Wrapping up the Oregon visit

One little amendment before I begin today's post.  I went out to see my parents today and my mother did remember my birthday and asked me to pick something from the china closet.  I chose a lovely Portmeirion canton vase with the dog rose pattern!  I collect vases and had had my eye on this one for awhile.  I am glad she was feeling well enough to remember me this year and I love having this beautiful vase for my collection.
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My last, but not least, thoughts after visiting Oregon last week come from conversations I had with Doris while we drove around Central Willamette Valley (or Mid-Valley area) in Oregon together and visited with people both formally and informally on the street, in restaurants, etc.  First a little about Doris and her husband.

Doris is very well known in her community of Corvallis where she has lived for the past 10 years.  She came to Corvallis and began working as a mental health counselor after moving from Miami to Portland with her husband Juan Pablo Valot.  Both Doris and J.P. as he is often called by English speakers, are accomplished professionals.  Doris Cancel-Tirado is a first generation college student and now has four degrees!  She received a BA and an MA in Psychology in her native Puerto Rico.  She was recruited by Oregon State University (OSU) for the PhD program in Human Development and Family Studies.  She graduated with her PhD in 2009 and also earned a Master's Degree in Public Health from OSU.  She was at OSU for seven years and is very connected to the campus and the town.  She took me on a short tour of campus as we visited the Hallie E. Ford Center and she shared with me some of her experiences and told me about the people who were a large part of her journey, her friend Sarah who is alive and well in Ellensburg, and her mentor Alexis Walker, who is now deceased.  Doris teaches at Western Oregon University (WOU) where her interests include sexual and reproductive health issues among Latinos, health disparities, fatherhood, poverty, and diversity in higher education.  I found her a wealth of knowledge and most of it the enticing blend of experience and theory.  I have known Doris for almost four years as we have served on the Northwest Council of Family Relations board together.  Doris was earned tenure and promotion at WOU this year and so her website will soon read Associate Professor.  Congratulations Doris!

 Juan Pablo is an accomplished winemaker.  J.P. came from Argentina where he was educated in agriculture science and vineyard management.  He has traveled widely in wine producing regions around the world and has settled in Oregon.  He is now head winemaker at Silvan Ridge Winery, outside Eugene.  My memories of this visit include seeing J.P. being a busy father with Francisco and Eva, a loving husband to Doris and a son-in-law to Doris (my friend's mom who lives with the family) and a competent, enthusiastic and award-winning winemaker.  Doris took me to the winery on a sunny afternoon and J.P. and his staff in the tasting room treated me to sips from some really good wines.  The Tempranillo was divine and sold out!  I had sipped Malbec, an Argentian speciality of which I am fond over dinner at their home.  J.P. offered to give me a short tour of the barrel room and to taste straight from the oak barrels.  It was really a treat to learn more about how the wine is aged and to taste the difference in the varieties.  I have always been somewhat mystified about why so much fuss was being made about Pinot Noir.   I understand so much more and now can appreciate it not only for its taste but also its color and its fine scent.  I will practice the swirl at home to release the wonderful aromatic mist that enhances each sip of wine.  I have begun to rethink my wine glass collection as a result!  J.P. was really generous in gifting me with a bottle of the Pinot Noir to take home.  I am enjoying it very much!

I was quite taken with the demands and accomplishments this busy professional couple manage and wish them well in all they pursue.  They are about to celebrate their 40th birthdays and their 10th wedding anniversary.  What a glorious time that will be for them and all their loving family and friends.  I regret that I did not get a picture of the family together but it is no surprise since it took four adults (me included) to manage meals and the children each evening!  I did add pictures of Doris and the kids in previous posts this week.

I shadowed this busy family all week long!

Doris and J.P are very connected with the international community that surrounds Corvallis, Eugene and the academic and viticulture worlds of the mid-valley region and beyond.  Doris shared with me several insights from her experiences.  

