Read the Transcript

Mary Garner McGehee  0:04  

Welcome back to Charlottesville Soundboard, your source for news, culture and community issues in Central Virginia. I'm your host Mary Garner McGehee. Soundboard airs every Saturday at 6am on WTJU 91.1 FM. Soundboard also comes to you as a podcast that belongs to the Virginia Audio Collective. Tune in SUBSCRIBE and find out what's happening in your community and around the state. And follow us at our new Twitter account. We're @cvlsoundboard. This week on Soundboard. We talked to Erin Tucker, she's the executive director of On Our Own Charlottesville, a peer support recovery center that provides free services to people struggling with mental health challenges. 

Erin Tucker 

People are expert on themselves and that everyone sort of has the answers inside. They just need to have space to be listened to so that they can come up with their own answers.

Mary Garner McGehee

First, I catch up with education reporter at Charlottesville, tomorrow Billy Jean Louis, why should people who don't have kids in the school system or don't really have a connection to the school system pay attention to what's going on on the school board?

Billy Jean Louis  1:15  

Education is everyone's business, it's not a child's business or a parent business or immigrant parents business. We pay taxes and we help fund those schools. And the future depends on how well educated this generation is.

Mary Garner McGehee  1:33  

Today, education reporter Billy Jean Louis is back in the studio and we're going to talk about some of the priorities of the new Charlottesville City School Board. 

Billy Jean Louis  1:42  

Hey Mary, thanks for having me.

Mary Garner McGehee  1:43  

So you recently sat down with the only new member of the city school board, the Lashundra Bryson Morsberger. What does she hope to bring to the board?

Billy Jean Louis  1:51  

First I'd like to talk a little bit about her background. Lashundra is a mother,  she has a background in HR. She decided to run mostly she said after reading a piece by the New York Times in partnership with ProPublica, that details some of the racial disparities in the Charlottesville City Schools' gifted program known as Quest. So when I sat down to talk to her, she said the program does not seem to have a way to measure outcomes. Many parents would like to see how the new program is going so far. The administration says the program is new and needs time to be able to measure how the program is serving those that it has not served in the past.

Mary Garner McGehee  2:35  

Could you remind us a little bit about what that new program looks like? 

Billy Jean Louis  2:39  

The administration said, now it has the pushing where all the instructions is done in one classroom.

Mary Garner McGehee  2:47  

So it used to be that students who identified as gifted would be removed from their regular class,

Billy Jean Louis  2:52  

Correct. That's correct. 

Mary Garner McGehee  2:53  

And now the gifted instructors come in.

Billy Jean Louis  2:55  

That's correct. What she's essentially saying it parents want to have an update on what's going on. She would like for the public to be able to hold the administration accountable. So, she wants more transparency.

Mary Garner McGehee  3:09  

She also wants to focus on the suspension rate for non white students as compared to the suspension rate for white students. How large is the gap in the suspension rates?

Billy Jean Louis  3:18  

I have documents about the school division suspension rates that I hope to take a look at. I have not compared the rates to other counties or the rest of the state. But many people in the community have raised concerns about suspension rates for non white students as compared to the suspension rate for white students.

Mary Garner McGehee  3:38  

You also talked with board member Lashundra about literacy. What are her concerns with the literacy rates in the city schools.

Billy Jean Louis  3:45  

So what Lashundra is essentially referring to is the recent SOL test scores that showed black students scored lower than their white peers. During our forum with the city school board candidates during the elections, one of the questions I asked was addressing the achievement gap. And one of the board members, Jennifer McKeever was saying how we shouldn't compare this to students together. So I cannot speak on behalf of will discourse be the same or even higher than white students, Paula Shondra. Essentially many, many of the things that she mentioned, she's trying to keep an eye on them. And, during our interview, she was transparent. She told me how she still knew and then she's still learning the system. However, she will be paying close attention to inequities.

Mary Garner McGehee  4:38  

So you mentioned Jennifer McKeever for a minute ago. She's the current City School Board Chair, and both she and board member Lashundra mentioned the substitute teacher shortage. Can you tell us a little bit more about this, you know, as someone who hasn't been in school in a while, it's something I haven't thought about.

