CA Parent and Youth Helpline asks lawmakers to restore funding

Public News Service

Leaders from the California Parent and Youth Helpline are in Sacramento today asking policymakers to restore the program’s funding, after the Governor’s January budget proposal was released.

The helpline has helped millions of Californians since it started in 2020 but last year, the state cut funding at the last minute.

Lisa Pion-Berlin, president and CEO of the nonprofit Parents Anonymous, which runs the helpline, said they had to lay off all their counselors dedicated to California.

“The impact has been that 40% of the callers, we cannot reach,” Pion-Berlin explained. “We cannot meet the demand from the Californians who call us. We cannot. We are calling people back as fast as we can, but we have a very high abandonment rate because we don’t have the staffing we had to cover separately, Californians.”

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