The Zona Seca Inc. substance abuse and counseling center has added Santa Barbara City Councilwoman Iya Falcone to its board of directors.

“Councilmember Falcone has an amazing history in dealing with at-risk adolescents,” Lin Graf, Zona Seca’s board chairman, said in announcing the addition. “Her passion for the betterment of today’s youth is precisely what an organization like Zona Seca is looking for.”

Falcone said she has been impressed with the organization’s work in the community.

“I am particularly excited about the Youth CineMedia program, which is dedicated to giving young people a marketable skill that allows them to go forward into the future so they may provide for themselves and their families,” Falcone said.

Falcone said she hopes Youth CineMedia is the first of many such programs providing young people with skills and training.

Falcone was elected to the City Council in 2001 and is currently serving her second four-year term.

From 1979 to 1982, she was the director of a Boston crisis center for emotionally disturbed adolescents and she has worked with children with disabilities such as autism, Down syndrome and cerebral palsy.

She obtained a law degree from the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento and became a practicing attorney in 1990. She is licensed in California and Nevada.

Falcone also does political consulting and has worked with candidates for city, county and judicial electoral positions as campaign manager and consultant. She served as a consultant for the Santa Barbara Police Officers Association and Santa Barbara Firefighters for Better Government, as well as nonprofit organizations like the Santa Barbara Symphony, State Street Ballet and Santa Barbara Center for Performing Arts. Falcone also helped create the Court Administered Dispute Resolution (CADRe) program for Santa Barbara Superior Court.

For the past 37 years, nonprofit Zona Seca Inc. has provided professional and cost-effective substance abuse counseling intervention and prevention services to the community. Programs address youth offenders, driving under the influence, family violence and drug diversion. The agency is also home to the nationally recognized Youth CineMedia program, which teaches local at-risk youth marketable media skills, while providing a positive alternative to gangs, violence and substance abuse.