Billy Jean Louis  4:56  

Of course. So the argument has been the economy's in good shape. So fewer people are wanting to substitute. One of the things that Jennifer said she would like to see from the superintendent. You know, Dr. Atkins is to increase the salary for substitute teachers to $15 an hour.

Mary Garner McGehee  5:16  

So board chair McKeever also talked about the city's plans to reconfigure Walker Upper Elementary School and Buford Middle School. What are their plans,

Billy Jean Louis  5:25  

The division started talking about the reconfiguration of Walker Upper Elementary School and Buford Middle School nearly a decade ago, but the city couldn't afford allocating a large amount of money to the schools. Now, Walker houses fifth and sixth grade. Buford has all the seventh and eighth graders, the city approved $3 million for planning and the hiring of an architectural firm for the reconfiguration. The Division wants to move sixth grade to Buford and fifth grade down to the elementary schools. The Walker building will then serve as a centralized preschool center. That plan will allow all the division's preschool programs to be under one roof because they're currently scattered across the elementary schools. So last month, the city released the request for proposal, and January 30 is the deadline for the firm's to submit their proposals.

Mary Garner McGehee  6:31  

How does Board Chairman McKeever one to include private funding in the project?

Billy Jean Louis  6:38  

Jennifer said she'd like to research how to set up some sort of foundation so that people can support the goals of the reconfiguration privately, in addition to the public support that the administration is going to be asking for as a board.

Mary Garner McGehee  6:55  

Are there any other big projects or goals on the horizon for city schools that we should know about?

Billy Jean Louis  7:00  

I will be publishing a story about early childhood education. Some of the efforts going on in the county as well as the city. The governor in his proposed budget, he wants to invest $95 billion to support preschool. Right now the state is providing money for four year old programs. And the state would like to move down to three old programs. So what localities will do is apply to these three old programs. It will all depend on you know what that specific school division needs if there is a need for it, but you know, talking to the state, Jenna Conway, she told me that the pilot programs are very competitive. So for the preschool coverage, this is the first story of several stories I plan on writing. So stay tuned. And you know, I'm looking forward to just sharing all this information with the public.

Mary Garner McGehee  8:05  

All right, let's end the segment like we do every week by asking the folks at Charlottesville Tomorrow, what's on your calendar this week?

Billy Jean Louis  8:11  

Of course, so the board already met this month and the meeting was on the ninth. There's going to be a work session this Saturday at Walker. The next board meeting is set for February 6 at Charlottesville High School. Today, Albemarle County Public Schools will be hosting a board meeting at the county building. The public is welcome to go and you know, and see what's going on some of the things that the school division has as priorities this year.

Mary Garner McGehee  8:43  

Thank you so much for coming in.

Billy Jean Louis is a reporter covering education for Charlottesville Tomorrow. You're listening to soundboard here on WTJU 91.1 FM and the Virginia Audio Collective. Both are a service of the University of Virginia. However, opinions expressed on this show are not the positions of the University of Virginia. WTJU is supported by the Southern Environmental Law Center, celebrating 30 years of protecting the South's environment, and the people who depend on it for health and well being, power of the law Southern Environmental Law Center. Today I'm joined by Erin Tucker. She is the executive director of On Our Own Charlottesville. To start off, can you tell me a little bit about On Our Own?

Erin Tucker  9:33  

On Our Own is a peer support recovery center located right downtown in Charlottesville, and we provide free services for people in our area that are dealing with any type of mental health challenge or substance use challenge or even if it's just like trauma, grief, loss, anything that they're dealing with, and they want a supportive ear. They want someone who has been there and is able to understand where they're coming from, or at least identify with the feelings.

Mary Garner McGehee  10:07  

Tell me about what going to a peer support group is like, what's it like when you walk in the door.