• There are insiders and outsiders with Latino groups.  I asked her more about this after she first mentioned it to me.  She explained that there is an undercurrent, sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle, in pan-Latino relations.  She connected it to immigration patterns.  I have been learning so much about the pattern of immigration and settlement of Latinos in this country that I was really glad to get her perspective and to understand it more fully than I would have six months ago.  She explained about the path to citizenship and that Puerto Ricans are already citizens because PR is a US territory.  Cubans are the next on the citizenship ladder because they are well educated and it takes only 2-3 for a Cuban who has arrived in this country (and not been caught on the boat) to get citizenship.  The next wave of immigrants to NYC were the Dominicans and they have mostly been naturalized.  The Mexicans and I would add the Haitians (more creole in make-up) are at the bottom of the citizenship barrel.  Most who have come to this country since 1996 and especially since 9/11/2001 have crossed the border in desperate circumstances or have overstayed a visa to visit.  Not all who are undocumented are survivors of the long journey north through the borderlands.  Those with more education are seen more favorably by the federal system but can also be excluded from local insiders because of country of origin issues.  Doris has observed issues of distrust that arise from regional differences (place in Mexico where people came from), personal friendships and exclusions based on what reminded me of the cliques of middle school culture, and country of origin differences.  She told me that it is not uncommon for a sense of territoriality to exist in the workplace that can create a barrier if people believe that no-one but one of their own country or region will be able to understand the clients they serve.  
• Doris stated that even Latinos need cultural guides to gain trust in the community.  The surface connection of skin tone, hair color, and speaking Spanish is not enough.  Spanish language varies from country to country and region to region.  One of our local programs folks learned Spanish in Nicaragua in the Peace Corps and always laughed when our local Mexican parents and program folks helped her understand the phrases they use to describe things that are different.  
• Doris talked to me about the wet feet/dry feet phenomenon in relation to Cuban nationals who have been coming to this country since the Castro regime began.  If one is caught in a boat or in the water, one is referred to as having wet feet (not landed) and will be deported back to Cuba and if one is caught on land, they have dry feet and can stay.  I had never heard the terms used before and it added one more puzzle piece to the immigration dilemma we now face.
• Doris is also concerned about qualified first generation Latino students gaining entrance and acceptance into the allied health professions in Oregon.  She is advocating within the nursing profession for more inclusion.  She told me that the admission rates were disproportionate to the population and that qualified candidates were being overlooked.  She is a fierce advocate and yet found that as a Puerto Rican it took her several years to gain the trust of the Mexican origin students at her university.

I share this picture I took I visited the Statue of Liberty to remind us that we are not all equal.

Three posts this week.  I think I am in a last minute flurry of writing to make sure I get everything recorded before the end of my sabbatical.

Thanks for reading!

65

Just a quick note today.  It is my 65th birthday.  I was born on Father's Day, June 18, 1950, in Omak, Washington.  I honor both my parents, Jim and Donna Daulph, and my three sisters, Dana, Tia and Betsy.  I have heard from my Dad and all three sisters today.  My mother suffers from dementia and has not remembered my birthday for several years.  She never liked to be reminded that her oldest child was aging, probably because it marked her own aging.  She will be 86 on July 1st.

A gorgeous June rose.  I love them and consider them my birthday flower.  I love them in gardens so much more than in a bouquet.  Rose scent is one of my favorites.

One of the gifts of this sabbatical time is having space to reflect on what is next for me and although I am in process with the reality that I have reached an age that was formerly associated with retirement, I am not ready for to let go of my work.  I have been re-energized and have lots of ideas rolling around about where I might take what I have learned on this sabbatical into my work with WSU Extension.  I will not write about that yet because it will be premature.

I am in the process of checking in with wise friends and counselors about some ideas I have and asking if they make sense.  So far, everyone is positive and has had some helpful suggestions and insights.  I look forward to continuing these conversations as I complete the sabbatical and return to the formal workplace.  My journey is also wrapped up in my generation.  I am a baby boomer and I am having lots of fun watching what my fellow boomers are up to as they hit their late 60's.  It is very encouraging to me.  I am probably not a person who will just fade out but will choose to be active for as long as possible.


