Name: Todd Parker
Position: Unconditional Education Coach
What led you to your current position? Was looking for something, anything, that offered me interaction with young people with challenging personalities.
Quote: Everyone thinks they're GREAT with relationships, until they're not.
What does your average day look like? Prying myself from bed, drinking a cup of coffee like it's needed, listening to my personality playlist and eyeballing my many, many "to-do" lists. Eliminating at least one task from that list is a real accomplishment for me, especially within this current, virtual lifestyle.
Why do you do this work? Early enough in my career, I realized what made me successful connecting with young people. At its core, it was replicating the approach from the adults that resonated with me when I was younger. And with the hopes of making a real impact, to the students and adults around me, I choose to give my genuine self to others just like someone did for me.

Name: Aurielle Zeitler
Position: Clinical Intervention Specialist
What led you to your current position? I was contemplating pursuing an MSW for over ten years before finally taking the leap. I think that my work as a Therapeutic Musician at the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, where I performed music for the patients in waiting rooms, labs and in their hospital rooms, was the final impetus to fully jump into work with children and youth. I ended up interning with Los Angeles Unified School District School Mental Health for two years during my grad program, and I really fell in love with school-based work. After graduating last year and relocating to Oakland, I ended up landing my dream job with Seneca at a small alternative high school called Street Academy – a wonderfully creative and open place where I can dig further into mindfulness practices, restorative justice, art therapy and whatever else I can dream up. It has been a great place to cut my teeth as a new clinician and I am looking forward to a second year there!
Fun Fact: I am a collector of vintage analog synthesizers from the 1980’s. Playing them is my favorite way to practice self-care and meditation and I hope to find a way to incorporate them into my work someday. I have big plans…
What does your average day look like? I usually arrive around 8:30am, taking some time to greet the early bird students and staff. If there is time, I’ll take a moment to water the plants in my office, set up my aromatherapy diffuser, flip on my water fountain, and make the space cozy and inviting for the day. Then, I will see clients for sessions and connect with collateral when possible. My office is right in the middle of our tiny campus, so I often have drop-ins and visits from students either coming by for a snack or for some individual rehabilitation, so I’m generally pretty busy until the minute I leave around 4:30. Time really flies.
Why do you do this work? I do this work because during a very vulnerable and difficult time in my own life, a social worker was there to support me and help me navigate my way through. Because of that impact of that experience, I feel compelled to give back in whatever tiny way I can, and help others on their journey towards empowerment, self-compassion, and a sense of hopefulness. I also appreciate that this work continually challenges me beyond my comfort zone, keeping me constantly in a state of growing and learning. Sometimes I wonder if I learn more from my clients than they learn from me, and I’m alright with that!

This week was my turn to contribute to the UE blog, and it has been a challenge to think about what to write given all that is going on in the world. So, I will just write from the heart and I will not go silent in this time, where it is important to use our voices and ability to speak and act on the injustices that continue to happen within black communities.

I have so many thoughts and feelings related to how black lives continue to be mistreated, and I feel that there are no words that can describe the pain, rage and exhaustion that black communities may feel as we continue to see injustice, inequity, and violence towards black youth and adults. 

In the past few days, I have seen a lot content going around with tools and tips on how to address racial issues within our organizations and personal lives. I am grateful for those tools, BUT, as the image shows below, until you fix the heart, there will be no real change.  

Recently I conducted a series of interviews for my grad school project called Diversity, Inclusion and Authenticity: How to make a Lasting impact for Organizational Change. One of the key findings of this project suggested that it requires for leaders and individuals to "do the work" within themselves first before attempting to implement change in policy or any initiative towards creating a more diverse and inclusive environment. From what I learned from the experiences of others and my own, I agree that change starts with reflection on our own hearts, mindsets and cultural framework. I believe that without our own self-reflection, any effort of change will not be sustainable to make a true impact. As we work on our own hearts, and start to make internal transformation, we will become effective in making transformative changes within our systems and communities to protect BLACK LIVES.  

Real, sustainable, and authentic change requires COMMITMENT, HEART and ACTION. Heart will give us the courage and the stamina to walk the walk when this journey to create change gets tough. Are you ready to do the work? Are you committed? Are you ready to take action? Because BLACK LIVES MATTER!

I stand in solidarity with you. 

