30 Jun 2015

Puente program helps parents and students get ready for Middle School

Selena Bustamante and her husband Gerardo were full of anxiety when they signed up for Puente’s first-ever Project SUCCESS workshop for parents of fifth grade students who are headed into middle school next year. Their only son, Gabriel, had reached puberty earlier than the other kids in his class. The 11-year-old was misbehaving and talking back to his parents, acting sullen and distant.

They were hurt, angry and confused. “He would tell me, ‘I wish you didn’t exist,’” says Selena (whose name has been changed). They had questions for Puente’s experts, some of them slightly awkward: why was their son, who had barely worried about relations with girls, suddenly asking his parents questions about sex based on things he had heard? And how were they to answer him?

Most troublesome of all, they worried that Gabriel’s transition from elementary school to Pescadero’s middle school would expose him to drugs and alcohol – concerns that can sometimes be well founded, according to Joann Watkins, Clinical Director for Puente. “It’s an important age because they’re going into puberty, going to a different school, middle school, where there will be a lot more influence from their peers,” she says.

This year, Puente set out to address those concerns by engaging 5th grade students and parents through Project SUCCESS, an early intervention program that has been proven to be successful in the area of drug and alcohol awareness across the country. Puente wanted Pescadero and La Honda parents to learn about some of these same topics in the context of raising healthy, well-adjusted teenagers.

So Puente pioneered two successful new efforts: a brand-new 8-week workshop for every member of the outgoing 5th grade classes at La Honda and Pescadero Elementary schools. This entailed a different approach from previous years, where Watkins and her staff have focused solely on “at-risk” students – those who have already been exposed to drugs or alcohol by friends, or through a family history of substance abuse.

And for the first time, Puente held two corresponding 6-week courses – one in English and one in Spanish – for their parents, also held in La Honda and Pescadero. Puente went to great lengths to recruit busy parents, including telephone calls, flyers and sending letters home with students. Puente offered dinner, childcare and raffle prizes as additional incentives to the parents.

One of the mothers who took part in Project Success.

One of the mothers who took part in Project Success.

The Project SUCCESS curriculum is sponsored by a three-year grant from San Mateo County’s office of Behavioral Health and Recovery Services. Project SUCCESS has a long history on the South Coast, first coordinated by the La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District, and then, Puente.  The grant was renewed for another three years in June.

Puente has historically used this funding for youth discussion groups and workshops on topics like drug and alcohol use, peer pressure, healthy dating, domestic violence, and the perils of rape drugs and driving under the influence. The Youth Leadership Institute, based in San Francisco, provides support for some of the programs.

The 5th grade students allowed themselves to be vulnerable and bond over the mutual trust they created in their workshops this winter, according to Celia Gagnon, a Puente Mental Health Trainee and La Honda resident who facilitated the La Honda student and parent groups. Gagnon had the students engage in art therapy by painting a mural to help pinpoint the lessons they learned during the sessions. When they were done, both student groups voted to have the murals installed inside the 5th grade classroom as a legacy for incoming students.

“It created this kind of wonderful unity and understanding. It carried into the parenting group – there was a warm feeling,” says Gagnon. In La Honda, “the parents were so pleased with it that at the end they said, how can we keep this camaraderie going?”

The parenting workshops covered the physical changes of adolescence, including changes to the limbic system, a time when moodiness and risk-taking are part of the equation; the importance of open-minded communication, in particular on the topics of drugs and alcohol; and handling children’s exposure to social media and cyberbullying, among other topics.

La Honda parent Siobhan Togliatti attended 5 out of 6 workshops offered in La Honda and says she got a lot out of them, especially in regards to her own concerns about how to stay on top of her son Guido’s computer use and preempt his exposure to inappropriate forms of media. She appreciated Puente bringing in an outside expert on the topic.

“The red flag for me is the technology stuff – the texting and video games and YouTube. As a parent, you just have to continue to read and monitor and be hard-nosed about it. You have to ask, ‘What are you watching?’” she says. “Email is next.”

Togliatti doubts her son is likely to consume drugs and alcohol, but she is aware that La Honda is not immune to those realities. “There’s a group of older kids that hangs out in town – freshman and sophomores – and I already hear stories from my son that they’re smoking pot and drinking and stuff,” she says.

Those are important concerns, and Puente has the resources to educate families and get them help if they need it. The workshops offered coping and conversation tools.

Two parents participate in Project Success.

Two parents participate in Project Success.

“There were a lot of questions and fears about kids going into middle school – what about peer pressure? Bullying? It all went back to creating that connection with their kids that could help them have an open line of communication,” says Iris Fernandez, Puente’s Mental Health Intern, who facilitated the workshops in Pescadero.

