Leading with
Lived Experience
by Heidi Huppert
W

hen I was 12 or 13 years old, I saw a grunge band video on MTV showing teenagers running from abusive homes and ending up on the street. In one scene, a brown-haired girl was dragged into a van by grown men. As I watched, my heart raced. I felt my face get hot and a lump rose in my throat. I thought, “That is how I’m going to die.” I understood the scene because I was living on and off the street, dodging alleys and predators and at times physically fighting for my life. After one particularly brutal evening, courtesy of my mom’s boyfriend, I sat while the police took pictures of my injuries. I was told to pack a backpack and that I was going into foster care that night. I went to my room, climbed out of the second-story window, maneuvered down a gas line and fled into the dark. I didn’t know it at the time, but that night was the catalyst for what would become my passion, career and personal mission – to help young people.

While wandering the streets one night, exhausted from trying the doors on apartment laundry rooms and getting kicked out of every 24-hour gas station and McDonalds’ lobby, I knew I had to find a place to sleep. I ended up in the cemetery.

While wandering the streets one night, exhausted from trying the doors on apartment laundry rooms and getting kicked out of every 24-hour gas station and McDonalds’ lobby, I knew I had to find a place to sleep. I ended up in the cemetery. I figured it was too spooky a place for even the predators to get me. At some point, someone in a Covenant House Alaska Outreach jacket approached me and asked if I had somewhere to go. I likely cursed at them, but they still gave me a little card with an address. Miserably cold, I relented and walked through the doors of the Covenant House shelter in the heart of downtown Anchorage. The staff was kind, and even though I lied through my teeth about everything, including my name, they let me sleep. I’ve always known that they knew I was lying about who I was and what was going on in my life. Yet they gave me safety and respite in the hope that one day I might trust them. I never forgot the kindness I was shown, but I couldn’t give up my secrets and never stayed there for more than a night at a time.

There was moment in high school when an English teacher I was close to was on the cusp of asking me my most dreaded question, “What’s going on at home?” I felt her question on the tip of her tongue and held my breath. After a long pause she didn’t ask. Walking out of her classroom I was relieved. Or was I? In a way I wanted to tell her. I wanted to tell her everything, but it seemed too big a burden to lay on a teacher who would inevitably have to do paperwork or something. These interactions with adults, from cops to teachers to the staff at the shelter, shaped how I would start viewing the world and my place in it. I knew that my life wasn’t “normal,” and I knew that I could do better for myself and other young people like me.

As a young person, the disruptions in my day-to-day life instilled in me a drive to create order out of chaos, which made me an extremely organized student. Throughout high school I worked full-time at a bakery and enrolled in a correspondence school where I could earn high school credits faster. I wanted to attend college and spent my junior and senior high school years applying for every scholarship I could find. I was awarded a few small ones as well as a large one for being the first in my family to attend college. This scholarship paid for my tuition, but I still had to keep a roof over my head so I continued to work at the bakery and various other jobs. At one point I had three jobs and was taking 18 credits. Sometimes I slept in my truck in between my classes and my jobs. I can’t say that I remember a lot about college as it was all a blur.

After finishing my bachelor’s degree in social work, I poured myself into learning every facet of best practices and service delivery for young people. My experience on the streets and in a home of war uniquely prepared me for the level of empathy, understanding and quiet I would need to hear young people in their most vulnerable states. At age 20, I got my first position at Covenant House Alaska as a Peer Outreach Worker, the same job as the person who found me in that graveyard. As a direct service youth worker, I was able to say the things to young people that should have been said to me. I was able to tell them that it would not always be like this, that they would not always feel so much hurt and anger, and that they are worthy and deserving of good things. And I was able to teach them to fight for those good things.

Heidi Huppert in a city at night
Photo by Audrey Beer
I found my pain turning into passion and that passion turning into power.

My work with Covenant House and with those young people helped me see a tremendous amount of beauty in a world that I previously found so incredibly cruel and ugly. I saw young people with no reason to laugh or smile feel joy — real, gut-busting laughter and joy. I found my pain turning into passion and that passion turning into power. The best part was that this was a power I could share with the people who needed it the most.

Heidi Huppert portrait
Heidi Huppert portrait
Photo by Sean Gaither
Those who have first-hand knowledge of the same hard-life experiences as their clients have an innate sense of what those experiences really mean.
Photo by Sean Gaither

Those nights on the streets have always had a way of tethering me to how ridiculous and many times adultist “helping professionals” can be. To really reach the youth, the programs had to change, the arbitrary rules had to go, and we needed to honor what these young people had been through to understand and help them heal. Throughout various positions within Covenant House Alaska, I have had the opportunity to provide space for young people to make healthy attachments to positive and supportive adults. With other like-minded staff, I have worked to build innovative programs designed with youth voice and choice. We have worked to lead our staff in developing themselves professionally, and to create ways to change the homeless experience at the micro and macro levels. Some of these innovations and approaches have been recognized by the American Association of Pediatrics, and I was honored to contribute to the latest edition of Reaching Teens: Strength-Based Communication Strategies to Build Resilience and Support Healthy Adolescent Development.

