Our History

Only since December 2005 have we been serving the SPA 6 community, as Tessie Cleveland Community Services Corporation (TCCSC). However, we have been providing the same exact type of “out of the box” and “untraditional” mental health services to the children, adolescents and families in South Central Los Angeles for over 8 years. Though we have undergone some name changes and administrative changes in how we were funded (first as a directly operated L.A. County DMH Agency and then as a contracted L.A. County DMH Agency) it did not hamper our distinctive method of being able to provide exceptional services to our clients. Our reputation for quality services did not go unnoticed and we are still considered the pioneers behind moving traditional clinic based  services to providing services wherever necessary and convenient for the client and caregiver and therefore giving us an almost 90% success rate in actually meeting face to face with our clients. Our model is now being looked at as the only way to truly provide quality mental health services.

Our entire staff is comprised of people who either grew up and went to school and now live in the community they serve. They have a real sense of pride and have claimed ownership over the quality of the services they provide to the underserved and unserved members of this difficult to serve population. 

Named for a community leader and organizer, our agency is honored to bear the name of Dr. Tessie Cleveland who died October 11, 2002 after a battle with cancer. It was this same fighting spirit that our current Executive Director admired about his long time mentor and teacher. 

Her contributions to the community in social work and to King/Drew Hospital were legendary and were recognized with numerous awards and citations. She was listed in the Who Who’s in Community Service and Who’s Who in American Woman and was a recipient of the Koshland Award, an award of excellence presented by the Department of Health Services. While working at King/Drew she also taught social work at the California State University at Long Beach. She is considered a pioneer and was part of King/Drew’s “100 club” or part of the first 100 employees at the hospital. She was a special woman, worthy of leaving a legacy like our agency in her name.