Erin Tucker  10:12  

So when you walk in, you automatically feel like you're home because it's in a house. Everybody's really welcoming and friendly. If you're brand new, we would assist you with signing in, showing you our confidentiality policy. Once somebody has signed in for the first time, then after that, it's really easy. They come in and they just put their name in and that's about it. Everyone there pretty much knows everyone else. So when you walk in the door, you know, everyone's like, hey, Erin, Hey, how are you doing? What are you doing? You know, people want to give hugs or whatever. And then we have a living room where we do many of our groups. And we have a dining room where we have our arts and if people want to get on the computer? We have a food pantry. So our members can take a bag of groceries with them every week, the food bank supplies us with that. And then we have a kitchen and members can come in and cook. They can have people during social time cooking in the kitchen. We'll have people hanging out in the living room talking. We also have another group room upstairs. And so sometimes we'll have two groups going on at once. Yeah, it's just a really friendly, good environment, nice environment and healing. Everybody is in there for recovery.

Mary Garner McGehee  11:37  

You mentioned the confidentiality agreement, but how do you all create an environment for people to share really personal things?

Erin Tucker  11:44  

That's a really good question because a lot of people have been hurt in the past and so safety doesn't come quickly. So we have a support agreement that the members actually have come up with, and we have it posted on our wall. Someone reads it before every meeting. So before every group we have someone read the support agreement. And we talked about how important confidentiality is, and how we want the place to be safe for everyone to be able to share. And if there's any violations of confidentiality, then we always make sure to address it right away. And we also have one on one peer support. So if they don't feel comfortable sharing in a group, they can meet one on one with somebody that will help them and talk to them.

Mary Garner McGehee  12:34  

What are some of the other things in that support agreement?

Erin Tucker  12:38  

Oh, gosh, okay. So the support agreement also talks about how we don't have to share if we don't want to, we can pass so we never make anyone share. It talks about how we want to make sure that we're speaking from our experience and not telling people what to do or giving advice. We talk about how we're all human and everyone makes mistakes, including the staff. All of us are human.

Mary Garner McGehee  13:08  

Can you tell me a little bit about one of your members and what their experience has been like?

Erin Tucker  13:13  

Sure. This actually just happened yesterday. We've had a gentleman who's been coming for many years to our center, and he's fairly young and he, he was looking for housing for a long time. And he finally found a place to live. And he's been so excited and we've been so excited because we've sort of been helping him along to find this place. And then yesterday, I had the honor of getting to purchase furniture for him and bring it to his house. And of course, he came out and helped us carry it up there and he was just, he was so happy. He was grinning ear to ear and he was just like, kept hugging us and saying I finally have furniture. So that's not primarily we don't like provide many people with furniture. But that's one of the things that we can do if a member really needs that. Somebody who has come in and participated in the program and has really worked hard, we try to do everything we possibly can to help them succeed.

Mary Garner McGehee  14:20  

How do you define recovery and mental wellness?

Erin Tucker  14:24  

Recovery is so unique, and there's so many different pathways to recovery. So we let the individual define it for themselves. So as long as they're coming in, and they're participating in whatever their recovery looks like, then we honor that and we want to help them in that in whatever path they choose. Because  we know that everyone is the expert on themselves, and that we can't decide for somebody what their recovery needs to look like. We shouldn't decide. We should just allow them the opportunity to tell us what they need. And for us to sort of, you know, walk with them through that journey, whether or not it turns out well, there's the dignity of risk. There's the dignity of choice, everyone has that right to make mistakes. So we're not a place where you like you have to be completely abstinent or you have to do this or it has to look like this. It really just is about what that person wants to do for their recovery and their journey.

Mary Garner McGehee  15:33  

In one of your videos, you say that On Our Own tries to meet people with quote, unconditional positive regard. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Erin Tucker  15:42  

That is a humanistic quote or a humanistic theory. I don't want to judge anyone on anything that I have read about them or pre-determined about them or, you know, that's why we don't ask people those questions. Like, I don't care what people come in there for. A lot of times, I don't even know unless they've disclosed it. I just meet them where they are and hold them in that space in that unconditional positive regard so that I see the humaneness in them and don't judge what they might have done in the past or what they might be diagnosed with, or any of the labels that people are given. Because I think that they get enough of that like in the outside world and so we certainly don't want to do that, you know, at On Our Own. At On Our Own, we want them to walk in and feel like they're on an equal playing field with with everyone else. And so that's one of the reasons why you have to be 18 or older to come in, is because we don't have any barriers. We don't know if a person that's walking in is going to be a sex offender or is going to be you know, a professor the university or both. We just don't know, we just honor everyone where they are and meet them where they are.

