The Home has long enjoyed a reputation for being a Boston-based institution, but, today, our sites span Massachusetts and stretch up to New Hampshire and throughout New York City. Our Wediko New York at The Home’s clinical care team partners with public and community schools within the city’s boroughs to provide critical mental health services and attendance support, manage afterschool programs, and support high school students through post-secondary and paid internships.
THINKING UNTRADITIONALLY
Our professionals are in New York City schools that serve “over-age and under-credited youth” who haven’t found success in traditional high schools. In this role, we look at the barriers that prevent students from engaging and achieving, things like mental health challenges, chronic absenteeism and unmet basic needs, and we address them. Our methods, including our Success Mentoring program, which builds transformative relationships, and our Learn to Work initiative, which offers work-based learning opportunities to prepare students for life after high school, help to get kids in the school building. Once they are there, they find they’re surrounded by adults who care about their well-being, education and their futures.
REACHING HARD-TO-REACH STUDENTS IN NEW YORK CITY:
- Because of their partnership with Wediko NY at The Home, school attendance at New Directions reached 85%, far surpassing the attendance rate of nearly every transfer school in NYC.
- 68 students were enrolled in New Directions’ Learn to Work Program last year.
- We distributed over $140,000 in stipend money to students at New Directions!
JAI’S NEW DIRECTION
The journey of Jairusnel “Jai” Urbaez, a recent graduate from New Directions Secondary School in the Bronx, demonstrates the power of our school partnerships. Before Jai arrived at New Directions at age 16, he was ready to drop out, he shares. “In middle school, I didn’t have the support I had at [New Directions], and it was really rough. My mom was doing everything she could, but nothing was clicking in my head.”
Jai was cutting class every day and didn’t see himself as a student. At New Directions, he was assigned a Success Mentor, who checked in with him to make sure his needs were met and called every morning to encourage him to come to school. At first, Jai went once or twice a week. But soon he found that her support, and the care of his team, began to have weight. “When she called me, I was like, ‘This is your chance. She’s trying to help you. Are you going to take the help or not?’”
Jai decided to take it, and as his attendance rate climbed, so did his interests. He took advantage of the Learn to Work offerings, including receiving his OSHA safety certification and working at The New York Botanical Garden and at the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, where he was involved in community organizing and spoke in front of the New York State Senate.
“I started to figure out what I wanted to become in life,” says Jai, which included college after his high school graduation. Today, Jai is working towards his degree in psychology at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, coaching a middle school basketball team, lifeguarding and launching his own clothing brand. Someday, he hopes to be a teacher at the school that turned it all around for him. “I want to be a giver,” says Jai. “That’s my main goal right now, to help other people who are in my position. It’s not too late.”