I have worked for Covenant House Alaska for nearly two decades. Now, as a Senior Program Officer, I lead teams in ways to end the experience of recurring homelessness and trauma. One of my favorite things is to hire people with lived experiences, which in the non-profit, social-work world is important. Those who have first-hand knowledge of the same hard-life experiences as their clients have an innate sense of what those experiences really mean. A person who has experienced poverty understands that it means having hunger pangs all day at school, getting bullied for not having clean clothes or school supplies, or having bad teeth because you’ve never gone to a dentist. Those with lived experiences also tend to see their clients as people — not needing to be saved, but capable of making decisions and taking actions to get themselves out of difficult places. This internal motivation staves away savior-complex behaviors and better helps clients take back their own power. Hiring folks with this personal insight enriches our team with talents that cannot be taught in academia.

As the neuroscience around trauma becomes increasingly more informed, we know that those who have experienced childhood trauma become hypervigilant, hyper-aware and often highly empathic, because it helps them to survive. As adults, this level of awareness and empathy can be channeled into work. In the social services field this skill or talent, which cannot be taught in a classroom, can be the difference between the staff who just “get it” or those that have to work extra hard to try and understand the many difficult elements related to trauma. Lived experience also has an unspoken benefit of creating a culture of solidarity. Managers with this experience understand the clients and their teammates on a deeper, more intuitive level.

Leading others with lived experience has solidified my own philosophy around leadership. I see less-than-perfect behaviors in my staff as symptomatic of needs not being met, not as personal failings or reasons to reprimand. I learned this by working with young people who were hurting, and have since then used these same skills as a supervisor, as a program coordinator and in my current role. When I see staff struggling with rigidity, power, control or frustration, I understand that they have a need that is not being met – be it time off, further training so they can feel confident in their work, or support to alleviate their suffering from trauma fatigue. Such indicators I’ve come to know with a certain degree of predictability. As a result, I can work to provide protective measures to mitigate some of these behaviors before they become performance issues or burnout. I have learned that investing in my people, which is time-consuming and requires a high level of attention, is rewarding and worth the effort.

Having to step out of direct care and learn how to be a leader of teams, somewhat reluctantly I’ve explored the philosophy of failure extensively. I encourage my team to try new strategies and to celebrate when those things don’t work, because undoubtedly we will learn and adapt. In my mind, that’s how innovation works, how creativity thrives and how staff develop professionally. I also feel that when we, as a team and as leaders, normalize failure and mistakes, adapt and try again, we create a learning culture in which there are no falsehoods around perfection no matter the job title. When my staff knows that I will go to bat for them even during failures, it fosters confidence and trust. I have found this to be the most important facet in leadership—if your team is built on mutual care and respect, they will move mountains for you.

A career in social work, especially one working with teens and young people, is not for the faint of heart. The easily offended and timid need not apply. Working with youth who have experienced horrors most have only seen on TV is tough, and it requires both a mental strength and a vulnerability that tests the best of us. People who come from poverty know the experience of living in a world of deficits. Hire these people as your program developers and accountants; they take grassroots efforts and scorched-earth budgets and turn them into viable programs. They are resourceful by nature of their own experience, and they can do a lot with very little.

I aspire to one day lead our organization. I want Covenant House Alaska to be the gold standard in youth care that empowers our young people to one day serve as our next generation of community leaders. I envision a leadership team of those with lived experience informing the important work that we do. I want to create a culture where burnout is not the acceptable norm, in which we strive to develop emerging leaders from our very first interaction with youth. One day, a young person who walked through these doors afraid and needing help will have an office in the executive suite, with their name on the door and no fear about the future to come.

Heidi Huppert headshot

Heidi Huppert is the Senior Program Officer overseeing all of Covenant House Alaska’s Transitional Living Programs, Housing Programs and Permanency Navigator Program. More than 17 years ago, after completing her degree in social work, Heidi came to work at CHA starting as a Peer Outreach Worker, becoming a Case Worker, then a Case Manager, then a Program Coordinator before accepting her current position. She specializes in trauma-informed, care-based program development and victims’ support and advocacy, and has worked extensively with youth who have fetal alcohol spectrum disorders and victims of human trafficking.

www.covenanthouseak.org

Heidi Huppert is the Senior Program Officer overseeing all of Covenant House Alaska’s Transitional Living Programs, Housing Programs and Permanency Navigator Program. More than 17 years ago, after completing her degree in social work, Heidi came to work at CHA starting as a Peer Outreach Worker, becoming a Case Worker, then a Case Manager, then a Program Coordinator before accepting her current position. She specializes in trauma-informed, care-based program development and victims’ support and advocacy, and has worked extensively with youth who have fetal alcohol spectrum disorders and victims of human trafficking.

www.covenanthouseak.org