Mary Garner McGehee  17:09  

What sets on our own apart from other mental health or substance abuse resources in the area.

Erin Tucker  17:15  

I think really the fact that everyone that works at On Our Own is in recovery of some type or has gone through challenges in their life and are able to tap into that and relate and create sort of that instant rapport with someone else that is also going through something and so even if it's not the exact same thing, you still can relate to that feeling. You know, we can all relate to feelings of inadequacy or loss or grief or trauma or whatever it is, and it's not hierarchical. It's not top down, aside from the fact that one person gets paid and the other person doesn't, we really try to be very, very equal. And, you know, I'm no better than anyone else. And we're all the same human beings trying to get along in the world. So I think that that's what sets us apart and also the fact that our services are free. And there's no forms that you have to fill out or anything like that. You can just walk in and join a group automatically. But I think that we complement the other mental health organizations. I don't think that peer support is the answer for everything. But I think it really helps.

Mary Garner McGehee  18:35  

Who are some of your important partners?

Erin Tucker  18:38  

We have several partnerships. So we have a couple partnerships with region 10 Community Services Board, where we provide peer support for some of their existing mental health teams. We also have a partnership with OAR vendor, Aiden, restoration and we provide peer support for their drug court and then we have a long standing relationship with Western State Hospital We provide a liaison from from the region 10 catchment area from On Our Own to Western State for all the folks getting out of Western State and returning to the area. And I'm also part of the mental health and wellness coalition, which is made up of a lot of different wonderful organizations in Charlottesville. The women's initiative, you know, the free clinic, the jail, probably as many of your listeners know, the jail is one of the leading places where you find folks that have mental health challenges, and substance use challenges leading provider of services. So, which is really sad. One of the goals of the mental health and wellness coalition is to increase access to mental health services. And so we have a lot of really wonderful partners.

Mary Garner McGehee  19:57  

What are some of the challenges that you face as an owner organization?

Erin Tucker  20:06  

Money, funding, we really, we really worked hard to become a living wage organization to be able to pay the folks that work for us a living wage and offer them benefits such as health insurance. And we have achieved that, but it's really difficult to maintain, because we're constantly looking for new funding sources. So we're just hoping that we apply and receive as many grants as possible. We have some really wonderful community foundations that help us and the city and the state, but we're always looking for more funding.

Mary Garner McGehee  20:47  

What other local equity issues do you see your members struggle with?

Erin Tucker  20:51  

Well, we just received a grant actually two grants one from region 10 and we just got to the UVA Community Health grant to start smart recovery. Smart recovery is based on a science rather than a faith based 12 step meeting. Both are wonderful but Smart is very friendly towards MAT. MAT is medical assisted treatment, which they now have at UVA, they have at region 10, and they have at ARS Pantops. MAT is something that's really a big focus right now because of the opioid epidemic, which we see a lot of at On Our Own. And what we have witnessed and what we've heard from our members is that the local 12 step meetings aren't MAT friendly and because more people are receiving MAT treatment, they don't have a safe place to go to share about that. And so right now, we have to meetings in Charlottesville at On Our Own. And we have one in Louisa and now we're going to be having a Smart meeting in each of the counties. So I'm really excited about that. And all of that came from our members, from our work at the coalition, you know, saying, Hey, listen, we need a place where we feel safe, where we feel like we can go and share about the challenges of getting medical assisted treatment and the remnants of the opioid epidemic that's still hitting us. It's still coming. I mean, it's not just opioids. It's a lot of different substances. We're hearing about overdoses a lot lately, and it's really scary. So that's one place that we've sort of focused our attention. And housing is another huge barrier. We have someone right now who has been given a voucher for housing and she can't find a place that will accept her. I think she's got 60 days to find a place. She doesn't have a place in 60 days then she loses her voucher. And so she's like, today is day three, I need to find a place but because of her background, because of her history, because landlords don't necessarily want to take vouchers and the landlords that do, they are already filled up. So housing is a huge issue for our members as well. Some of our members are socio economic sphere at On Our Own is very diverse. So we have members that are doing really well financially and then we have members experiencing homelessness, and everything in between so and not only diversity socioeconomically but ethnicity and gender and all different intersections of the community. It's really amazing. Sometimes I walk in and I'm just like, wow, where? Where can you find this? Like, there's so many different people and so many different ages and so many different. It's just amazing. I love it.

