05/22/2025
From Calla:
My dear community
It is with both trepidation and excitement that I announce that I am leaving my role of HCTAYC Lead Youth Organizer June 6th to become the Community Placement & Practicum Education Coordinator [informally called Field Education Director or Practicum Director] for Cal Poly Humboldt’s Department of Social Work.
Since attending the Youth Center Planning Summit and then joining HCTAYC’s Youth Advisory Board in 2010 as a 19 year-old, I have been gifted with countless profound opportunities that have fostered transformation both in our community and in my own life. Throughout these many years I have had the support needed to transform my pain into power, get an education, and to explore and affirm my sense of self. I have had opportunities to: craft and advocate for local, statewide, and national policy and legislation; develop and deliver countless empowering youth-driven trainings; speak before audiences of 3 to 3,000; earn some cool awards and recognitions; travel the country to share and learn about this work; spearhead life-changing programming and campaigns; and to make myself heard and uplift the voices of others at policy tables, legislature, and in the day-to-day reality of navigating our systems of care. I was also blessed with the opportunity to help forge a path for peer providers in our county and across the state, assist in designing our extended foster care programming, and to help bring to life parts of the expansive vision we had for a one-stop shop for systems-involved youth.
Of all of my achievements however, I am most proud of the differences that I have made in the lives of young people, those that helped them have hope, stay alive, embrace their authenticity, and create community through resistance. I feel strongly in moving into this next phase of my life that I will bring the joy of those achievements with me as surely as I will bring the weight of responsibility I have to those who we have lost well before their time. The memories of Chloe, Chandler, Miranda, ‘aa-wok Ben, ‘aa-wok Devon, and Phil all in particular will assist me in guiding social workers through their practicum education.
Leaving HCTAYC in this time of budgetary crisis and shifting systems and staff is a difficult decision. However, it is a transition I have been working towards for nearly a year now. Following HCTAYC’s Sweet 16 Celebration last year, I reflected on my role in HCTAYC and what I hoped for its future and my own. I decided that I was ready for a new experience and that HCTAYC would benefit from having the ability to grow and change under a new generation of leadership. However, shortly after that decision budgetary worries made me feel as if I needed to stay on a bit longer to ensure the program’s transition would be a stable one, so it wasn’t until November of 2024 that I began again to consider my transition out and the opportunity to apply for my new position arose.
It is my hope that the full support of HCTAYC alumni, connected community members, and accomplices in the work of systems transformation will be given to the remaining youth organizer, Rosemary Shultz, and peer coach, Alex Childers, so that we can bring HCTAYC into its next era.
While my connection to HCTAYC and the TAY Center will look different now, I will still be a part of our TAY community. TAY will be hosting a send-off vegan potluck for me at the TAY Center starting at 1 pm Wednesday the 4th, to which current & former youth, co-workers, and colleagues are invited to attend.
In power,
Calla
p.s. If you need to reach me after June 6, please ask an HCTAYC staff. For all HCTAYC related things, email [email protected]
