We are excited to share our latest video on our website, www.extendedfamilyhelp.org, featuring Shaliyah Reese. Shaliyah completed Extended Family for Kids during middle school and learned skills for coping with having both parents incarcerated. Since that time, Shaliyah has grown up and is married with four children. She is also working in what she describes as her dream job – as a Program Leader for Extended Family!
Shaliyah is the only staff member who completed Extended Family for Kids as a child. We are honored that she is willing to take what she learned years ago and use that information to help others today. Shaliyah was particularly impacted by being reminded in our lesson Who’s to Blame that “It’s not your fault!” Those words have stayed with her into adulthood, after lifting a weight of self-blame she didn’t even realize she had been carrying.
Watch her story and hear in her own words the difference Extended Family made in her life and her dedication to sharing those lessons with others who are struggling with family member incarceration.
Shaliyah is a wonderful example of the importance of changing just one life – because it’s never just one life.