Puente also brought in the principal of Pescadero Middle and High School, Pat Talbot, to tell parents what to expect at middle school and how to stay involved in their children’s education, which went a long way toward reassuring many of the parents. Talbot also discussed the safe school movement — research shows that schools with a positive and welcoming school climate increase the likelihood that students succeed academically while protecting them from engaging in high risk behaviors like substance abuse, teen pregnancy, and violence.

Selena Bustamante says having a school official talk to her group made her feel “more relaxed.” So did hearing about the science behind adolescent brain development. “My son has been going through a lot of mood changes, and I didn’t know it was normal as part of his adolescence,” she adds.

Since the workshop ended, Selena and her husband have made an effort to talk to their son in a non-judgmental way, based on the techniques they learned at Puente. Now, she says, “I have open communication with him. We talk about drugs, about alcohol and the dangers of engaging in that. One thing I learned from this class is we need to build up trust and to make an effort to answer the questions he has.”

There were other reasons Puente wanted to reach out to parents. Watkins and her staff needed a sensitive way to approach a difficult topic: alcohol and drug use within families. Teens are comfortable talking about the topic of substance abuse, but adults treat it as their “private business,” she says.

“Drugs and alcohol are a big problem in all communities, but in this community there’s such a high level of generational trauma that a number of kids are self-medicating,” Watkins explains.

“If you’re coming from a family with domestic violence, child abuse and trauma, it keeps people stuck and they pass that along to kids,” Watkins adds. “Those kids are at a much higher risk of becoming users themselves.”

Puente’s mental health program is well equipped to treat young people in need of counseling, and Puente works closely with the local school district to identify them early on. Yet that doesn’t change the fact that the kids live in an area where the acceptance level is high for kids using alcohol and drugs like marijuana. Puente would like to see that change.

It’s hard to avoid the same mistakes your parents made. But sometimes all it takes is remembering the sting of one’s own adolescence – or a deeper family pain. In their first session, each parent was asked to create his or her own collage out of magazine clippings and art supplies, depicting memories of their childhoods and the things they did. It was meant to bring parents closer to their preteens. But “it brought back a lot of memories of substance abuse in their own lives,” says Fernandez.

“One woman showed her mother praying and herself inside the car with her drunk father,” Fernandez recalls. “She talked about how she didn’t have the space to discuss these things. After being in the class, she felt she could create that safe space for her kids to do that.”

20 Jun 2015

Three-year milestone finds DACA youth thriving at school and work

Three years ago, Danna Gonzalez barely cared about graduating from high school. “Good grades weren’t my priority because I didn’t think I was going to go off to college,” she says. But earlier this month, the petite, long-haired daughter of a truck driver not only graduated, she did so glowing with the knowledge that she was college-bound. “I’m so excited because I can actually do something with life, like get an education. I can actually be what I want to become.” She crossed the stage in cap and gown, grasping not just a diploma but four community scholarships, including one from Puente, which she will apply toward her college education.

Gonzales also got a class award for community service, which includes her many hours of service as a Puente volunteer. Prior to graduation, she received seven other school awards for all the hard work she did to turn her grades around and pass her classes.

The 18-year-old says she’s become a different person since she applied for a DACA permit three years ago. (DACA stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a federal initiative that since 2012 has awarded work permits to roughly 100,000 previously undocumented residents who were brought to the U.S. as children.) Although DACA is not a path to citizenship, it awards qualified applicants a legitimate Social Security number and ID papers that can be used to apply for a driver’s license and find work. (California subsequently passed a law, AB60, which makes driver’s licenses available to all Californians regardless of their immigration status). In California and a few other states, DACA also qualifies students for certain kinds of college financial aid.

The results are often transformative: in a 2014 study of DACA recipients, a majority of those surveyed were able to get a new job, open their first bank account and obtain a driver’s license.

Danna Gonzalez, Ana Barron and Yessenia Perez are three of 23 local youth who have received their work authorization since Puente started processing DACA applications for free in 2012. That little piece of paper marked a milestone for many youth in the South Coast community. Three years on, 13 of them have already renewed the two-year permit for another two years. They are looking ahead to exciting fields of study and full-fledged careers they never allowed themselves to dream of.

In Gonzalez’s case, that dream entails attending Cabrillo Community College in Santa Cruz, where she will debut as a student this fall. Following two years of prerequisites, she will enter a training program to become a dental hygienist. “I’m excited but I’m scared,” she admits with a laugh. “In Pescadero it’s a small school, so we have a lot of support from the teachers. At Cabrillo, they won’t care if I attend school or not.”

Ana Barron is still adjusting to life as a student at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, a campus she never thought she would set foot on. The fresh-faced nursing student easily fits in among her community college peers, who might never guess she’s 26 and has a 6-year-old at home.

Ana Barron and her son.

Ana Barron and her son.