Yesterday I went to one of my favorite swimming places on Lake Whatcom, Euclid Park, and enjoyed my longest swim of the year there.  Probably a little over a half mile round trip.  No power boats buzzing around and so the water was not as rough as it can be.  There was little wind.  I spotted one of the eagles who frequent the cove roosting in one of the "eagle" trees as I call them.  While I was in the water it flew out across the water and then back into the forest that borders the cove into another favorite tree.  While I was swimming I spotted an osprey in the distance.  Osprey are my favorite birds, so curious and beautiful.  I am obsessed with Explore website that has live cam on an osprey nest in Maine.  I watched three babies grow last year and this year there are two new babies and an unhatched egg.  I wonder what happens to that egg if it does not hatch?  I will be checking in each day to find out.  Explore is a great site, funded by Charles Annenberg Weingarten and his family's foundation.  I love watching the bears in Alaska, the walruses, the elephants, the pandas and more.

To my great delight I moved into the backstroke and just overhead another osprey, a male by the markings, flew right over me.  I could see it looking at me as I looked up at it.  Not the first time this has happened to me by a long shot.  Each time is magical.  The bird was no more than about 75 feet above me.  I watched in fly away into the distance and felt blessed by the visit.

Thanks to Spirit Animals for the picture.

This afternoon, Mike and I will take the darling dogs to the Northshore trail and we will walk and I will swim with them.  Tonight, Ben, Mike and I will go to Keenan's on the Pier for a celebratory dinner!

It feels good to be 65!

As always, thanks for reading.

Oregon Encounters

I spent the week in the Central Willamette Valley last week.  My base was in Corvallis, home to Oregon State University. Oregon State University has been endowed with major gifts for building a center for families, scholarships to first generation college students from rural areas and to promote parenting education throughout the state of Oregon.  The Ford Family Foundation has been a leader in the process and has joined forces with other foundations in Oregon, including the Oregon Community Foundation and the Meyer Trust.  The Oregon Parenting Education Collaborative (OPEC) is coordinated by Denise Rennekamp at OSU.  Doris and I were fortunate to be abler to meet with Denise at her office in the lovely Hallie E. Ford Center for Healthy Children and Families.

Pictures do not do justice to the beauty of this building.  The wood all came from Oregon as a condition of the funders who made their fortune in the timber industry.  

It was a pleasure to catch up with Denise who both Doris and I know from our work.  Doris earned her PhD in Human Development and Family Studies at OSU and I know Denise from a multi-state collaboration in which we were both involved for a number of years.   I spent most of the time listening to her share about the evolution of the OPEC Hubs and the real expectation that the hubs are about developing community based sustainable collaborations and not to fund programs long term.  She shared some success stories and some not so successful examples.  I admire the work OSU and the greater statewide community of funders have tackled the need to support parents of young children.

I had contacted Denise early in my sabbatical planning about making some program visits and she recommended several exemplary programs.  The one program I connected with is Adelante Mujeres based in the city of Forest Grove in Washington County, Oregon, west of Portland.  I was able to travel to Forest Grove after landing at Portland Airport and before I drove to Corvallis through the verdant orchards of the Willamette Valley.  I was a little familiar with Adelante Mujeres because I had done research on their programs on Denise's recommendation and had met the director, Bridget Cooke, at a WSU event some years before.  

I drove into Forest Grove, a sleepy little college town (home to Pacific University) on Monday morning.  Thanks to my trusty GPS I had no trouble finding my way to the Adelante headquarters.  I was immediately charmed.

Adelante Mujeres: Education, Empowerment, Enterprise

Bridget Cooke, co-founder and director

Adelante Mujeres (Forward Women!) was founded by a small group of low income Latina immigrant women and their allies to improve the quality of life for themselves and their community in 2002.  I highly recommend you visit their website and learn more about the mission and the amazing work that is being done.  Two of the programs Bridget told me about that I wanted to return to visit are the Chicas Program and ESPERE.  I took the descriptions right off their website.

• Chicas is an innovative youth development program empowering Latina girls to develop their leadership potential, adapt healthy lifestyles, develop cultural identity and achieve academic success with high school graduation and college enrollment.
• ESPERE stands for Escuela de Perdón y Reconciliación (School of Forgiveness and Reconciliation) and is a workshop that helps people develop proactive strategies to address and overcome conflict and learn the power of forgiveness. ESPERE trains families to manage conflict with compassion and understanding in a way that leads to healthy, violent-free relationships.

