Sophia Project

March 7, 2014 – third of three essays

This essay summarizes the results of the work of the Sophia Project during the past fourteen years. Although this essay is informative in its own right—the healings previously accomplished have been sustained—the full impact of the healing looks back to the previous two essays that recount the challenges of the mothers and children who joined the Sophia Project and the healing modalities that greeted them. The first essay describes the effect of the Waldorf approach to education and the Camphill ideal of community when applied to the transformation of 50 families and 140 children. The second essay describes in some detail the experiences of the children when served by an entire community consisting of co-directors, live-in staff and interns, and indirectly, board and donors.

Given the traumas experienced by the children and mothers prior to their coming to Sophia Project, it is perhaps excusable to repeat that “the children and their mothers who had been homeless and had suffered from toxic levels of stress, alienation, poverty, fear, and violence are now well. To date not one of these families has returned to homelessness, all but one of the mothers are employed and live with their children in their own apartments, and all of the children are performing successfully in school.”

Mothers and children who found their way to Sophia Project (almost always a young single mother with young children) were invariably in chaos and crisis. Being at risk of recurring homelessness, the young mother showed herself to be the picture of fear and intense distress. She faced many obstacles in the way of meeting the basic needs of her young children. It was the core of the Sophia Project mission to nourish and protect each child while helping each mother it admitted to the program to transition from terror and defeat to confidence and stability. For approximately sixty hours each week, forty-eight weeks each year for five years the staff of Sophia Project worked collaboratively to ensure that the needs of this mother’s young children were met while providing the mother with the time, guidance, and support to acquire new abilities to cope with her situation. To be admitted to the program there had to be available space, the family had to be subsisting on poverty income, had to have experienced or be on the brink of homelessness, had to be free of addictive substances (i.e. drugs and alcohol), and most importantly, the mother had to be willing to participate fully in all aspects of the program.

During the first weeks within the nurturing atmosphere of the Sophia Project houses and in close cooperation with the Sophia staff, the mother began to benefit, very gradually, from daily activities designed for healing both mother and children. Initially by watching, then imitating, and eventually by fully participating with the coworkers, the mothers learned a variety of cooperative activities and successful tasks. Crucially, they also learned to bring joy and dignity to daily life. Over the next weeks, each mother, with the help of the program director, crafted a plan in which she articulated her wishes, hopes, and goals in regard to study, employment, housing, parenting, homemaking, and personal growth for herself and her children. Concrete steps that were regularly revisited accompanied each area.

Through their participation in Sophia Project programs and working with the director during home visits, the mothers acquired, and then took into their own family life, relationships to simple cultural activities such as story telling or singing, as well as simple, enriching experiences in nature. Each mother brought to the project her

own determination to transform her life and the lives of her children. With the support of Sophia Project, they gained many new abilities, including appropriate discipline, an understanding of child development, bedtime rhythms, cooking, and mending. They were assisted in understanding nutritional information, food shopping, filling in job and housing applications, tax forms, and medical forms as well as opening a bank account, and many other life skills. Some mothers were tutored in order to pass high school equivalency or other tests. Sophia Project staff members sometimes accompanied mothers to medical appointments or parent teacher conferences. Mothers were also assisted in obtaining outside support such as employment opportunities or mental health services.

In time each mother gained or regained self-confidence and sense of dignity. Importantly, the mothers frequently told us that what helped them most was our belief in and our regard for them. Many of these still young women told us they were unaccustomed to having people “actually care what happens” to them.

As coworkers we were grateful for Rudolf Steiner’s well-known “Faithfulness” verse, which we practiced regularly for the mothers, the neighborhood, and ourselves. Here is the verse that proved helpful to the Sophia Project staff:

Create for yourself a new, indomitable perception of faithfulness.

What is usually called faithfulness passes so quickly. Let this be your faithfulness:

You will experience moments…fleeting moments…with the other person.

The human being will appear to you then as if filled, ir-

radiated with the archetype of his spirit.

And then there may be…indeed will be…other moments, long periods of time, when human beings are darkened.

But you will learn to say to yourself at such times: “The spirit makes me strong. I remember the archetype. I saw it once. No illusion, no deception shall rob me of it.”

Always struggle for the image you saw. This struggle is faithfulness.

Striving thus for faithfulness, we shall be close to one another, as if endowed with the protective powers of angels.

At festival times the whole community of friends, coworkers, mothers and children in both the daily programs and family support program could leave our individual daily lives for a time and celebrate together. We shared the profound and beautiful Advent spiral, the joy of Christmas carols and Christmas cookies and of course Christmas presents. In acting out the play of St. George and the Dragon, the children transformed the bad dragon into a helping one over and over again, often right up to Chinese New Year when, according to our Chinese children, the dragon was very good indeed. The individual birthday festivals celebrated with song and story, are treasures still remembered by children and parents alike.

Overnight respite care is a valuable and effective relief from the fear, violence, and stress that poverty and homelessness create. This effective remedy was intended primarily for families in the family support program but it was sometimes needed when a family first arrived still in the midst of possible child abuse and other dire circumstances. Sophia House offered a safe, nourishing, predictable, and fun place for the children over the weekend. With the opening of a second residence, Myrtle House, a smaller respite care setting allowed us to meet the needs of the most vulnerable families, particularly the preteen children in our population who are sometimes on suicide watch.

The Family Support Program provided several complementary opportunities for the Sophia mothers and children who had participated in daily programs for three years:

Serving as an Extended Family: This component has been and will continue to be an important relationship between the Sophia Project and the lives of every child and every mother who has fully participated in Sophia Project. It includes emergency and scheduled overnight respite care, individual meetings, workshops, guidance, referrals, home visits, emotional support, and outings and celebrations of the important occasions in the lives of the children and families.

