Serena M
Serena M. is on track to meet her goals of working with the community and becoming a marriage and family therapist. After experiencing her own addictions and homelessness, she moved to Santa Cruz while pregnant with her son. When he turned one year old, she decided to go to college.
“I started with introductory courses, and one was introduction to group counseling. I was swept away with how counseling and human services work – the gravity of selfcare and the diversity of everything that goes into the understanding of human services. Especially about how human services deals with the individual as a whole,” say Serena.
She will soon receive her A.S. and has enjoyed her time in the program. She appreciates the one-on-one interactions and Patrick Meyer’s deep knowledge.
Serena will finish at Cabrillo with an A.A. in Psychology and then directly transfer to UCSC, to ultimately become a marriage and family therapist. With her human services background, she knows she can earn income while in school by working in the community.
“The Human Services Program has prepared me for my whole journey.”
Joe P
Joe P’s personal experience, combined with his time in the Human Services Program at Cabrillo, brought him to his current job with the Integrated Health Adult Response Team (IHART), part of Santa Cruz County Behavioral Health. With this job, he strives to help the unsheltered get housed.
Growing up in the 60s and 70s with a single parent, he migrated from Arkansas and saw a lot of poverty in Salinas. As he got older, he experienced addiction, nine years of homelessness, and incarceration. During this time period, he had five kids and experienced the loss of one at 14-months old due to abuse and a 12-year-old daughter to a brain aneurysm.
As he became clean and sober, he felt his mind less clouded and decided to go to school.
“It was challenging going back at my age. I chose Human Services, and it really opened my mind and gave me opportunities. I experienced empathy and gained understanding that not everything in my life was my fault,” says Joe.
After leaving Cabrillo, Joe has remained clean and sober, got married, and started a family.
While in the Human Services Program, Joe learned a lot working at the homeless shelter. He then got a job with Santa Cruz County Behavioral Health, first with children, then older adults, and now with the team that meets the unhoused where they’re at to help get them sheltered and get the services they need.