Barron came to the U.S. from Mexico at 14, and had her son, Maximiliano, at 19. For most DACA recipients, having work authorization mainly affects one person’s future – their own. For Barron, DACA ensures, at least temporarily, that she is guaranteed a reprieve from ever being deported to Mexico and separated from her American-born son. It also means she can work toward a degree that will help her get a high-paying job, lifting the prospects of her small family.

Barron enrolled at Foothill with her heart set on entering the medical field – she’ll choose between nursing, radiology or respiratory therapy, although nursing is her top choice. “I like talking to people and helping them,” she says, simply. As a part time student and a full-time mom who also works as a waitress in Pescadero, Barron knows it’s going to take her several years to get enough credits to transfer to San Jose State and complete her degree. It’s complicated and expensive. “But as long as I feel good about it and don’t give up, I think I can do it,” she says.

Barron loved high school, but her pregnancy prevented her from going to college. After her son was born, there didn’t seem to be much of a point – until she got a personal phone call from Rita Mancera, Deputy Executive Director of Puente, inviting her to apply for DACA. Suddenly she saw a future for herself outside of her waitress job. “It’s wonderful to be able to move from one place to another without worry,” she says today. “It’s a good beginning, because more of the programs will probably ask me for a Social Security number later on when I try to apply.”

Barron’s unique situation as a parent who happens to qualify for DACA also makes a strong case for DAPA, Presient Obama’s Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, an executive order providing temporary protection from deportation and a work permit. The program is in limbo as the federal government readies for a legal showdown, and so are hundreds of Pescadero residents who might benefit. Puente has spent considerable staff time and resources moving forward to prepare for DAPA, and recently received Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) agency recognition, which will allow staff to process most DAPA applications in-house.

“We know children whose parents do not have work authorization. They’re always on edge,” says Mancera. “When parents have a work permit, they aren’t worried about their jobs. If they get their hours cut back, they can apply somewhere else as well.”

Children without papers also experience fear, insecurity and a sense of self-rejection; Mancera sees it all the time.

Generous funding for Puente’s DACA efforts comes from the Grove Foundation of Los Altos, and the foundation’s support has been changing lives.

“When the youth are in school, I see an immediate difference. There are more doors open in their academic futures,” says Mancera. “For people who are out of school already, the work opportunities suddenly just change.”

That was never truer than for Yessenia Perez. She is studying for a teaching credential but already has a job she adores, working at a daycare where she cares for 1-year-olds. The confident 23-year-old married her college sweetheart last month and moved to Redwood City from Pescadero. After several years of staffing Puente’s children’s programs, and then working as a teacher’s aide at Pescadero Elementary, Perez knew she wanted to work with young children.

When DACA came along, Perez was literally first in line at Puente with her documents in order, ready to apply. “I knew DACA was going to change my life. That it was going to help me to have my driver’s license instead of waiting for rides from friends,” she says today. “Later on I realized I could get the job that I wanted in the place that I wanted.”

Yessenia with her work permit.

But she didn’t know it would happen so quickly. A friend working at a private daycare and preschool in San Mateo recommended Perez for a post there. She applied for the job, but went to the first interview with some trepidation – she knew she’d have to explain that she only had a 2-year work permit, and that the interview process would probably be a slog. Instead, she was hired on the spot.

“I thought, thank god I have the DACA permit. If I didn’t have that, it would have held me back,” she says.

Three years into her stint at Cañada College, Perez has earned a certificate in early childhood development and is halfway toward her goal of an associate degree. Eventually she will transfer to a four-year college and enter a teaching program.

One of the biggest pleasures of Perez’s job is the fact that she can be honest with her employers about her work status. “At the beginning, I was waiting for them to ask me questions,” she says. But it turns out they were more interested in her skills. “They were fine with it. They even said, ‘If you ever need a letter from us just let us know.’ I was amazed.”

The federal government charges $465 for each DACA application—funds most young people don’t have. Your support helps offset costs for the application and college, as well as fuels Puente’s life-changing work with students like Danna, Ana, Yessenia, and countless others.

Please donate today.

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08 Jun 2015

South Coast graduates take the world by storm

Mariela Lopez and Barbara Guzman were Pescadero teens with college dreams when they started work with the Puente Youth Leadership Development and Employment Program seven years ago. Now they are conquering heroes, returning with university diplomas that will springboard them into graduate schools and fulfilling careers.

Their lives are already very different from their parents’ lives, as well as those of their siblings and many of their hometown friends. They are walking a new path, one with different expectations. And if that sounds scary and exhilarating, it is.

Lopez and Guzman – along with their high school compatriot, Luis Mendez – are the first Puente youth to graduate from a 4-year college since Puente created its leadership program. Their accomplishments reflect an extraordinary resilience and strength of character. They also represent the culmination of Puente’s youth programming goals, which endorse a college education from the word go.

