Jennifer Lewis is a Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) Stipend Program alumna and received her MSW from UC Berkeley. She grew up in northern Minnesota and remembers filling school kits for Lutheran World Relief and volunteering at various organizations with her mom when growing up. While attending Concordia College in Moorhead, MN, she volunteered at a homeless shelter and completely fell in love with the population. “I never felt more comfortable than I did when I was volunteering there,” Jennifer recalls. “I felt immediate acceptance.” That experience put Jennifer on her path to seek a career in serving the underserved and most vulnerable populations.
At the start of her journey, Jennifer was fortunate to meet the two people who had the most profound influence on her life–Larry Purcell and Dorothy Berndt.
Inspired by her experience at the shelter in Moorhead, Jennifer moved from Minnesota to San Bruno, CA, to live and work with the homeless, helping with facilitating a morning soup kitchen, overnight shelter, and other services. It was through her work in San Bruno that Jennifer met Larry Purcell. Larry is a co-founder of the Redwood City Catholic Worker. Every week Jennifer took the train to Redwood City to hand out food and coffee to day laborers. The best part of the day was when she arrived at work and joined Larry for morning coffee. It was during this morning ritual that Jennifer got to know Larry, his life, his wisdom and compassion. “There is not a kinder soul,” she says.
Jennifer met Dorothy Berndt in 2007. Dorothy was part of a panel that hired Jennifer for a pilot program that provided intensive case management services to chronically homeless individuals finding appropriate housing in Santa Monica, CA. “Dorothy hired me for my first real job,” Jennifer recounts. “I was broke. All my clothes had holes in them, and I was taking the bus to and from West Hollywood to Santa Monica for work every day.” Dorothy believed in Jennifer and encouraged her to apply to graduate school.
When Jennifer began MHSA training in 2009, her professional goals were to “provide care to society’s most vulnerable and help change the systems that have created the disparities.” As she became a more confident mental health service provider, thanks in large part to great internships during the MHSA training program while in graduate school, her goals have shifted from providing case management to more individual therapy. After several years of case management and mental health support roles with Episcopal Community Services in San Francisco, Jennifer transitioned to become a Mental Health Triage Social Worker in 2016 with the US Department of Veterans Affairs in Martinez, CA, providing mental health services to veterans, a role she still finds gratifying today.
Jennifer loves her work and her amazing coworkers. There were hard days to be sure, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic when observing safety protocols meant she barely saw her co-workers, and less staff in the office made the work feel isolating. When the war ended in Afghanistan and the images showed what was happening on the ground, it was hard. She shed many tears with the veterans. Still, Jennifer finds her work rewarding. She meets people at their worst day, with acute mental health issues, and she has to quickly develop a rapport with them, and identify and coordinate the services and care they need. Every day is different, fast-paced, challenging and invigorating, but oftentimes in crisis mode. To cope with the stress from work, Jennifer seeks support from supervisors, colleagues and friends, as well as reminding herself to stay in the present.
Because of her MHSA training, Jennifer understands the importance of self-care to a behavioral health care provider. Her secret? “Having good support both at work and at home; having great people in my life who help normalize the need to recharge–cancel plans and stay in bed all day; and having the same people help provide reality checks. My own therapy is also very important, as well as getting outside on the weekends and getting some good hikes in.”
Jennifer is content with her current career path. When asked what she hopes to do next, she replies, “Continue the work that I am currently doing–serving Northern California’s veteran population.”
