Helen Ciriello's bio
Helen comes to CAPS Academy from the Wellness Center in Long Beach where she was a Wellness Advocate for eight years. She is a certified Domestic Violence Counselor Advocate and a certified Health Navigator. She was trained by the MHALA/LA County Jump Start program where she learned about the recovery model and worked at the MHALA Village as a PSC, then transferred to the Wellness Center.
Helen is excited to teach others by sharing her experiences, successes and hard-learned lessons, and is honored to be an Instructor at CAPS. She has presented trainings on improving access and building relationships with health care providers, creating and maintaining budgets, developing skills to address grief and loss, and chair Yoga. A few years ago, she heard global health expert Dr. Ashish Jha name “training more mental health workers” as the one action that would have the most impact on improving global health. Helen looks forward to working toward that end and to spreading the word about the recovery model and affirming that hope is possible for everyone.
Being a single mom herself who was raised by a single mother and having earned a degree in economics, Helen is passionate about promoting financial literacy for all. Knowledge is power! She believes that empowering people to learn to use their own voices and make their own informed choices is an important foundation of social justice.