Meeting the Needs of Our Community is Important to Us!
San Gabriel Pomona Regional Center’s (SG/PRC) mission has never wavered. Our core existence is here to support our community and empower the families we serve. We do this collaboratively with our dedicated staff members and with our service delivery providers, but it doesn’t stop there! We also have amazing community partners that we truly consider an essential component in our overall delivery of service to the individuals with developmental disabilities that we serve. One of those partners is San Gabriel Pomona Parents’ Place — Family Resource and Empowerment Center.
Parents’ Place guides and encourages parents’ discovery and depth of information. It helps them to be effective advocates for furthering and easing the integration of their child or children as full members of our community mural in daily life, play and work. Parents’ Place has intentionally sought and secured leadership in programs as community navigators to promote person-centered choice and innovative service delivery options — including self-determination.
Parents’ Place offers support groups, workshops, trainings, advocacy, and information. It creates linkages between families, the regional center, community-based organizations and governmental programs. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Parents’ Place secured and continues to secure food and PPE and deliver these necessaries of life to families. Additionally, in partnership with the SG/PRC, under Ms. Sanchez’ leadership, they have advanced their shared dream of a technology lending library that supports equity and access to day program and telehealth therapies for children and adults.
Visit Parents’ Place website for information and services.
Meet Maria Elena Sanchez
Ms. Sanchez is Executive Director of the San Gabriel Pomona Parents’ Place a strategic partner of SG/PRC. Parents’ Place mission is to provide hope and support for families of children with special needs, helping families that receive services from SG/PRC via strategic education and family empowerment programs.
Ms. Sanchez has served Parents’ Place since 1998. She began as a volunteer and has served as staff and in leadership roles for the better part of two decades. Ms. Sanchez attended college at Mount San Antonio College, Walnut, California and remains connected as a volunteer offering advocacy, legal translation, and representation for foster children.
As Executive Director, she provides leadership of business operations of Parents’ Place, including personnel, accounting, coordination of government grants, and a myriad of other strategic, essential duties to ensure effective administration of program services. She is responsible for growing family-focused education and other services in a parent-driven atmosphere.
Ms. Sanchez’ passion for serving others and our community blossoms from personal experience. She was raised in an Ensenada, Mexico orphanage. Later, as a young immigrant, she gave birth to twin, medically fragile boys, born premature, who spent months in an NICU. Her life calling gained clarity through her experience as a parent while receiving early intervention services. Afterwards, she found passion in giving back to the community that encouraged and supported her to be a family advocate, a revealed roadmap that she continues to travel.
Ms. Sanchez can be reached at (626) 919-1091 or elena.sanchez@parentsplacefrc.com