysis through 5 Analytic lenses. In this series she presented a case and had experts address its dynamics through a multitude of psychoanalytic perspectives, each giving their view from their own theoretical model.
Throughout her career of 48 years, Mim has focused her work on connecting to the heart of her clients, eagerly moving toward understanding their issues on the deepest of levels. Over the years she has discovered that whatever modality we as therapists work through, the most important ingredient in our work is the relationship with the client. It is through this vehicle that we can come to understand, address and finally heal the early injuries that have become the obstacles toward a healthy, happy life.
Shelley Horner, LMFT, Supervisor
Shelley was a professional actress before becoming a therapist. Shelley earned her Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology from UCSB. She studied school counseling plus marriage and family therapy. After graduate school she worked as a school counselor for two years prior to doing her hours toward being licensed as an M.F.T. In 1996, Shelley began her private practice. Since then, she has seen individuals, couples, and families. She has taught parenting and helped many adults heal from their childhood wounds.
Shelley has done many presentations on psychological topics for organizations and universities. Shelley enjoys seeing people grow, especially her counselors and clients.
Sara Lappan, Supervisor
Sara Lappan is an Assistant Professor at Alliant International University in Los Angeles. She is a licensed couple and family therapist as well as an AAMFT Approved Supervisor and serves in the role of clinical supervisor at SFVCC. She has worked in academic and clinical settings for the past 10 years. Sara was born and raised in Michigan and graduated with her doctorate from Michigan State University (Go Green!) in Human Development and Family Studies with a concentration in Couple and Family Therapy. She lives in Los Angeles with her fiancé, Lorenzo.
Nikki Gabriel is originally from Montana and has a BA in Psychology from the University of Montana, and an MS in Counseling from California State University Northridge. Nikki had a 17-year career working in nonprofit organizations before becoming licensed as a Marriage and Family Therapist. Nikki has a private practice and offers virtual appointments to couples, individuals, and teens with special certifications in Anger Management, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and Perinatal Mental Health. Nikki did her Intern hours to become licensed as a volunteer at the San Fernando Valley Counseling Center (SFVCC).
In June 2021, Nikki joined the Board of Directors for SFVCC, leading to her temporarily stepping in as the Acting Clinical Director from June 2023 to March 2024. Nikki is a member of CAMFT and serves on both the Chapter Advisory Council as Chair, and the Continuing Education Provider Approval (CEPA) committee. Nikki is also involved on the chapter level and currently serves on the San Fernando Valley board as Past President and as the CE Coordinator. Nikki is enthusiastic about chapter leadership and volunteering. She enjoys helping others to grow and nurture their own leadership skills and supporting pre-licensed members in overcoming imposter syndrome and developing themselves as therapists.
Nikki Gabriel, Supervisor