​During this period of prolonged school closures, we are all adapting to new realities of daily life in our own ways. We each have our own coping skills, routines (intentional or not), patterns that make up the rhythms of life. Without the physically, socially, and emotionally immersive experience of school and work, we add up new webs of behaviors, creating a new/abnormal sense of daily life that for most of us is completely novel.

And yet, there are myriad ways we collectively engage in routine, in social dynamics, in group narratives. And for young people everywhere, this social distancing has not eliminated the need to experiment and build a sense of identity. Adolescents and teens everywhere are still engaged in the process of differentiating their unique selves from their families, as they also spend more time at home with them and participate in family roles more regularly than before. I realized recently in a session with a client how much of a role mass media is playing in that process for youth right now.

​While young people can’t meet together at school or in the community to participate in these exploratory behaviors with their peers, they are finding other spaces and creative mechanisms for continuing these critical developmental experiences. Whether it’s through video games, TV series, movies, music, manga, or other reading material, teens are using immersive virtual experiences to explore their concepts of self. I’ve spent a lot of time recently in sessions with young people engaging in a reflective process about what media they are consuming in order to support this. When a young person is telling me about a TV show they are watching, they are not simply relating a passive escapist activity, they are curating which aspects of the plot, characters, literary and artistic devices, and themes to share. They are piecing together parts of the deeper narratives, cultural and social values, and shared identity points with characters that they relate to and feel significant to them. This curational process of reflecting may look very different from being immersed in a group of peers, but the building of a sense of self continues. Initially I struggled to understand and recognize the significance of this in a therapeutic process, but as social distancing and remote services continue, I am seeing this with more clarity. 

​Witnessing a young person engage in that reflective process, learning which characters they relate to, admire, strive to be like, and feel an aversion to is all social-emotional learning. Who ever said there is nothing to be learned about ourselves from learning about vampires? Maybe it’s enriching to imagine ourselves outside the scope of standard human experiences, maybe it’s possible young people exploring their identities in this way will have extra creative thinking skills that will allow them to shape the future in ways we can’t even imagine. There’s no way for us to fully understand the range of impacts of this moment on young people’s social-emotional development. We already know many of the negative and disparate impacts on our communities across socioeconomic and racial lines. There is no living precedent for the suffering of this moment in time that we are collectively immersed in; we can acknowledge the incredible resilience of young people that is emerging through that suffering. 

Each school year brings change and a sense of newness. In the coming 2020-21 school year, Learning Without Limits (LWL) will experience new leadership and a fresh structure. The school as a whole has been actively planning for this transition and our Learning Lab Team, also known as the Special Education Team, had the opportunity to collaborate about what we would like the structure of the Learning Lab Team to look like next year. 

​We utilized this image known as “Below the Green Line” to outline our structures and culture for the next Learning Lab Team. The author of “Below the Green Line,” Steve Zueiback, emphasizes how the components of System Infrastructure and the components of Human Infrastructure are both crucial when it comes to maintaining a healthy and sustainable organization. It is important to constantly build and improve upon the components above and below the green line. The areas below the green line are the heart of the operation. Zueiback notes that an efficient organization works on all six areas simultaneously. 
​
LWL is a very caring community – the whole team brings into account the relationships, information, and identity aspects of the school when creating structures, patterns, and processes. During our previous Learning Lab Team meetings, we realized our main attention was focusing above the green line. However, a lot of the systems we identified were rooted in the values we hold below the green line. In other words, the Below values our Learning Lab Team holds also appear in the systems that exist Above. For example, while we have a hierarchy, there is a sense of humbleness from the leadership team which allows for a soft hierarchy and an emphasis on collaboration. Additionally, LWL, like Seneca, values feedback in all directions of the leadership hierarchy. LWL’s Learning Lab Team has created a place for everyone at the table. Each team member is heard and valued. Without collaboration, we would not be able to provide the best individualized services possible to our students and their families. Each member of a student’s team sees a different aspect of the student whether it be academic, speech, behavior, OT or therapy. Collaboration allows us to put all these pieces together and allows us to see the whole student. All the components of the System and Human Infrastructures come together to create a unique organization.

With the support of Zueiback’s article, the Learning Lab Team identified what we would like the incoming team to know about our team’s culture, values, beliefs and systems. A reoccurring theme was the amount of collaboration that takes place as well as the importance of communication, feedback, adaptability and humor. Together, we created a document that will be passed on to the next Learning Lab leader depicting how our culture and structures go hand in hand. 

