Stories of Impact
When Mayra and her eldest daughter Mariel moved to Napa six years ago, they were going through some growing pains. With a new baby on the way, the two moved to a bigger place to make room for their growing family, but they lacked some essentials to make their house a home. Plus, with so much of Mayra’s focus on the baby-on-the-way, Mariel was missing her mom’s undivided attention.
Rebecca calls her second son, Liam, her miracle baby.
When she heard Liam’s small, rhythmic heartbeat over the monitor at an early ultrasound, she instantly fell in love. After multiple miscarriages, this pregnancy felt like no small feat.
Rebecca and Jason had their first son, Chris, thirteen years earlier, when Rebecca was just twenty-two years old. The two were high school sweethearts, but by the time Rebecca became pregnant with Liam, the two had grown distant.
The thing that first strikes you when you meet Steven is his introspective nature, one that very well hides growing up in an emotionally stunted home. “I grew up in a family that didn’t talk about their feelings.” With five brothers, fighting and aggression in the home was the norm, and a “boys don’t cry” attitude was adopted across generations. Behaviors like hugging and crying were shunned, and as a result, he says, he didn’t learn how to manage his emotions.
Struggling and determined to break this generational cycle, a flyer he received from his son’s school about Cope’s parenting classes caught his eye. Sage was seven years old at the time and dealing with emotional outbursts, tantrums, and general disobedience. Frustrated and impatient, Steven wondered, “How can I change him? Why isn’t he doing what I want him to do?” A class might help them better manage, he thought.
As a Social Worker for Napa Valley Unified School District, Christie Johnson sees firsthand the ways that family and community struggles impact Napa’s children. Working with students at Phillips and Shearer Elementary Schools, Christie has the vital job of supporting students through these challenges so that they can thrive in the classroom: “School social workers work hard to address issues that get in the way of learning. For many students, that includes challenges like mental health, insecure housing and family issues.”
My name is Eric and I’m dad to my amazing 11-year-old daughter Emily. I’ve loved Emily since the moment she was born. But I haven’t always been there for her like I should have been. In fact, for much of her life, getting high was my priority.
Ten years ago, Emily was almost two and her mom Kira and I were divorced. I wanted to be in Emily’s life, but because of my addiction, I struggled to be present and committed. In fact, there were long periods when I wasn’t in contact at all.
He’s been through so much legal wrangling over custody issues that he’s rarely surprised by anything he hears from a court-appointed mediator, but a session a few months ago included a new directive: instructions for him and his ex to take the Family Transitions class at Cope. “I just wish I would have learned about this a lot sooner,” he says. “If we hadn’t been ordered by the court to come here, I would have had no clue what this place was, what services it offers.”
Antonio says that a friend suggested he try Cope, but he ignored the idea. Sergio, his 8-year-old son, is what got Antonio through Cope’s door. One of his sisters paid him a visit. She said, “You can do what you want, but think about your son.” And that’s when he realized, “I need somebody to help me get through this. I’m going to do whatever it takes.”
To those around her, Debbie appeared to be Super Mom. She had a successful career as a realtor. She volunteered in her kids’ classrooms, chaperoned field trips, served on 4H committees and volunteered with Napa Little League. She seemed to effortlessly balance the demands of her career and the challenges of being a single mom. But behind closed doors, Debbie struggled to manage it all and would often find herself losing her patience with her three children.
Gretchen started coming to Cope about 30 years ago, at a time in her life when she struggled to care for her young children. “I was an addict for many years,” Gretchen explained. “When my kids were younger, Cope helped me out with diapers and formula. Eventually I lost custody of my children because I couldn’t be the parent they needed.”
