Success Stories

Client – Erica Portugal

Program – Sibling Program (cut in Fall of 2003 due to lack of funding)
Location – Oakland

Erica Portugal’s deep brown eyes and easy smile communicate confidence and comfort in her own skin as she speaks from her desk at Brighter Beginnings as an Outreach/Intake Coordinator for Adolescent Family Support Services, she works with young women who have been referred to Brighter Beginnings from schools and hospitals and determines if they are a fit for the Council’s programs. What does she like best about her job?  “That I’m helping girls and giving them the support they don’t often get at home.”

The oldest of six children, raised by a single mom, Erica knows too well what it’s like to feel lonely and isolated and not get support at home. Growing up, she had to be “the mom” for her siblings while her own mother was at work. She was an honor roll student up until eighth grade.  While she was in high school, she cooked meals for her family and bought clothes for her siblings. She also had a job on the weekends. During ninth grade, “everything came down.” Her grades got worse, and by the time she was 16, she was “mad at the whole world,” isolated herself, and tried to commit suicide.  Erica had been in therapy at the time, but ended it because every time she came home from her sessions, her counselor betrayed her trust by talking with her mother. She moved out of her house and went to live with her boyfriend.

Meanwhile, her younger sister had become pregnant at age 14 and was a client at Brighter Beginnings. She invited Erica to enroll in the Sibling Program (a program that had to be cut in Fall of 2003 due to lack of funding). She attended the program from 2001-2003.  “It was the best thing that happened to me. My Family Advocate helped me to understand my life and to believe in myself.  I knew I was able to do a lot of stuff, but I was afraid. She taught me how to love myself, to understand all the things I went through.”

Brighter Beginnings helped Erica enroll in college. While she was taking an Adolescent Psychology class, she realized she wanted to work with teens and was soon interning at Brighter Beginnings for her Child Development class. She graduated from Laney College with a major in Human Development and transferred to Cal State Hayward. She is still with her same boyfriend and is the mother of a two and a half-year old daughter, Saory.