Parenting Education: After the children and mothers have completed three years in the daily programs and are consequently not a part of an everyday ongoing conversation, the parenting program has become more distinct, more precisely devised to meet individual needs. It also provides additional opportunities for group meetings on particular themes.

Rainy Day Assistance: This component of the program assists families with what we might call the occasional shortfall such as an unmanageable bill (utility, doctor) or purchase of clothes, shoes, or a school uniform.

Leap Forward: Our families continue to transition from homelessness to stability through the support of our programs. We have helped them prepare to take the next step toward more active membership in their communities. They are now ready to give back to the community in which they live and work. We have seen, however, that they frequently need help in taking the next steps. The Leap Forward component funds larger one-time expenses that will allow the child or family to take a significant step forward. These expenses include housing security deposits; tuition assistance for those children who have completed our programs and now need help gaining eligibility for academic scholarships; and durable low-cost furniture for new stable housing; adult education opportunities; and assistance for improved treatment of chronic health issues.

Loan Fund: This component allows our families to access short-term no-interest loans for personal or family emergencies. Typical loans are approximately $300 which they have paid back within three to six months.

Child studies, including observations by teachers and other caregivers, children’s history, children’s art, family relationships, as well as other critical components, formed the basis of much of our ongoing assessments of the work with the children.

In part to satisfy the needs of our foundation funders, we also developed an outcome measurement system that tied the needs of the incoming children and their families to the program methods and ultimately to changes in health and wellbeing of the children and families. The system is comprised of twelve child indicators of development and four parent indicators of functioning which we used in a system of assessment at specified points in the history of the participation of thefamilies in the Sophia Program. Faithful implementation of this assessment tool easily satisfied the needs of our funders for measurements and also protected the integrity of the programs.

The program methods for work with vulnerable children and families applied by Sophia Project are supported by current research in this field. Sophia Project recognizes that gains made by the mothers would not immediately trickle down to the children. (1) Similarly, the project recognizes that the cumulative deficits affecting children from disadvantaged families build up over their preschool years resulting in substantial and persistent gaps between poor and middle class children not solely explained by monetary resources. (2) Sophia Project also focused on resiliency, (3) the foundational nature of some aspects of child development, (4) and the methods resonated with the research at the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University concerning successful programs for vulnerable young children.

In 2009 two-thirds of the children and families were coming to the natural end of their time in the daily program. In June 2010 the remaining third of the children and families were scheduled to complete their daily program and would then begin the two-to-three year process of strengthening their gains. As these families became free from the need for daily assistance they transitioned to the family support program. This would have been the natural time to admit new children and their mothers. To do so would have required at least two experienced co-workers to make a five-year commitment to lead all aspects of the work. Sophia Project had undertaken an extensive search a for long-term director but, despite the enthusiasm of staff, board, and donors, no one could

From the Fall 2013 newsletter

Returning from the Peace Corps with a budding interest in early childhood education, I joined Sophia Project. There in West Oakland, providing childcare and support to families stabilizing after homelessness and other crises, I witnessed a miracle. I saw mothers complete a GED or job training, find work, begin to smile as they discovered a new image of themselves. I saw children come alive again after abuse, turn destructive anger into creativity, delve deeply into imaginative play that will one day become their adult capacity for aspiration and goal setting.

Sophia Project is winding up as an organization, but having witnessed success, I aspire to provide this quality of care to vulnerable families. In January, I began a master’s program in Infant and Family Development and Early Childhood Education at Bank Street College in New York City.

Dear Sophia Project,

Thank you for all the support you have given my family during these past two years. Without your help I know I would still be in the situation that I found myself in. …I have been given the chance to obtain my GED. I only completed ninth grade so I am finally content with getting that part of my life closed and I know I will continue my education….I feel like you have provided us with proof that there is a different side to life. (my children) have experienced “fairy-tale” childhood under your quality care. Saying “thank you for having a program like this one” is not enough to explain how grateful I am to have Sophia Project in my life. Everyone is so qualified, sweet, kind, and lovable. . You talk to my children and to all the other children like they are delicate flowers; you treat them like they are so special to you. … In no way had I experienced this nurturing love from anyone before: it is so unique in my personal and children’s life.

From the Fall 2012 newsletter. The writer entered San Francisco State University in 2013 and achieved a 3.75 average her first semester.

When I think of Sophia House, I remember the warm loving memories growing up as a child. Sophia House has always been a place I felt loved and safe, and I always had fun. It was here I first learned to knit; to this day I continue to enjoy this activity. I love being creative and Sophia House was where I could express myself.

The friendships I’ve made at Sophia House are priceless. I met two of my closest friends here. One I happen to go to school with. Sophia House will always be a part of who I am. It will always be in my heart. I could never forget this place and the sweet memories I made being a part of here. It means that much to me. Sometimes I wish I were a child again so I could relive the time I spent here at Sophia House.

This is my inspiration, to give back to people, to my community, children, and people who have been through similar situations as me. To teach people what I’ve learned, to inspire someone to do something they love or to give a helping hand. This is what I want to do in my future. My inspiration came from Sophia House and the people here that love me so much.

1 See for example Pamela A. Morris, et al., “Effects of welfare and employment policies on young children: Social Policy Report, Vol. XIX, No. 2, 2005.

2 Research discussed in Paul Tough, “What it Takes to Make a Student,” New York Times Magazine, December 26, 2006.

3 For example, Emmy E. Werner and Ruth S. Smith, Journeys From Childhood to Midlife: Risk, Resilience and Recovery. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001.

4 T. Berry Brazelton, MD and Stanley Greenspan, MD. The Irreducible Needs of Children: What Every Child Must Have to Grow, Learn, and Flourish. Cambridge, MA: DeCapo Press, 2000.