Sara Peral has worked in community mental health for the past 13 years since graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. She has gained experience working with vulnerable populations as a case manager in a community mental health agency where she serviced families facing a wide range of mental health issues stemming from involvement in the foster care system, probation youth, trauma, domestic violence, poverty and homelessness.Sara has worked in early childhood development programs with children ages 0-3, in a treatment center for adolescents with eating disorders, and while obtaining her Master’s degree in social work, Sara interned with the homeless population in Los Angeles’ Skid Row area providing individual and group therapy to adults facing homelessness. Sara also volunteered to create community awareness on Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children throughout South Los Angeles. Currently, she is working as a Psychiatric Social Worker for a school district providing therapy to children and adolescents in South Los Angeles.Through this combined experience, Sara has developed first-hand understanding and awareness of the many obstacles people face in accessing and accepting mental health services. This is why she founded Mind-1-1, to dissolve the both real and imagined barriers in the way of people being mentally healthy.