The Chicas program is an afterschool and summer program and soccer camp for girls from 3rd-12th grade.  It currently operates in 13 schools.  The program began in 2008 and has grown exponentially. Bridget shared that the big event everyone was getting ready for was the soccer tournament for the girls teams that were drawn from the different Chicas programs.  Chicas works with girls in the following age breakdown: Grades 3-4, 5-6, 7-8 and 9-12.  Some of the graduates are now on staff with the program.  The Spring 2015 newsletter that Bridget shared with me features the inspiring story of one such young woman.

I am also very intrigued by the ESPERE program.    The six sessions are taught within the context of a a leadership class for Latina women and focuses on letting go of fear, sense of danger, desire for revenge and related feelings that come from historical trauma from being victimized.  Many of the Latinas who have come to this country in recent years have experienced sexual assault, domestic violence and other forms of abuse.  ESPERE provides a space to explore and release the feelings of shame, anger, fear and more.  Bridget reports that it has been very powerful for the women who participate.  I want to know more and to talk with both participants and facilitators.

Adelante Mujeres takes a holistic approach to their work with Latinas.  I have not addressed the other projects they operate.  A visit to their website is worth the time.

I left Forest Grove wanting to return and spend a couple of days there. 

I drove from Forest Grove through the lovely Willamette Valley and was surrounded by hazel nut groves, vineyards and rolling green hills.  It was a great way to travel to Corvallis.  My long journey to Arizona and back has diminished my already lukewarm feelings about interstate freeways.  I arrived in Corvallis to meet Doris at the Multicultural Literacy Center.  The center was filled with color and textiles from around the world.  I was right at home with al those fabrics. I met with the director of Casa Latinos Unidos de Benton County (CLU), Erlinda Gonzales-Berry, and Doris Cancel-Tirado, my host for the week.  Erlinda is the founder of CLU and has returned to be interim director. The purpose of CLU is to provide connection, education, support for Latinos in Benton County.  They nurture leadership in the community.  Erlinda said that two things were currently occupying her time - a Festival (Summer Fiesta) that will be held this Sunday, June 21st, and labor issues.  They have worked with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries to solve wage and other labor disputes.  The event will be a fundraiser.  CLU works on a very low budget and is looking at ways to create sustainable funding paths, perhaps charging for translation services.

This lovely display was in a storefront window in downtown Corvallis.  I went twice to photograph it and was unable to get a great shot but you get the idea from this and the poster.  I love the embroidered cloth on the table.

I met and interviewed the president of the Organization of Latinas Unidos (ULO), a women's group that are supported by CLU.  Felisa Torres was featured in the Corvallis Gazette Times yesterday for her work as a community volunteer.  Felisa was also recognized by Benton County Health Department with a "public health service award."  Felisa, Doris and I had a great conversation about the development of the ULO group.  It grew out of a group of women who came to Zumba and Cooking classes offered (through a grant Doris wrote) at their children's school.  Once the grant ran out the women who had grown close organized themselves to be able to pay for on-going classes and childcare.  Two of the women became part of the founding board for the ULO.  The original group focused on planning and organization.  The Women's Group meets weekly and they educate themselves and support each other.  Felisa shared with me that most of them had minimal schooling in Mexico and felt the need to grow with their children.  They also wanted to feel better about their lives so they worked on self-esteem and leadership.  The group has been very empowering for each other and have contributed to the community.  About 10 women belong at any given time.  They are cultural ambassadors for health, families and the school and community.  The women were recently asked by the school board to meet with candidates for the superintendent position and their feedback was taken seriously in making the decision.  This group also wanted to be able to talk with their youth about sexuality so they started by taking a class with a trusted community member who helped them create a workshop for the teens.  The idea that a trusted person is delivering information that they understand and feel comfortable with is the secret to their success.

