An Honor and an Opportunity

DC Dorham-Kelly

Recently named CEO of the San Francisco Bay Area’s Rubicon Programs, Carole Dorham-Kelly, MS ’03, PhD ’05, (who goes by “DC”) credits her time as a Counseling Psychology student with helping to develop her holistic approach to helping others. With the support of mentors in the program as well other students of color in her cohort, she was able to realize her dream of serving communities striving to overcome systemic barriers to success. DC says of the program, “the teachings, mentoring, and sisterhood I experienced there really set me up for success.”

Reflecting on how her doctoral program started, she says, “I knew I wanted to be in community-based services, I knew that I wanted to address resiliency, trauma, and mental health stigma in black and brown communities.” It was a seminar in her first year that introduced her to the work of Dr. Barbara Staggers at Children’s Hospital and Research Center in Oakland, CA. Dr. Staggers’ practice combined medical and social services to address the underlying causes of physical and mental health challenges in teens, an approach that has been inspirational to DC. In her post-doctoral internship, DC had the opportunity to train at CHRCO and subsequently worked closely with Dr. Staggers, which led to her career in integrated social and mental health care in the Bay Area. Over more than a decade, she has worked in Community Based Mental Health and program management, landing her back in her hometown of Richmond, California at Rubicon Programs in 2016.

About the organization, DC says, “Rubicon is primarily a workforce service agency. We work with adults to connect them to training, employment, and career opportunities, and we do critical work around barrier removal, to increase equitable access to economic mobility. If there are legal barriers or wellness barriers, we have coaches that engage in those services so that folks are more ready to access employment opportunities and career opportunities.”

In 2016, Rubicon Programs assessed and took steps to put into practice an anti-racist stance within their organization and in their relationship with the community, a process that DC is happy to shepherd in her tenure as CEO. She considers developing and implementing an anti-racist stance an ongoing and continually evolving process that must be nurtured and prioritized. First, she emphasized creating safe spaces for the kind of dialogue usually avoided in workplaces – discussions of race, politics, and trauma. Rubicon Programs referred to these dialogues as “courageous conversations.”

DC says that these conversations can cause pain, but that it’s important that we persist, even if some might leave. But that’s not the last step. She says, “it’s not enough to just have a stance. Once you have a stance, then what does it mean? What is the action that follows?” For Rubicon Programs and DC, that next step means confronting systemic racism and advocating for change.

“We have a mission of alleviating poverty in the East Bay. It’s very easy to slip into focusing on the individual and trying to fix the individual. Even as a direct service agency, we know we cannot just coach or case manage folks out of poverty. Poverty is a systemic issue not the fault of an individual navigating it. The anti-racism stance was a key milestone in Rubicon’s journey towards becoming an anti-racist organization. We’re not [an advocacy] organization but we’re committed to being great partners to advocacy and mobilizing organizations in the joint effort to dismantle racist systems perpetuating inequity.”

Earning her new title and recognition as a leader has been gratifying, but DC also feels pressure. “I do feel like I am under the magnifying glass in many ways, but I also feel the honor of the opportunity, and the importance and the magnitude of representation.”