Mary Garner McGehee  24:12  

How do your groups navigate that?

Erin Tucker  24:15  

You know, surprisingly well. It's just people just get each other. And it's and it's so nice. And today we had staff meeting and we were talking about, you know, like reminding each other that we can create informal support between the members. And we see that a lot. If we can facilitate them coming together and supporting themselves, then we've done our job extra well, because that's really what it's about is that informal peer support is almost just as important, if not more important than the formal peer support that we give that the paid staff give to the members as them coming together and creating that is beautiful.

Mary Garner McGehee  25:00  

What are some of the policies in Charlottesville that most affect people's access to mental health care and recovery?

Erin Tucker  25:07  

Well, before Medicaid expansion, I would have said Medicaid. At some places. You really can't get service if you don't have Medicaid. And then there's other places where you're not going to get service if you do have it. We don't take insurance and we don't take money, like as payment is what I mean, we don't build people for our services. I think that that's definitely a huge barrier to access is if people don't have Medicaid, then there's like, every year you have to recertify and sometimes it's really hard for people when they don't have a place to live or they're not especially good at keeping track of paperwork or maybe they don't write well or if they get a noticing that it's getting cut off or something. It's, it's really hard, like some of the paperwork is really challenging. So I think that that has a lot to do with it.

Mary Garner McGehee  25:59  

Where do you see the greatest unmet need for mental health care in Charlottesville?

Erin Tucker  26:04  

I would say really lack of psychiatry, lack of psychiatric nursing or anyone who can see someone and write prescriptions for their mental health challenges. We just don't have enough. And I know that the School of Nursing at UVA is trying to sort of lead their nurses toward psychiatric nursing because it's so needed. But there's also a shortage of nursing. So it's just it's a snowball effect.

Mary Garner McGehee  26:35  

What do you want people to know about mental health and recovery?

Erin Tucker  26:39  

People are expert on themselves and that everyone sort of has the answers inside. They, they just need to have space to be listened to so that they can come up with their own answers, and that the more that we push, the more that people push away. And so listening is the biggest gift that you can give to anyone, just listening. So just remember next time you feel like preaching or giving advice or telling somebody what you think that they need to do or what they don't need to do. Just listen to them. And you'd be surprised people really are, are the experts on themselves,

Mary Garner McGehee  27:25  

What do you see as the next steps for on our own?

Erin Tucker  27:28  

Well, recently, we opened a thrift store. It sort of came about because we've had a partnership and for a long time with Glad Rags, which was an upscale consignment shop that that the owner recently retired, but for many years, they donated their clothing to us. And a lot of times we'd have bags of leftover vintage clothing that our members couldn't use. And so I'd be running around trying to sell it to get money for On Our Own. And, I'm also a huge thrifter and so I started dreaming about having pop up shops or things just sort of came together and Glad Rags when they retired, when Tamara retired, she gave us all of her inventory of things that they didn't sell or were donated. And we finally found a location. And we're really excited about this thrift store. It's called Uplift Thrift and our members named it. They came up with the name. So we're really excited about it. It's at 600 Concord Avenue at the corner of Concord and Harris street, and come see us. 

Mary Garner McGehee  28:44  

Thank you so much for coming.

Erin Tucker  28:45  

Yeah, thank you. This has been a pleasure.

Mary Garner McGehee  28:55  

Well, that does it for this week's edition of Soundboard, your source for news, culture and community issues in Central Virginia. Hope you learned something new this week and if you did, please subscribe and share soundboard with your friends. My name is Mary Garner McGee. Our theme song is Chioggia Beat by Morwenna Lasko and Jay Pun. Catch us at cvillesoundboard.org