I am pursuing a career in mental health because I have seen how many people are asked to carry pain alone. Long waits, confusing rules, and the split between “mental health” and “substance use” care leave families without a clear path. I have watched kind professionals do their best inside a fragmented system, and I have also watched young people slip through the gaps. The problem is not a lack of compassion. The problem is that help is hard to find and even harder to coordinate. I am an undergraduate social work student who plans to become a licensed clinical social worker focused on co-occurring disorders. What draws me to this field is not only interest in diagnosis or technique. It is the belief that care should match real life. People deserve one door to walk through, one understandable plan, and one team that stays. My work will focus on three changes. First, easier access where people already are. Screening for depression, trauma, and substance use can happen in pediatric visits, primary care, and school counseling. When a concern appears, there should be a warm handoff to a specific person who follows the case. I will advocate for same-week intake, telehealth, and evening groups so that work hours and childcare do not become barriers. Second, integrated care for the whole picture. Too often a person is told to address substance use in one place and anxiety in another. I will practice and promote integrated approaches that include motivational interviewing, cognitive behavioral strategies, and trauma-informed care, with medication management when needed. Family involvement will be routine. A plain-language care plan will set goals that matter to the person and will name who does what and when we will review progress. Third, a reliable bridge between systems. I want to serve as a care coordinator who keeps communication moving among therapists, primary care, school staff, probation when relevant, and community supports. Progress will be tracked with simple measures people can feel in daily life: sleep, attendance at school or work, cravings, and safety. Setbacks will be planned for in advance so that a lapse is met with swift, nonjudgmental support rather than discharge. I have started building these skills. In school I focus my projects on trauma-informed practice, co-occurring care, and barrier reduction for nontraditional students and caregivers. I have created plain-language guides that turn complex processes into next steps families can use. In my own family life I have practiced the steady work this job requires: careful documentation, respectful communication with providers, predictable routines, and a calm presence during hard moments. These experiences taught me that small, reliable actions often make recovery possible. Financial need is real for me as a student and a parent. Tuition, textbooks, transportation, and childcare compete with the basic costs of living. This scholarship would reduce that pressure and allow me to complete my degree and pursue clinical training that directly serves people with co-occurring challenges. I want to help build a mental health system that would have held Brian with steadier hands. A system that answers the phone, meets people without judgment, and stays long enough for trust to grow. I will spend my career making care feel possible again, one coordinated plan at a time.

The earliest years teach the body and brain what “safe” feels like. When that safety is interrupted by abuse, neglect, or chronic chaos, children learn a different lesson: stay on alert, don’t trust, brace for the next thing. Early childhood developmental trauma does not just live in memories. It shows up in sleep, appetite, language, attention, and the stress response. It affects attachment, school readiness, and the ability to regulate big feelings. Without steady support, those early adaptations can harden into anxiety, depression, behavior challenges, and health problems that follow a child into adulthood. I am an undergraduate social work student . In both my studies and life, I’ve seen how young children communicate distress through their bodies and behavior long before they have words. I have also seen how healing begins when a calm, consistent adult meets them with predictability, play, and clear boundaries. What breaks my heart is not only what children live through, but how often their caregivers are left to navigate fragmented systems alone. Pediatricians, schools, therapists, child welfare, and courts each hold one part of the picture, and families get lost in the spaces between. I plan to use my social work career to build those missing bridges and deliver trauma-informed care where children live and learn. My approach has three parts. First, catch it early and respond kindly. I want to expand screening for developmental delays and trauma exposure in pediatric and early education settings, paired with immediate, non-stigmatizing supports. This includes warm handoffs to services, parent coaching on co-regulation, and simple tools that stabilize daily life: predictable routines, sensory breaks, and sleep hygiene. When families are met without judgment, follow-through becomes possible. Second, treat the relationship, not just the “behavior.” Evidence-informed, dyadic models like Child–Parent Psychotherapy and parent coaching approaches help caregivers become the child’s safest place. In practice, this looks like play-based sessions that repair attachment, teach co-regulation, and strengthen the caregiver’s confidence. My goal is to work as a family-centered clinician and case manager, creating one plain-language care plan that everyone understands and updating it as the child grows. Third, align the systems around the child. I aim to serve in a court and community liaison role that coordinates schools, medical providers, therapists, and child welfare or the courts. Families deserve one roadmap: who is doing what, by when, and how we will measure progress. I want to train professionals in trauma, bias awareness, and child development so decisions about services, visitation, or safety plans are individualized and genuinely child-focused. I have already started preparing for this work. My coursework and projects center trauma-informed practice in public assistance, education, and healthcare. I have developed plain-language guides that translate complex processes into next steps caregivers can actually use. In my own family, I have practiced the quiet skills this job requires: documenting observations, communicating respectfully with providers, building routines that lower a child’s stress, and staying calm when systems feel overwhelming. Those experiences taught me how powerful it is when one person keeps the thread and makes sure the plan fits the child This scholarship would help me complete my degree, pursue advanced training in early-childhood, dyadic therapy, and case coordination, and pilot the kind of bridge tools I wish every family had. The promise I carry into this field is simple. Every child deserves a safe adult, a plan, and enough stability to let curiosity return. I will spend my career making that promise real—child by child, family by family, system by system—so early trauma is met with early, steady help and a future that feels open again.