Doris and I had an interesting conversation with Felisa and afterwards about a statement that I have heard from several sources, that Latinos do not volunteer.  Doris and Felisa and Adelante and many I had seen on my journey belied that notion.  Doris pointed out that the word "help" was more characteristic of what happens.  Latino culture has a more communitarian (as opposed to individualistic) orientation to life.  Helping the family, the school, the neighbor all happens because it helps the community in which the families live and work.  Both Felisa and Doris stated that the community needs us.  Doris also pointed out that a shift in frame of reference is important for understanding the phenomenon of helping.  She stated that volunteering is something that often comes from a place of privilege.  Having time and/or money to volunteer is often something that is a condition for doing worthy work.  It gave me much to think about as I prepare to return to my usual duties where so many of the volunteers who work with our programs have time and money.  

Doris and I traveled to Eugene the next day to visit an agency that has been serving Latinos in Lane County for 42 years!  Centro Latino Americano started as advocacy group and is now a multi-service center.

Service Directory for Centro

Trevor and Doris

Doris and I met with Trevor Whitbread, Program Manager, who gave us an overview of all the services the agency offers. He spoke passionately about the services they are providing for "minority" at risk to keep them out of the juvenile justice system and for those who are already involved with the system.  They have developed a successful mentoring program and work with a number of community partners.  They have developed a community impact model in which many sectors of the community (education, health, parks and recreations, workforce preparation, social services) team up to help steer the youth towards positive futures.  Both Doris and Trevor spoke to concerns about Eugene being a center for Human Trafficking which is a concern statewide.  I was surprised to hear that Eugene was a center in the state where issues of forced labor, sex trafficking and ongoing issues with coyotes and immigration paths arise.  I wonder what the landscape is in my state?  

Trevor also spoke about a successful women's support group that has grown out of the Alcohol and Other Drug treatment program but is not focused on addictions as much as support for life.  

I asked Trevor for what advice he might share with others and that I would add it to my blog.  He said that is very disappointed in the inequities in education that still exist and that any way we can tell the stories of of the "other side" (realities of life in the Latino immigrant community) we should.  We need to make the message about the life challenges that these generous people face accessible to both politicians and the general public.

I think I will stop for today.  I will write one more time about my visit to Oregon and some insights Doris shared with me that I think need to be recorded.

As always, thanks for reading.

The Importance of Family

Francisco, almost 3

Eva, aged 1

I visited Oregon last week and stayed with a friend and her family in Corvallis.  My friend, Doris and her husband, Juan Pablo (J.P)., have two young children, Francisco, almost 3 and Evangelina, 1.  Doris is a professor at Western Oregon University and J.P. is a successful winemaker at Silvan Ridge Winery near Eugene.  (I have written more about them in my post on June 19th.) They were very gracious about hosting me at their lovely home in Corvallis.  I enjoyed staying with them and sharing life with them, their darling children and Doris's mother, Doris.  It has been a long time since I have spent time with such young kiddos on a daily basis.  It humbles me to think about the hard work child rearing is.  I returned home exhausted and grateful to know these darling and beloved children!  The circumstances of this family are very different from the families that I read about in the book I will describe.  My week with Doris and J.P. and their family is very similar and very different from the families I have been studying.  The values of familia and respecto were very evident in their home and in the way they are raising their children.  The core values seem to stretch across Latino groups and are present regardless of the circumstances.

I have been struggling with how to write about an amazing book I just finished and have decided not to take the book review approach on the blog.  I was oozing details when I first wrote about the book on this blog and saved it to think about as I traveled back from Oregon.  I will give impressions and save the book review for a different venue.

One of the questions that I asked at the beginning of my sabbatical was how immigration and specifically the status of being undocumented impacted parents and children.  I know there is not a simple answer to that question.  Dr. Rebecca White, faculty with the ASU Latino Resilience Enterprise group, recommended a book to me when I was with her in late March.  I have been reading it and am finally finished.  The book is Immigrants Raising Citizens: Undocumented Parents and Their Young Children by Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Russell Sage Foundation, 2011.  Dr. Yoshikawa is now Courtney Sale Ross Professor of Globalization and Education, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, and University Professor, New York University.  The book is based on longitudinal studies of 380 young children and their parents in New York City.  The children were part of two birth cohorts.  Case studies of seven families informed this book.  The families represented by country of origin are China (1), Dominican Republic (2) and Mexico (4).  Most children were between three and thirty six months and the rest were between ten and thirteen years.  The authors found it was not possible to study young Chinese children immigrants because they were sent to China to stay with relative caregivers, usually grandparents, during the years between birth and 5.  The whole story of how that happens and what the impact is on the parent-child relationship is not part of what I will share.  I highly recommend the book to those who are interested in learning more about the Chinese families.

