Stories of Impact
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.
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.”
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.”