When people talk about the criminal justice system, they usually picture a defendant and the state. What I see, up close, is everyone orbiting that case—children, partners, and extended family—absorbing the shock of each decision with very little guidance or dignity. One major issue is how our systems handle risk, safety, and accountability in ways that ignore family impact. Blanket restrictions, siloed decision-making, and a lack of trauma-informed practice often create new harm for the very children and communities we say we are protecting. I am pursuing forensic social work with a focus on families affected by the justice system, including those connected to sex-offense cases. I have learned how easily a case can turn into a maze: courts, child protection, schools, therapists, probation, and medical providers each hold one piece, but there is rarely a bridge between them. That gap breeds confusion, fear, and inconsistent care plans. Children need stability. Parents and caregivers need clear, humane, and individualized paths forward. Everyone needs a process that centers truth, safety, and healing instead of stigma. In my future career, I plan to work at the intersection of courts and community care as a family-centered justice social worker. My approach will rest on three commitments. First, individualized assessment over one-size-fits-all rules. I will advocate for risk-need-responsivity principles to guide decisions about contact, treatment, and supervision, especially in sensitive cases. Children deserve decisions based on current, individualized evidence and the child’s best interests, not fear-based defaults. Second, trauma-informed, child-focused coordination. I want to build a practical “bridge” role that keeps the care team aligned: court liaisons who create shared care plans that are easy to understand, specify who is doing what by when, and track outcomes that matter to kids—school readiness, sleep and behavior regulation, consistent routines, and safe family bonds. This includes step-down pathways from supervised to unsupervised contact when appropriate, with clear safety planning and measurable milestones. Third, voice, access, and dignity for families. I will design plain-language tools that help caregivers understand processes, rights, and options. I also want to train justice and human-services professionals in child development, family systems, and bias awareness, so that safety decisions reflect both accountability and the possibility of change. I have not waited to start. As a social work student, I’ve grounded my coursework and projects in this mission. I prepared a presentation on trauma-informed public assistance and case management that connected classroom research to the realities families face when a criminal case triggers cascading needs in housing, childcare, and mental health. I serve in student leadership and policy spaces that sharpen my advocacy voice and help me translate complex rules into clear next steps for nontraditional students and caregivers. I have written to state leadership about family-centered justice reforms and am developing accessible resources for co-parenting communication and case navigation. These efforts are not titles on a résumé; they are the slow work of learning how to turn lived experience and study into something useful for others. I have also spent the past year practicing the unglamorous skills this work requires: documentation, synthesis, and calm follow-through. Coordinating records among schools, therapists, courts, and medical providers has taught me how easy it is for a child’s needs to get lost between agencies—and how powerful it can be when someone makes a simple, accurate, shared plan. I have seen how respectful language changes the temperature of a room. I have learned to hold boundaries and hope at the same time. This scholarship would allow me to accelerate the next steps: complete my degree, pursue specialized training in assessment and family systems within criminal justice, and pilot the kind of bridge tools I wish had existed for my own family. I want my career to reflect a simple conviction: it is possible to uphold the rule of law and protect children while also honoring dignity, data, and the complexity of real families. If we listen carefully and coordinate well, families can become a source of safety rather than collateral damage. That is the change I plan to carry forward—case by case, plan by plan, child by child.

