Talitha Phillips first became familiar with the Westside Pregnancy Center in 1999 as a client, attending a post-abortion recovery workshop.
"I was in college, and the Westside Pregnancy Center (WPC) was the first place I felt comfortable sharing my story," she said. "I was surrounded by women with similar pasts. I felt welcomed. In this safe, non-judgmental atmosphere, I was able to heal."
She later returned as a volunteer, and became a post-abortion group leader. "WPC had helped me heal from my past, and I, in turn, wanted to help other women heal from their abortions and know that they were not alone," she said.
Soon after, WPC asked Phillips to become a director. She would love to say that she accepted immediately and knew she had found her calling, but the idea of becoming a director terrified her and did not fit in with her life plans. A Pepperdine University graduate, she was intent on becoming a business consultant.
"As I ran in the opposite direction," Phillips said, "God kept bringing this center to my mind and opened every door for me to take this job. My journey was one of surrender."
Now, as Westside Pregnancy Center's CEO, Phillips cannot imagine a better fit for herself.
The Westside Pregnancy Center was founded in 1976 by Santa Monica-area Catholics as a hot line and opened its first space in 1977. These Christian roots "gave it a religious understanding of the needs of the community," Phillips explained.
Today, the leadership of WPC, although no longer affiliated with a particular religious or political group, "is motivated by its belief system to do the work it does," said Phillips. "We see our clients in a holistic way, with emotional, physical and spiritual needs. This enables us to address the spiritual side of their situations with our clients."
WPC currently runs two sites in West Los Angeles: a licensed medical clinic on West Olympic Boulevard and a Resource Center on Pico. Its mission, Phillips said, is "to offer education and support to women facing unplanned pregnancies."
"Our goal is one of prevention, teaching the at-risk population before they are in an unplanned pregnancy situation. All our services are free and are paid for with private donations and small grants," Phillips said.
WPC facilities are open to anyone who thinks she might be pregnant or who needs testing for sexually-transmitted diseases. They offer continuing care. A staff therapist intern sees clients for extended periods of time, offering counseling for individuals and couples. Their Resource Center helps women through their pregnancies until their children are two years old. WPC also has an adoption program.
"We do not provide abortions or abortion referrals," Phillips said. Last year, 3,000 clients passed through the facility's doors, she added. "About 80 percent learn about us through the Internet and 20 percent through word of mouth or referral."
At WPC, both women and men can enroll in the "Earn While You Learn" program during a pregnancy or soon after a baby is born. Clients meet with a pregnancy-center volunteer counselor once a month, discussing questions or concerns about parenting, relationships, et cetera.
"We review their situations and assign homework," Phillips said. "In return, the client is given material assistance (diapers, wipes, and baby food) and can earn "Daddy or Mommy Dollars" to spend in our clothes closet to buy baby clothes, toys, or baby equipment like car seats."
Reality Check is another of WPC's programs. "It is a sexual integrity program we provide for teenagers," Phillips explained. "We're in 50 schools, public and private, with our medically accurate, culturally relevant, highly interactive program. Our purpose is educating teens, helping them to make good choices with their bodies and their futures. Ours is an abstinence-based, but not an abstinence-only program."
WPC also offers a Birthmother Support Group for those who have chosen to give up their babies for adoption and an eleven-week Abortion-Recovery Program.
"We have been able to take the heart of our message to a lot of different audiences: Christian, secular; prolife, prochoice," Phillips said. "We care about women. We want them to feel supported and to know that abortion is not their only option."
Because 40 percent of their clients come from South Los Angeles, Phillips and her board have decided to open a third WPC location at the corner of Crenshaw and Stocker Streets in South Los Angeles in September.
"The satellite expansion is going into an area that has a 73 percent African-American population," said Tera Hilliard, the proposed center's new director. "African-American women are five times more likely to abort than Caucasian women. WPC is going into this community for the purpose of reducing those numbers. We want not only to educate these women but to love them back to a lifestyle of wholeness and peace."
"I have joined WPC because they exemplify Christ without saying a word," Hilliard continued. "They let His love shine through. You sense peace and love and comfort there that you don't feel at other social-service agencies." |