​The end of the school year should be filled with celebrations and happy memories, but for many of our students this year, that was not the case. Due to the shelter in place, our students who worked hard and achieved their promotions to middle school & high school were not able to participate in their promotion ceremonies. We could not let these huge milestones go uncelebrated and decided to deliver promotion packages to our students at Bridges Academy, Community Day School, Lincoln Middle School, Prescott Elementary School, Sequoia Elementary School, and Think College Now.  

Position: Clinical Intervention Specialist
What led you to your current position? I completed my Masters in Social Work degree in May of 2019 with a focus on working with family, youth, and children. Prior to my masters program, I worked in school-based programs and youth development doing direct work and program management for 5 years. With the completion of my masters degree, I was excited to hone my therapeutic skills, elevate my experience working in schools, and have the potential to impact a system.  The CIS position is perfect in allowing me to do just that.
Quote: “You cannot change society unless you take responsibility for it, unless you see yourself as belonging to it and responsible for changing it” – Grace Lee Boggs
What does your average day look like? My average day includes holding sessions with clients, connecting with teachers and administrators, researching different therapeutic activities to add to my toolbox, and moments of self-care.
Why do you do this work? I do this work because I believe that we all play a role in combating inequitable systems. I believe that we all have power and the right to self-determination. Lastly, I do this work because I know that caring adults can make a difference for young people of color to be seen, heard, and feel joy. 

​As with many of our partnerships and programs in Seneca, COVID-19 has thrown us all for a loop. It has been amazing to see how Seneca Staff have jumped at every opportunity to meet the needs of students, families, partnerships, and colleagues. This is especially true at our partnership with Emerson Elementary School where we have two Clinical Intervention Specialists and a Behavioral Intervention Specialist, working what seems like 24 hours a day. They don’t actually work 24 hours a day, don’t worry HR! They just work really, really hard. Throughout the year, and years prior, they have truly integrated themselves within the Emerson Community and have continued to be a constant support and presence throughout COVID-19. We all know that these are confusing times and can only imagine what it must feel like for our younger students. In an effort of prevention and education, Seneca Staff have developed a (Social Emotional Learning) SEL Curriculum to help students understand and explain the effects of the pandemic when students do return to school. This going to be a major aide in supporting the students as they transition back from an extended time outside of the four walls of our schools. 

As one would imagine, and a number of us are experiencing at the moment, it is really difficult to connect with students and families during remote learning. Seneca Staff and Emerson have developed “Communication Captains” which assigns students to a specific staff member for weekly check-ins. This has enabled staff to help meet family needs (food, gift cards, etc.) and continue the facilitation/development of relationships. One of our weekly highlights is our food distribution to students and families during the pandemic. Not to worry, decked out in PPE and social distancing, staff joyously wave to students and families as they coordinate and deliver food packages throughout the Emerson Community. It is also important to acknowledge the affects that COVID-19 has had on our colleagues (including colleagues within our partnership). Seneca Staff at Emerson regularly meet with teachers and provide mental health supports for those who are experiencing their own struggles with COVID-19. Due to the relationships that the CISs and BIS have within the partnership, School Administration highly values these individuals and have trusted them in leading weekly professional development opportunities at the school which include in deep discussions at their book club (“Brain Wash”) and yoga sessions from Seneca’s very own yogi Jenna Laube. All this to say, well done Emerson Crew, we are proud of you all and the work that you do - I appreciate ya’ll! 

​I'm Ori Gutin, a Student Support Assistant (SSA) at One Purpose School in San Francisco's Bayview District. At the start of the shelter in place, I joined an awesome group of San Francisco-based All-In! staff, comprised of SSAs, clinicians, and Unconditional Education (UE) coaches, that were dedicated to providing weekly social emotional learning (SEL) content to our students stuck at home. Our hope was to touch on issues specific to what they might be experiencing because of COVID-19. We have created SEL content on mindfulness, peace corners, yoga, identifying feelings such as frustration, worry, and now... loneliness! This week's video normalizes the feelings of loneliness that our students might be experiencing at home right now, and through a reading of the fantastic children's book The Invisible String, we help remind them that even if they are not physically with their school community, they are still connected in their hearts to everyone they love! Additionally, students are provided two handouts (Invisible String Worksheet and Special Message Worksheet) they can do at home to help them stay connected to their friends and school communities from afar. Making these weekly videos has been such a wonderful experience for me. It provides me an opportunity to think creatively about how to share social emotional learning with students in an engaging way. 

