Lincoln Program Spotlight: Helping Open Pathways to Education (HOPE)

Uncategorized

Apr 5

Jessica Rojas, LCSW

Program Director School-Based Services - Contra Costa County

I have worked in several agencies and worked with youth all over the Bay Area in different capacities before coming to Lincoln. It wasn’t until 2006 that I found my dream job here at Lincoln providing mental health services to youth in my hometown! Pittsburg is a community filled with pride, where diversity is celebrated, and the community comes together for old school car shows, our amazing high school marching band, and The New Mecca Cafe. We have our lifelong residents and new transplants but once you're here, we like to say you bleed orange and black. We serve all 13 schools in Pittsburg and one school in our neighboring city of Antioch. Grants have allowed us to expand our reach by hiring a Community School Coordinator for Park Middle School in Antioch. This has been an amazing collaboration and are hopeful to find funding to truly support a community school.

One of my favorite things about working for Lincoln is that the decisions are truly guided by the mission and values. Being strength-based, family-centered, and culturally aware are not just tag lines but the expectation for how you meet the youth and families where they are. We are invited to bring ourselves to the work, to be creative, and to bring our passions here because if we are inspired that energy is met and mirrored by the youth.

The beauty of working in the school-based program is that this is where youth spend the majority of their day. We get to be there, not just for the individual sessions but when they are struggling in the classroom or while they are on the recess yard or in the quad at lunch. We learn every day from our youth as they are the experts about their strengths and skills as well as their needs. We use this information to strategize with school staff on how to best support them and we become a bridge between the youth, their caregivers, and the schools.

This year has been rough for our community. In Contra Costa County, we have the 3rd highest rates of COVID as well as the 3rd highest death rates from COVID (this is excluding people in long-term care facilities). Despite this, families continue to overcome the barriers and Lincoln continues to support over 300 youth. I have been in awe of our direct service staff that have provided over 6,400 hours of individual services to youth, in addition to thousands of hours of engagement with caregivers, teachers or case management support. So many Lincoln staff have come together to serve our youth it has been amazing to see. An example of this was our yearly holiday drive - typically we invite caregivers to our office to pick out personalized gifts for their children but with the pandemic and social distancing guidelines we were unable to provide that same opportunity. However, we were determined to find a way. Our facilities department staff helped pick up gifts that were donated and a few supervisors delivered gifts to doorsteps of 88 youth and we also were able to mail out gift cards to 157 families. We were also able to make a dent to address the technology disparity that exists in our community. Thanks to our development department we were able to deliver 56 chrome books this fall and have over 60 more on the way as our schools continue in distance learning. We also supported 12 families (over 55 individuals) with rental assistance as stable housing has been a major issue during the pandemic.

Lincoln is a group of passionate, dedicated, caring, and hard-working individuals that put our youth and families first and I am so honored to work with each and every person here and grateful to have the opportunity to work in and for my community.

Lincoln Web Admin