Dear Acknowledge Alliance family,
At the start of this new year, I want to wish you the absolute best for 2024 and share some of Acknowledge Alliance’s special accomplishments in 2023.
Remarkably, Acknowledge Alliance celebrates our 30th anniversary in 2024! The generosity of our community helped fuel our efforts to push the boundaries of what’s possible in school-based mental healthcare. We are honored to have been providing mental health services and resilience support to schools and community organizations for decades, changing the lives of thousands of students and educators every year. This past year alone, our agency provided direct services to over 1,700 students and over 400 educators, while also reaching over 10,000 students with our indirect services.
100% of our students who may have been on a probation track are instead in the process of graduating.
84% of the educators we work with report having increased empathy and understanding of the lives of their students.
The moving personal success stories of students and teachers validate these outcomes. We have heard from so many students how counseling has transformed their perspectives and behaviors in the classroom and beyond, and how the modeling and support of resilience counselors have helped educators become more resilient in their personal and professional lives.
Behind the scenes, we continued to make strides forward in our efforts to center diversity, equity, inclusion and justice (DEIJ) in our work. In October, the entire Acknowledge Alliance team gathered for the first of a series of DEIJ professional development workshops. This training, led by Cory Ervin-Stewart, was titled “Sharing Ourselves”, and helped the team to learn how to connect through trust and empathy and to build an environment of workplace trust. Staff participated in exercises where we shared possessions that held personal significance in our lives and engaged in meaningful conversations with each other. This training was driven by our staff-led Inclusion Task Force, a working group charged with recommending meaningful changes to DEIJ initiatives at our agency, and ensuring its concepts underpin all the important functions of our work.
I have continued meeting directly with all of our program staff through quarterly fireside chats, both to give me the opportunity to share important organizational updates and to hear directly from staff. These conversations have increased our team’s ability to communicate and allowed staff to get to know me as the Executive Director so they feel more comfortable surfacing issues with me. This year, I added one additional fireside chat with our group of interns, furthering inclusion at the agency.
We remain laser-focused on continuing to recruit diverse leaders by partnering with two prominent organizations to broaden our reach in the community. We were once again selected by Boardlead to participate in their free board matching services. It was an especially competitive selection process this year, with Acknowledge Alliance chosen as one of only 509 organizations from over 20,000 applications. The selection criteria included the strength of our mission and programs, solid organization and board structure, demonstrated need for board development, attainable resource development expectations, financial stability, and a commitment to DEI. I am incredibly proud that Acknowledge Alliance’s strength in these areas was recognized. In November, I attended the Asian Pacific American Leadership Institute’s (APALI) board match event. APALI is committed to leadership representation and influential participation in civic life for members of the APA community. I was grateful for the opportunity to speak about our work and network with prospective board candidates.
As we look to the year ahead and celebrate Acknowledge Alliance’s 30th anniversary of nurturing resilience and building positive relationships between students and educators, it is clear that we have come a long way and transformed so many lives thanks to the unwavering commitment of our community of supporters. Thank you for making this all possible, Acknowledge Alliance family!
I wish you and your loved ones health and peace in the new year.
Sharon Navarro
Executive Director
P.S. Every year I make a promise to myself for the New Year (I’ve decided “resolution” feels too stiff and stern!) This year, I’m committed to maintaining my connections to family and friends, and building new ones, by actively seeking out opportunities to collaborate. What promise or hopes do you have for yourself in 2024? I would love to hear from you, so please let me know!