While I have been working on these videos to support my passion for SEL in my professional life, I have also been working on an SEL project in my personal life – self publishing my first picture book, The Butterfly Who Flew in the Rain. My book tells the story of Cody the caterpillar who was born in the midst of a terrible thunderstorm, and his ensuing journey of transformation and self-discovery, in which he learns to not only accept life’s challenges, but to embrace them. It is meant to teach kids that even if things appear impossibly difficult, or it feels as if we are completely mired in negative emotions or situations with seemingly no end in sight, we still must never give up. It is based in the philosophy of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which teaches that we must not sit around just waiting for happiness or better conditions to come, but rather we must learn to live with life’s challenges, accept them, continue to act in alignment with our personal values, and move forward in our lives in a meaningful way. Given the state of our world right now, and the immense challenges facing children across the globe, I believe this story of perseverance is more important now than ever before. 

I’m working with an incredible illustrator to self-publish this book, and together we are trying to print 1,000 copies. We need to raise $5,638 to get our book to the printers, and right now we have raised $4,385, which is just over 77% of the way towards our goal. After we meet our self-publishing costs, all profits made from the sale of the book will go to two local COVID-19 emergency relief funds that are supporting communities in need in my home city, San Francisco, and in the illustrator’s home state, Massachusetts. We will donate 50% of the profits to MassUndocuFund, which provides funds directly to families of undocumented immigrants who have lost their jobs, and are unable to access any state or federal relief funds in Massachusetts, and 50% to Compass Family Services, which provides emergency COVID-19 Family Care Kits, which include food, pharmaceutical, and cleaning supplies to homeless families in San Francisco.

If you are interested in supporting this project, go to www.orisstories.com/support and donate $20! In return, we will ship you a signed hardcover copy of the book to anywhere in the U.S., and email you corresponding SEL worksheets and discussions questions, too! ​

Name: Jacqueline Rivera
Position: UE Coach in Seattle, WA
What led you to your current position? I have come to appreciate my own K-12 education experience as being immersed in identities and communities other than my own. I’ve always been a curious person and always enjoyed getting to know and work with all different types of people. I studied psychology with a minor in education and found that I wanted to serve a diverse community which eventually lead me to social work particularly, school social work. I’ve had the opportunity to work in schools for almost 10 years, been an in-home ABA therapist as well as an in-home crisis family therapist here in King County, WA that has reinforced my passion of work with youth and families. Being able to work as a UE Coach allows me to interact and navigate the different systems that impact our youth and families and I will be honest, being around elementary students keeps me on my toes! I love their unfiltered, passionate voices and it brings me joy to be around that type of energy. I can’t wait to be among students again.
Fun Fact: My hometown is where In-n-Out began. If you ask for extra sauce, you can see my city printed on the back.
What does your average day look like? My average day has been impacted by the global pandemic just like everyone else. My typical day currently consist of keeping the same schedule as I would if I were on-site at a school. I still interface with the staff via virtual meetings, continuing the work through spaces such as MTSS & Race and Equity committees and joining the counseling team in creating weekly social emotional content for learning. I am collaborating with educators at both my school sites in navigating the challenging inequities that have been magnified due to this pandemic.  I miss the students that I would see in the schools and try to join virtual meetings when available and appropriate. As a working parent, I am navigating what parenting looks like with a toddler who often joins my afternoon meetings and requests to say hello to my colleagues.
Why do you do this work? I see schools as a central community hub. Schools have access and potential to connect with students, family, community members, local businesses, local faith-based organizations, and service providers. This gives schools the opportunity to build their asset map of skills, resources and community-lead solutions. I do this work because of the potential that is every student and my anchor is always equity. When I work in schools, I see the school system as a symphony, each section playing its own part, each section with its own leader. Working alongside school administrators and leaders offers the opportunity to adjust, practice and impact systems of intervention across all streams so that we can fine-tune what may be at times a loud cacophony to a full-blown orchestra.
Further, as a staff of color, I do this work because the school system wasn’t built or didn’t have communities of color in mind. Every day is a chance to validate the experience of every individual, to acknowledge and name that the system and unfortunately perhaps even the school staff, has yet to reflect the population that walks through the doors. Every day is a chance to push back against the systems and to follow the lead of the communities we seek to serve.