Assistance League of Diablo Valley Receives Thanks From Independent Living Skills Program Graduate

Assistance League® of Diablo Valley has been serving the Contra Costa community by improving lives of those who are vulnerable through various hands-on programs since 1967. These programs are a result of needs assessment, research development and collaborative implementation with various county government agencies. In 2004, several members of Assistance League of Diablo Valley toured the Independent Living Skills Program facility, located in Martinez, and found a welcoming environment where foster youth could gather for fellowship, life skills awareness, education, vocational training and safe refuge. Since January of 2012, the cutoff age for foster youth coverage has been extended to the age of 20 and, in some cases, 21.

Through no fault of their own, children entering foster care, sometimes wearing only the clothes on their backs, are typically removed from their homes due to unhealthy living conditions. Assistance League of Diablo Valley’s response was to dispatch backpacks filled with sleepwear, snacks, playing cards, and daily necessities to county receiving centers for distribution.

One graduate of the Independent Living Skills Program, Johneshia Mullins, accompanied by Contra Costa County program coordinator Don Graves, shared her story at Assistance League of Diablo Valley’s Regular meeting on April 8. Born in 1995, Johneshia and her sister entered the foster care system when she was a one-year-old. Frequent moves jeopardized the possibility of Johneshia and her sister remaining together.

When she reached eighth grade, abusive living conditions resulted in Johneshia and her sister being assigned to separate foster homes. While there, Johneshia was denied an education because she had to stay home to care for the younger foster children. When Johneshia alerted her sponsor, she was placed in the Independent Living Skills Program where, for the first time in her life, she felt connected.

 Johneshia’s drastically improved school attendance rate and grade point average garnered a scholarship from Assistance League of Diablo Valley, as well as the chapter’s Foster Youth Scholarship, both awarded during her senior year of high school. She immediately enrolled in Los Medanos College, where she now pursues her second year by taking evening classes while juggling two jobs. Johneshia wants to give back to the community by teaching pre-school. Earning an Associate’s degree and teacher certification loom on the horizon. Johneshia concluded her story by thanking Assistance League of Diablo Valley for having faith in her.

When asked to what Johneshia attributes her success, she replied, “…the Independent Living Skills Program.” It not only offered educational opportunities, it provided much needed housing, training in money management and transition support when she aged out of the program.

Culminating remarks included those of Don Graves, who volunteered that Johneshia’s story inspires him to add to his nineteen years with the Independent Living Skills Program. He added while woefully understaffed and facing bleak statistics regarding high school drop-out, homelessness, incarceration and mortality rates suffered by foster youth, Johneshia’s story offers all of us faith. To that, Graves added gratitude as he thanked Assistance League of Diablo Valley’s ongoing support in both the academic and daily living arenas.

To learn more about Assistance League of Diablo Valley’s philanthropic programs , and the recently awarded GuideStar Exchange gold participation level status, please visit this website: diablovalley.assistanceleague.org or the GuideStar Exchange.