“My experiences pre-and post-adoption have, without a doubt, led to my career as a social worker today,” says Nick, a Wayfinder family finding social worker. When he was 2 years old, his biological parents left their apartment and never returned, abandoning him and his five older siblings. Nick entered foster care. When he was 3…
Member of the Community Council and former member of the Wayfinder Board of Directors Fifteen years ago, friends asked Dave and Grace Wraa if they knew about the foster-to-adopt program to find permanent homes for children in the child welfare system. Admittedly, Dave and Grace didn’t know much about the program, but that would change…
Secretary, Board of Directors and Wayfinder Community Council member “All children deserve to be in a safe, loving home” says Erica Fernandez. This belief drives her ongoing commitment to Wayfinder. Erica has a demanding job as a senior vice president and region manager for California Bank & Trust in Northern California, plus two sons of…
John Nicolaus came to Wayfinder for the landscaping and stayed for the children. Five years ago, Wayfinder received a grant to upgrade the exterior of its Citrus Heights office to improve access for people with disabilities. “Every ADA upgrade requires a landscape architect to fix it up at the end after the sidewalks have been…
Professionally, Jean Minton is Sutter Health’s neuroscience service line executive. Personally she is passionate about helping children in foster care find their forever families. As a Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi during the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, Jean witnessed the plight of orphaned children whose parents had died of AIDS. After returning to the…
If you have vision loss and don’t have a reference for color or shape, what are your dreams like? Nick Aull, then a teenage counselor-in-training at Wayfinder’s Camp Bloomfield, wondered about this and more regarding the life experiences of people with visual impairment. A camper named Zion told Nick that his dreams were audio-focused. “Hearing…
How do you bring Wayfinder Family Services’ mission to life? In Early Intervention, we are working with families that are still coming to terms with what their child is going through. We are being empathetic, understanding and optimistic. I like to build a friendship with the family. We have a professional relationship, but families will…
Meet a vision specialist from our Blind Babies Foundation program How do you bring Wayfinder Family Services’ mission to life? Early language is difficult for children who have visual impairments, motor impairments that keep them from using sign language, or cognitive impairments. In object communication, we give them an object to touch, like a spoon…
Meet the assistant director of our Short-Term Residential Therapeutic Program. Greg was recently promoted from a shift supervisor in our Cottage. How do you bring Wayfinder Family Services’ mission to life? I bring the mission to life by: number one, having integrity and humility and, number two, coming to work with the understanding that no…
Meet our newest board chair, Elworth (Brent) Williams, Jr., City National Bank’s senior vice president and regional manager. How do you bring Wayfinder Family Services’ mission to life? I have served on the Board of Wayfinder for several years, and this year I became the board chair. I now get to work more closely with the…
