During her last year as a graduate student at California State University Long Beach, Mastaneh Moghadam was placed at Jewish Family Services. JFS, as it is commonly called, is a large non-profit organization with offices throughout the greater Los Angeles area. For the last 160 years, this organization has strived to provide a wide range of services to individuals from all walks of life. When she first arrived at their West Hills office, Mastaneh focused her efforts on the Immigration Resettlement Program. Six months after resettlement, most Iranian Jews seemed to be handling the transition into a new society well. In fact, Jewish Family Services noted that they seemed to be the only immigrant population that did not need any kind of social or mental health services after their resettlement. JFS did, however, wonder whether this was actually the case or whether not enough was being done to engage this particular population. As an Iranian woman and graduate student, Mastaneh became interested in the mental health needs of seemingly well-integrated immigrant populations, and decided to create a macro project based on this idea.

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