“I went to college because of Puente. I had no idea how an application was done,” says Lopez. “Rachel at Puente helped me apply to different schools and talked with me about the different advantages and disadvantages.”

Lopez and Guzman have a lot in common. Both are 22, and grew up in Pescadero in low-income families. Both women enrolled in Puente’s youth program at 14 or 15, gaining skills through different summer jobs with Puente and saving their paychecks for college. Both chose to attend Cal State Monterey Bay, from which they both graduated this past winter. Neither woman ever questioned that she would make it to college, even though they were both first in their families to matriculate to a 4-year university.  And both will pursue advanced degrees – Lopez in social work, Guzman in law.

But they are also very different. When Guzman was growing up, her father, a Mexico-born carpenter and maintenance specialist at YMCA Camp Jones Gulch, pushed her to pursue a higher education. “He always talked about going to school and being educated. He talked about how important it is to pursue a better life through the benefits of education,” she says. He didn’t blink when she told him she wanted to go to a 4-year college, despite the fact that the family didn’t have the money to send her there.

Guzman’s father couldn’t help her fill out her admission forms, apply for scholarships, or figure out the tangle of bureaucracy and logistics involved in setting herself up in a new town, on a new campus, at a new school. At 18, Guzman had to look outside her family for some help. But he took days off work to drive her to Monterey Bay on occasions like her placement tests. He waited for her and drove her home again. Those car trips meant a lot, and so did his support.

“I’ve always thought of myself as a very ambitions person, and very dedicated,” says Guzman. “He’s been the one motivating me, encouraging me.”

For her part, Lopez grew up with a father who had very strict ideas about how his daughter should behave and what she ought to aspire to. He rarely allowed her to leave the house to socialize at night. He would not permit her to join the high school women’s soccer team, because he did not believe it fit with how women should behave. So when Lopez got up the nerve to tell him that she wanted to go to college – to leave home for four years and live on campus – he was confused, and then angry.

“He was saying, ‘Why do you need to go to college if you have a good job at Puente?’ I had to explain what college means here in America, and what it meant to me. It was hard to explain to him, because he is very traditional, and going against him is seen as disrespectful in our culture,” recalls Lopez, who becomes emotional at the memory of the confrontation.

But she pushed. She told her parents, who worked at a flower nursery and spoke little English, that she was old enough to make her own decisions. And on the day she moved into her new dorm room at Cal State, both parents were there to help. “I knew my dad was still upset, but he came and that was huge for me,” says Lopez. “When they left me, I cried. My siblings cried. And he cried as well. Even though he didn’t say it, I knew in the long run I was going to make him happy and proud.”

Lopez and her family on graduation day

Lopez and her family on graduation day

Today, Puente helps acclimate young people to the expectation of college at an early age. Classroom Connection, a Puente/LHPUSD partnership  brings bilingual UC Santa Cruz students into elementary and middle school classrooms as teacher’s aides, knowing that they represent something to aspire to. In later years, Puente youth regularly tour local college campuses as part of Puente’s effort to help them see themselves in college and beyond. And Puente holds Career Night at the local high school, where Latino/a professionals talk to students and their parents about college and their careers.

Both young women experienced a major culture shock when they left Pescadero High, with a graduating class of 18 peers, and entered a school with 1,500 students in their year. They had never been around so many people. Yet they also had to learn to be alone for the first time, away from their families. They learned how to cook their own meals, manage their workloads and navigate a new town. They both had student jobs on campus to supplement their room and board.

Both Lopez and Guzman made it all the way through college without having to take out any student loans. They successfully applied for financial aid and merit-based scholarships – in many cases, with letters of reference from Puente. And Puente’s own college scholarship programs, sponsored by individual donors as well as the Institute for Mexicans Abroad, helped cover books and other school supplies.

In time, Guzman outgrew the Monterey campus. She wanted to transfer to another school, but never did. Today she says she regrets not applying to her first choice school, Stanford University. “I was intimidated at the time – that so that’s where I’m going to go now,” she says. She is living near her mother in Fresno this summer, preparing for the LSAT so that she can apply to Stanford and other law schools this fall.

Guzman and her family on graduation day.

Guzman and her family on graduation day.

Lopez now lives in Redwood City with her boyfriend. She is spending the summer working with Puente. She recently got into her first choice masters program: the School of Social Work at San Jose State University.

“When they told me, I was just sobbing, I was so happy,” she says. “They told me they had 500 applicants and the class is only going to be 80 students.”

No matter where her life takes her from now on, Lopez will always remember her graduation from CSU Monterey Bay as one of the happiest and most emotional days of her life. Her family was there, and they were so proud of her. Her father especially. “The first person I hugged after my graduation ceremony was over, was him,” she says.