We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Joseph Valadez. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Joseph below.
Joseph, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What was your school or training experience like? Share an anecdote or two that you feel illustrate important aspects or the overall nature of your schooling/training experience.
I was once in my internship class at campus. We would meet once a week. There were 16 of my cohorts that were assigned to the class that worked at 16 different intern placements. The idea was for me and my classmates to get an overall view of different asspects of social work. One day the professor, (this happened to be either the 3rd or 4th week of my first semester in the MSW program) asks the class “who here has felt imposter syndrome so far? Either at school or at your placement?” All the class raised their hands execpt me. The professor walked up to me and asked me “Joseph, I see that your the only one who didn’t raise their hand. You want to explain to the class why you didn’t raise your hand?” I answered “Well professor, its like this. Theres nothing imposter about me. I was ment to be here a long, long time ago. I know for a fact that I belong here.” “I just took a long, long road getting here”.
Joseph, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I grew up in a neighborhood that was racked by drug and gang violence. I had been going in and out of juvenile and adult institutions for over 30 years. I had been part of my neighborhood all my life. I used drugs for over 43 years and had been a heroin addict for 38 of those 43 years. I’ve been to prison 40 times. Thats prison, not jail. Big difference. I finally came to the point at almost 55 years that enough is enough and I checked into a rehab and stayed at that rehab for one year. I got out of rehab and I started going to school. I work for an organization called Project Kinship. This organization provides services and training to lives impacted by incarceration, gangs, and violence in the community through hope, healing, and transformation. Services include both direct services and capacity training for system and community agencies. Project Kinship’s staff provides emotional support and advocacy as we assist individuals through the stages of change and transformation by providing early intervention, prevention, reentry support and intervention,
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I started off at community college. Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa to be exact. While I was there, I was told that I couldn’t get an AA unless I passed a certain level of algebra. Now, I have to tell you that I had never ever taken any type of algebra class in my life. When I took an aptitude test at the college, I scored so low that I had to take a remedial class in basic math. I was so bad in algebra that I flunked 4 different classes of algebra. I was so frustrated that I almost quit school because I couldn’t pass algebra. I’m in recovery. I’ve been clean and sober for 10 years 3 months as of today. Well, one day I was at this recovery meeting that I would go to on a Saturday morning. (still go to that meeting) I would always share about how algebra was getting the best of me. One day my sponsor called me over after the meeting and told me that he was tired of me crying about how algebra was getting the best of me. (I had been sharing about this for over 2 years at this point. Every Saturday) My sponsor asks “when you were dope sick and needed a fix, did that stop you from getting well?” Of course I answered “no”. He told me ” that same mindset you had when you were dope sick and needed a fix is the same mindset that you use in all aspects of you life and recovery”. He was right! that week I doubled and tripled my efforts in passing algebra and it paid off. The rest is history.
Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?
No way!! I love the population that I serve They are people who are barely starting their journey’s. When they see a person like themselves, a person who has been at the same places and done the same things as themselves, it plants a seed in their minds. That if this person can do this, so can I. What I and Project Kinship offer is HOPE.
Contact Info:
- Website: Project Kinship
- Instagram: joseph.valadez399
- Facebook: joseph valadez
Image Credits
Migual Del La Rosa