Skilled field workers visited the families 6-12 times over a six to nine month period.  Visits alternated between structured interviews and participant-observation methods.  The complete methodology is described in the appendix.  

Yoshikawa starts the reader out by describing three mothers on New York City's A Train, famous for the song many of us know.  He describes three of the mothers in the study, one Mexicana, one Dominicana and one Chinese.  Two of the three are undocumented immigrants.  The Dominican mother is documented and the other two are not.  He is able to paint a rich picture of the lives of all three women and the conditions under which they raise their children.  A conceptual model is presented in the first chapter that is outlines the parental (un)documentation status and the developmental contexts of children (p. 18).  The author examines the impact on child development by looking at:

• Premigration factors as they impact undocumented status 
• Involvement with (or avoidance of) Legal and Illegal Authorities.  The legal authorities may be gatekeepers for publicly funded programs for which their citizen children may be eligible or labor regulators or even law enforcement for protection.  The illegal authorities might include smugglers, coyotes, etc.  
• Social ties and work.  The networks include grandparents and the presence of older adults/generations, the proportion of adult contacts who are undocumented and the social support available.  Work issues examined are wages, benefits and job duties.
• Home environment and parental involvement and child care (home or center and quality)
• Children's developmental trajectories for learning, cognitive development, social-emotional growth and health.

Through detailed descriptions of the lives of the seven families he highlights in the book he explains the differences and similarities these mothers, fathers and children have in growing up in the margins in New York City.  Each of the families have a number of co-ethnic adults in their lives but only the Dominicans have extended families who are very involved in the lives of their children.  The Mexican families co-exist in the same residence but often are not involved with the children or each other if they are not the actual parents and couple.  They share space, work different shifts, come home very tired each day after very long and underpaid work days.  The Chinese infants leave for China and the parents work crazy hours at subsistence wages to pay back loans for the cost of coming to the US.  

Yoshikawa presents data that compares not only the children in the small sample of seven but also data from the study of 380 children.  His conclusions are as follows:

• All of the parents studied deeply cared for their children and all were interested in helping their children learn.  The field workers found that parents with less resources had less toys, books, etc for their children than parents with more resources.  Previous work the author had done showed the impact of psychological distress and depression on parental behavior.  The group measured for that in this study and did find a small effect, more noticeable at 24 months than at 36 months.
• The overwhelming differences noted in cognitive development at three years of age between the children whose parents were documented and those whose parents were not documented were related to working conditions and whether or not the child went to center based child care.  To put this another way, poor working conditions (lower wage jobs and lower job autonomy), and the type of care the child experienced (home vs center care) made a difference in the cognitive development of the child and showed differences at 36 months of age.  The children of undocumented parents who were unable to access center based care and child care assistance because it required proof of identification scored significantly lower on test of cognitive skills than the children in the study whose parents earned more and who attended child care in centers with trained and certified staff.  

There are many details that I would love to share but at the risk of losing you in them I will say that having undocumented parents has a distant impact on children's cognitive and emotional development.  Not only do the children exist in settings that are less conducive to cognitive development and success in school, they can also suffer anxieties about their parent's lack of papers and/or be concerned about their parent being deported.  I witnessed such anxiety in two children of a woman we have had the pleasure to work with in our county.  I will never forget the faces of those boys as I was trying to hire their mother.  No one on our team knew the status of this mom.  It was an embarrassing and potentially threatening situation.  When I realized she did not the paperwork I needed to hire her I quickly assured her I would not tell anyone in authority.  Her boys were hanging on our every word and the looks on their faces told the story of fear and concern they had for their mother.  This was one of the experiences that led me to studying immigration and its impact on the family.

