FEATURE
Beyond Wellness: HDCC Provides Community Care, Student Training and Cultural Understanding
By Alex Backus
When you walk through the doors of San José State University’s Healthy Development Community Clinic (HDCC) at Oak Grove High School, you won’t just find another wellness center. Bridging the university and community, the HDCC — a partnership between SJSU’s Connie L. Lurie College of Education and the East Side Union High School District — provides free health services to underserved youth as well as invaluable hands-on experience to SJSU students.
Now in its second year, the center serves San José’s south and east sides, some of the lowest income areas in Silicon Valley. Access to mental and behavioral health care continues to be limited for underrepresented groups, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows, citing expense and stigma among contributing factors. HDCC faculty members are creating programming that is culturally-sensitive, while offering free screenings, evaluations, counseling, and more for children up to 17 years old, as well as their parents.
“Through dynamic training, we hope SJSU students will graduate more prepared to engage with these communities.”
— Cara Maffini
The center also provides a unique opportunity to SJSU undergraduate and graduate students. Those with experience in child and adolescent development, communicative disorders and sciences, and psychology are able to put academics to practice under the supervision of expert clinical researchers.
“SJSU's HDCC creates space and opportunities for training on how to navigate the complexities of working with all types of families with different strengths, challenges, resources and barriers. Through dynamic training, we hope SJSU students will graduate more prepared to engage with these communities,” says Cara Maffini, associate professor of child and adolescent development and co-founder and faculty director of the HDCC. “SJSU faculty have a wealth of knowledge and expertise and leverage SJSU students' cultural and linguistic assets to collaboratively engage with community members in ways that are meaningful and foster dynamic growth both for the community, as well as SJSU students and faculty.”
Meet three members making a difference at HDCC: a faculty member giving back to the community she grew up in, an SJSU grad student-turned HDCC wellness coordinator and a grad student who’s transformed his life-long struggle with speech into his passion.
HDCC Services
- Screenings: Development, speech and language, mental and behavioral health, hearing, vision and oral health
- Counseling: Individual, group, family
- Literacy development and support
- Referral consultations
- Skills workshops
- Parent education
Programs are available in-person and via telehealth, and in English, Spanish and Vietnamese.
A Holistic Vision
Jacqueline Bergman
HDCC Affiliate Faculty Member
Jacqueline Bergman provides programming to the HDCC, combining her passion for holistic wellness and expertise in nutrition. The San José native is interested in the interrelationship between mental health and food, and how trauma can impact food intake and body image.
“We know that disordered eating is strongly associated with trauma and isolation or dissociation,” says Bergman, an assistant professor in SJSU’s Department of Nutrition, Food Science and Packaging. “So if we’re seeing a rise in mental health issues, we also see a rise in body image issues, food relationship issues.”
These issues were exacerbated amid COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, particularly among teens. Emergency room visits for eating disorders, anxiety, depression and stress doubled among girls between 12 and 17 during the pandemic, the CDC reported in early 2022. The unprecedented period of remote learning, compounded with social media, has created new stressors for youths in recent years.
There’s been a “lack of connection in general,” Bergman explained. “So what happens with lack of connection, the inability for stress management, it literally changes your physiology and the types of foods that you’re drawn toward.”
As a Latina, Bergman is also passionate about creating culturally-sensitive programming that acknowledges complexities within the Latinx community, representing a large population on campus and across the community.
“Latinx individuals often grapple with unique stressors stemming from acculturation challenges, discrimination, and economic disparities,” she explained.
How do you delve into such complicated issues, especially with youths and shrinking attention spans? The center breaks it down with various activities and chats. Bergman hosts cooking workshops at the center — for example, baking pumpkin arepas and painting activities — using the safe space to hold conversations. The space is also personally meaningful to Bergman; the HDCC happened to open its doors on the campus of her old high school.
“It just makes it that much more special,” she said.
Cheyenne Grant (far right) spoke at an HDCC event in spring 2023. Photo by Robert C. Bain.
From Classroom Lessons to Community Wellness
Cheyenne Grant, '23 MA Child Development
HDCC Wellness Coordinator
Cheyenne Grant has spent her college career immersed in child development and psychology. She pursued the latter as an undergraduate, interested in learning how individuals are shaped by their environment. “I loved having a reason, how I wasn't the only person dealing with this,” Grant explained.
The center allowed Grant to translate academic lessons into practice. She began working with the HDCC last year as a project assistant while earning her master’s degree. She now serves as the HDCC’s Wellness Coordinator, focused on building trust and relationships with the community.
“Over time, they’ve [local students] been coming in more, they've been opening up to us about very serious things they’re dealing with in their lives,” she said. “I just hope we can continue to be a safe space for them.”
Turning Struggle Into Purpose
Vondell Pilcher, ’23 BS, ’25 MS, Speech Pathology and Audiology
SJSU graduate student
If you told Vondell Pilcher ten years ago that he would host his own podcast and practice speech pathology, he wouldn’t have believed you. Speech didn’t come easy for Pilcher, who grew up with a stutter.
“There’s only so much I’m able to hide. There are only so many words I can say before you catch on [to my stutter],” he explained, recalling being made fun of as a young child. By the time he entered college, his stutter was severely impacting his communication. He worked with a speech language pathologist for six months, and the change was so significant, it inspired Pitcher to become a speech language pathologist himself.
While attending SJSU, he changed his major to Communicative Disorders and Sciences and began working with the HDCC, where he participated in audiology clinics, providing hearing screenings to youth. “As clinicians, we’re able to provide a safe place where students can feel like they’re not being judged, that nothing is ‘wrong with them,’ [it’s] just a challenge and they're able to get help,” he said.
Now a graduate student, Pitcher hopes to return to the center as a research assistant. His ultimate goal is to open his own clinic, with a focus on speech impediments among underrepresented groups.
“When you’ve gone through the struggle and relate to certain things that people [have] gone through as a young kid or as a student, when you’re able to help others get through it, it’s motivating,” he said. “I feel like I found my purpose.”
Vondell Pilcher aims to lift the stigma of stuttering. Photo by Robert C. Bain.
Want to learn more?
Location: Oak Grove High School, Building H2 285 Blossom Hill Rd, San José, CA 95123
Hours: Mondays - Fridays: 11 a.m. - 7 p.m. | Saturday - Sunday: See Events
Top illustration: Pourya Nadimi, ’17 BFA Graphic Design
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