If you have the opportunity to meet Harley and discuss her job at CSS as a Community Facilitator, you will be impressed. She is confident, thoughtful, and compassionate about the work she does to improve the lives of her clients and help move them on a path to sustainability. But you have the feeling there is something else. And when you learn about her story you understand there is more. Way more.
Harley shares her self-described “rags-to-riches” story. Off and on addiction since the age of 16, unhoused for 8 years, in an abusive relationship, losing custody of her young daughter. The kind of story you might expect to hear from a CSS client. Her life began to change while at the Willamette Family Residential Treatment Program. In addition to receiving treatment, she began to reconnect with her daughter through weekend visits. Although she regularly attended AA meetings during the week it was unusual for her to attend on weekends. But one weekend she did. “Something drew me to that meeting,” recalls Harley. “I don’t know what it was. My daughter was acting out and I was going to leave but I heard someone’s story, and I thought she has been through so many of the things that I went through.” The speaker at that meeting was Tera who eventually became Harley’s sponsor when she left treatment and who also happened to work at CSS. “She [Tera] was working at CSS, and she talked about it all the time,” remembers Harley, “and I was like, yeah, that’s my place. That’s where I need to be right now.”
When a Support Worker position opened at CSS, Tera informed Harley. CSS hired her on a part-time basis, working around her schedule allowing her to finish outpatient treatment. “This place [CSS] saved my life. As soon as I got here and got the job, they made me feel like family. I have so many friends here that care about me and my daughter, and the support is abundant.”
As a Support Worker she became familiar with the CSS Program while being part of a team led by a Community Facilitator. Each CSS site is assigned a specific Facilitator/Support Worker team. “Our job was to help with all the extra lifting and help prepare for meetings and other stuff,” says Harley. “Also meeting and greeting clients and just listening to their story. It was my job to find time to connect with the clients.”
After gaining experience as a Support Worker, Harley has been promoted to Community Facilitator for three CSS Communities including the Empire, Bertelsen, and Roosevelt sites. The Empire Community is generally the entry point for new clients who typically move to other sites after a transition period. “My job is to get them ready for a new community,” says Harley. “It’s really hard to come in off the streets and learn how to live with other people and be in a community again. It can be a big struggle, so we go over the rules a lot and work together. Make them feel safe and heard.”
The Roosevelt site is the pilot location for the Community Court Program, which brings some unique challenges meshing clients who have arrived via the traditional CSS pathway and those who have been assigned by the local courts. She visits each of her three communities regularly, many times daily, to check in, deal with any issues, and make sure they have adequate food and supplies on hand.
“To give back is super big for me. You learn in recovery that one of the main things is to be able to give back. I feel that I can give back and I like being able to share my story and be able to connect with other people,” says Harley. “When I was out on the street there were days when nobody would look at me. Nobody would even say ‘Hi.’ I felt invisible. And those were the hardest days, and I don’t want anybody to feel like that. So being able to just be there for somebody, just listen and let them know that I see you, I hear you.”
Watching her clients enter the program at the Empire site and move on to their new communities gives Harley great joy. “It’s fun to watch them graduate from Empire and move on to another community and hear they are doing really well,” she says. “You know the program is working.”
Harley loves her work as a Community Facilitator at CSS and being part of the wider CSS family and the compassion they have for their clients. “We meet people where they are at. We love our clients, even the hard ones,” she says, “because we can find that connection and the good in everybody.”