Becoming While Caregiving My life as a caregiver began not with a plan, but with love and necessity. Over the last few years, I’ve been the primary caregiver for my two young children, one of whom has required additional emotional and behavioral support due to trauma and early childhood disruption. While many see caregiving as something that occurs between a child and an elder, I’ve come to understand that parenting, in its fullest form—especially as a single mother navigating the aftermath of family crisis—is also caregiving. It’s around-the-clock, emotionally charged, and often invisible work. Balancing motherhood and college has shaped every part of my identity and academic journey. I returned to school after surviving a deeply painful chapter of my life—one marked by family separation, legal battles, public judgment, and trauma that rippled through every area of our lives. Rather than let that chapter define me, I chose to use it as the beginning of something new. I enrolled in college full-time to pursue social work, with the goal of supporting families like mine—families who are doing their best to heal while being asked to jump through impossible hoops. Caregiving has taught me the value of presence over perfection. It’s shown me that being strong doesn’t always look like having it all together—it looks like showing up, again and again, even when your heart is breaking or your energy is gone. It’s shaped my goals by sharpening my sense of purpose: I don’t want a career for the sake of a paycheck. I want to build systems of care that don’t leave people like me behind. I want to advocate for trauma-informed policies, accessible mental health resources, and wraparound supports for parents and children who are surviving—not just system involvement, but stigma. Being a caregiver while attending college hasn’t been easy. I’ve written papers during naptimes, completed assignments from ER waiting rooms, and advocated for my child in school meetings while balancing my own deadlines. I’ve had to miss out on campus events, peer networking, and quiet study time—but I’ve gained something deeper: a commitment to empathy, endurance, and justice. My children have watched me struggle and keep going, and I know they’re learning about resilience not because I talk about it, but because I live it. This scholarship would help lighten the financial load I carry alone and affirm that caregiving is not a detour from my academic path—it’s a vital part of it. It’s made me a better student, a stronger advocate, and a more compassionate human. My identity as a caregiver isn’t something I do in the background of my education. It’s at the center of everything I am building, and it’s the reason I will show up in the social work field with integrity, insight, and a heart that understands the cost—and the honor—of care.

The Choice to Keep Going I returned to school not because life got easier, but because I knew I couldn’t wait for ease to come before building a better future. I’m a mother of two, a full-time student, and a woman who has had to fight for stability, for dignity, and for the right to write my own story after my world fell apart. What inspired me to continue my education was my children. In the aftermath of a family crisis, I knew I needed to rebuild our lives from the ground up—not just financially, but emotionally and spiritually. I wanted to model for my sons what it means to rise, to adapt, and to keep going even when things are messy. I wanted them to see that healing is possible and that education can be a bridge to a more secure and meaningful life. I chose to pursue a degree in social work after experiencing firsthand how systems can either harm or help families in crisis. I’ve walked through courtrooms and child welfare proceedings, not just as an observer, but as a mother and advocate. I’ve experienced the power of a compassionate professional—and the devastation of a careless one. I want to be the kind of social worker who truly listens, who sees the full picture, and who helps restore agency and hope to families like mine. The obstacles I’ve faced on this path have been steep. Financial hardship has been a constant challenge—every semester requires careful budgeting, sacrifices, and sometimes choosing between paying for books or paying a bill. Beyond the practical challenges, there’s the emotional toll: parenting two young children on my own, processing trauma, managing a demanding class schedule, and still trying to stay present and grounded. I have sat in Zoom lectures with a baby on my chest, completed assignments late at night while my children slept, and advocated for my academic needs in ways I never had to before. Managing my roles as a student and a mother is never seamless—but I’ve learned to build rhythms that honor both. I study during naps, I wake early to write papers, I bring my children into my world so they see the value of hard work and purpose. We talk about feelings, faith, and dreams around the dinner table. I tell them this isn’t forever—but the foundation I’m laying now is. This scholarship would ease the financial weight I carry alone, but more than that, it would affirm the belief that my journey matters—that mothers who choose education, not in spite of but because of their children, are worth investing in. I’m not just working toward a degree. I’m working toward a legacy of resilience, compassion, and generational change.