Time to go for today.

Practicing selfies to make Francisco happy about me taking his picture!

Thanks for reading!

Local Heroes

Dear Readers and Friends,

I have been taking time away from the blog to read and write non-blog projects lately.  The book I am reading is a scholarly and well written book about the impact that being undocumented has on children's development.  I will dedicate an upcoming entry to that.  I am almost finished with the book and want to do a complete review on this site.

I have been working with a group of colleagues on digesting some data we gathered from youth alumni of our Fortaleciendo Familias program.  We conducted focus groups with youth at three sites.  Overall 512 youth completed the program.  We managed to pull in 17 for follow-up focus groups.  It was a learning experience for all of us and as we have digested the meaning of the transcripts and explored the themes expressed by the comments, we discovered consistency across the sites.  Our youth expressed increased understanding of their parents and conversely, that they were able to communicate their thoughts and feelings with their parents with more trust.  My writing group (AnaMaria Diaz Maritinez, Jennifer Crawford, Irene Overath and I) identifies four major themes that emerged from the data.  We saw that the youth acknowledged the changes that occurred in their family systems as a result of participating in our program, we saw a number of competencies that lead to positive youth development emerging in the youth, the youth told us about scenarios that were indicators of increased resilience in their lives and they told us that the craft projects that they did with their families that were designed to raise awareness about family strengths and their values were still important symbols in their homes.  Our article is on version two and we are almost ready to send it off for review.  I am really glad we put collective minds to the task of refining this important data. I see the youth and their parents as well as the dedicated facilitators who conduct the program as the local heroes.

The program has been really popular in my county and in other places where funds are available to offer it.  On my sabbatical task list is designing a process and cost estimate to remake the video portion of the curriculum and to find support for that process.  I have already found out that video production is expensive and it will take creative funding to make it happen.  I am diving into the waters of making connections for future funding this week.

Shuksan Middle School Graduation, March 2014

I often share this picture because it holds out the promise the program has for people.  Isabel Meaker who organizes the Shuksan program told me recently that at 6th grade orientation she signed enough families up for a full class that will take place in early 2016!

Isabel is another local heroine.  I met Isabel through Lindsey Karas, the last of the local heroines I would like to shout out to today.  Lindsey coordinates resident services at Sterling Meadows - Farmworker Housing run by Mercy Housing Corporation.  Mercy Housing Northwest oversees a number of properties throughout the west.  Our local WSU Extension team supports Sterling Meadows by embedding nutrition and gardening programs there and by serving residents in our Fortaleciendo Familias Program at Shuksan.  Lindsey is the fulcrum for the services that are designed to wrap around the children and their families at Sterling Meadows.  There are many collaborators that work with Lindsey and she deserves the recognition she received at a recent reception held as a fundraiser for her programs.  She works with Western Washington University (WWU) faculty and students to support the ongoing education of the students.  The success of the program is simply expressed.  They went from a 0% graduation rate among resident teens to a 100% graduation rate over the past seven years.  I was amazed and really proud to witness the speech from the polished and proud young woman who shared what Lindsey's program meant to her.  There were numerous examples of youth who not only completed their high school degrees but went onto college.  The word excelling was used to describe some of the youth in the program.  The homework club that utilizes WWU students is part of the reason these youth succeed.  The safe and supportive and predictable housing they grow up in also provides an atmosphere that lowers stress and allows the kids to focus.

I do not have a picture of Lindsey and her lovely student Crystal to share.  I received a lovely thank you note from Mercy Housing thanking me for my donation that has a photo of these local heroines.  There are some great videos that share what Mercy Housing NW is doing to support residents in having a successful and healthy life path.  They are short and sweet and worth seeing.  I recommend them.

Part of my passion for housing comes from my nine (yes 9!) years of board service at Lydia Place.  One of our big fundraisers takes place June 4th at Depot Market Square in Bellingham.  I am excited to go.  If you are interested in attending, tickets can be found at the website above.  It is a joyous and colorful event!  

Enjoy your early June!

Thanks for reading.