Client spotlight: Bridge to Preschool Program & Nerissa Broughton
Nerissa Broughton’s Bridge to Preschool program has been wildly impactful, with parent and child learning and emotional outcomes improving across the board.
Something special about Nerissa, though, is she works to make sure families are seen beyond their scores and numbers.
Nerissa sees the relationship with the parents and children as sacred, and deserving of the kind of care that can be hard to find within systems of capitalism and white supremacy:
*Nerissa was born in the Philippines and immigrated to the Bay Area when she was nearly 2. She grew up in a wealthy community, but her family was lacking in resources and they would desperately try to fit in by hiding their family's circumstances. She loved school and was fascinated by the various ways people learned, but was struck by how differently some people experienced the school system.
Once she started working in Early Childhood Education, the disparity in access to resources and how that perpetuated the inequities in the system became clear. Becoming a parent herself has doubled down her belief in the importance of supporting parents and young children in these critical years of development, in a way that honors and truly centers the family’s experience and perspective.
Our country’s public systems have been set up so the most important people in a child’s life - parents, teachers, and pediatricians - are all working separately. The result is that parents who are dealing with the stressful and traumatic consequences of systemic poverty and racism are also left to support their children on their own.
Nerissa’s work at The Primary School is reimagining what a school can be. Through Nerissa’s Bridge to Preschool program, she brings all the adults in a child’s life, including family, educators, medical and mental health providers, together as a team around that child, starting from a very early age.
Nerissa is passionate about not just the whole child but the whole family.*
*the text above in between the astericks was written by Nerrissa and fitted to blog format. the original writing can be found on Nerissa’s Linkedin
In our sessions, Nerissa and I worked on building confidence when you are one of the only community-centered voices in the room, as well as building skills around trauma-informed and care-centered facilitation and management.
Here’s what Nerissa said about our time together:
“Tying my own lived experience and the importance of honoring that to really push against the patterns of assimilation, white supremacy culture and capitalism that inherently permeate organizations and nonprofits. ”
I wanted to send my gratitude to you for all the work you do to help support others and the workshops you have facilitated. For me personally, being able to attend several of your workshops and then follow-up with 1:1 coaching was such a blessing and really helped move me forward through some old patterns that were getting me stuck.
The time I got to spend in your workshops and 1:1 with you were such synergistic experiences that reinforced messages/themes that have come up in different areas of my life that have all contributed to my growth and wellness (somatic therapy, swimming, boxing, reading, writing, drawing).
In general, I now feel an unwavering confidence and strength in myself that I have honestly never felt before. I feel like my life is bigger now that I am more comfortable with discomfort and have made space for it all... the messiness, the old trauma, the celebrations, the unknowing, the remembering, the pain, the healing... all of this expansive life!
Your workshops/coaching calls have helped me to continue providing programming that truly centers relationships and ensures we are working in partnership with parents, children, families and communities and not just focusing on the numbers (while also understanding there is a purpose and place and even a need for those numbers). Tying my own lived experience and the importance of honoring that to really push against the patterns of assimilation, white supremacy culture and capitalism that inherently permeate organizations and nonprofits.
Nerissa welcomes any opportunity to talk about Early Intervention and the importance of supporting families. Here is her Linkedin.