The issue I’m working to address is what happens to families—especially women and children—when someone they love is arrested for a sex offense. It’s a topic few people want to talk about, and even fewer understand. But I live at that intersection, where justice, stigma, and survival collide. I’m a low-income, first-generation college student and a mother of two. When my husband was arrested, my entire world turned upside down. I wasn’t just navigating grief, confusion, and public judgment—I was also up against a system that treated my children and me as collateral damage. I watched services designed to help fall short. I witnessed how stigma and fear often override truth, and how little space is made for families trying to heal when someone they love has caused harm, or is accused of it. Instead of collapsing, I chose to return to college to study social work. I’m building a life not only to support my children but to advocate for others who are quietly surviving the same crisis with no road map. I believe in trauma-informed, community-rooted systems of justice that center healing instead of punishment. I’ve written letters to public officials, shared my story with researchers, and connected with other families walking this path. I’m working on a book that documents our experience with the criminal justice system—not to sensationalize it, but to humanize it. To show what it looks like when a mother is doing her best to protect her children, hold her family together, and keep faith alive in a world that has already made its judgment. What I’m advocating for is a radical shift in how we approach justice. I want social workers, lawyers, and educators to be trained to see the whole family, not just the one facing charges. I want to see prevention efforts that focus on education, access to mental health care, and breaking generational cycles of trauma. I want communities where harm is met with accountability and compassion. The work I’m doing isn’t glamorous. It’s quiet and often invisible. It’s talking to my son about how to feel safe in his body. It’s collecting records, pushing through red tape, and refusing to let the shame others project become my story. It’s studying at night, packing lunches in the morning, and writing essays like this one to build something better—not just for us, but for others like us. I carry Miguel’s same belief—that those of us who are given a chance to keep going owe it to others to make that road more walkable. I’m not just working toward a degree; I’m working toward transformation—personal, systemic, generational. Because I believe that no one should be cast aside, and every voice—especially the ones people want to silence—matters.

For most of my life, “community” hasn’t just been a concept—it’s been a lifeline. As a mother of two, a full-time student, and someone who has walked through the fire of hardship, I’ve come to understand that healing, safety, and transformation are possible when people show up for one another. That’s why I serve my community: because I know what it feels like to need help, and I know what it means when someone extends their hand instead of turning away. My journey hasn’t been easy. I returned to college after surviving a deeply painful chapter in my life, one that included personal trauma, legal struggles, and the challenge of rebuilding stability for my children. What carried me through was the support of a few kind people who offered help without judgment. Neighbors who dropped off groceries. Friends who watched my kids so I could attend class. Professors who encouraged me to keep going when I doubted myself. Those small acts were not small to me—they were evidence that community still exists. I carry that forward now in how I live, work, and serve. I’m studying social work because I want to help families who feel like they’ve been forgotten by the system. I’ve volunteered in community food hubs, supported single parents navigating public aid programs, and helped fellow students find resources through college support centers. As a room parent at my child’s school, I help foster connection between families and teachers. I believe small, consistent acts of service can change lives—and sometimes, those acts look like simply being present and listening with compassion. I was raised with faith, and while my understanding of God has evolved over the years, one thing has stayed steady: my belief that we are called to care for one another. Whether that’s through a warm meal, advocacy, or simply bearing witness to someone’s story, service is my way of participating in something greater than myself. I believe in showing up not just when it’s easy, but when it matters most. Serving my community is also a way of showing my children what love in action looks like. I want them to see that integrity, empathy, and responsibility are not just values to talk about—they are ways to live. Through gardening, mutual aid, and simply being a good neighbor, I’m building a life that honors the belief that we are all connected—and that no one should have to walk alone. This scholarship would ease my financial burdens and help me continue my education with more energy to pour back into my community. But more than that, it would feel like recognition—that people like me, with real struggles and deep care, belong in the room where change happens. That we matter. And that service, no matter how quiet, is sacred work.