Jaid’s CWEE Story

For more than 40 years, CWEE has supported the personal and professional transformation of career seekers, many of whom overcome great challenges to achieve success and support their families.

Jaid is a CWEE participant that embodies the perseverance, resourcefulness and self-love that CWEE works to support in the individuals we serve.

Meeting Jaid today, you’d almost never believe what she’s been through – and how far she’s come. Jaid moved to Colorado from California after high school, hoping to begin her career and make a fresh start. Instead she met a man who abused her and initiated a spiral of pain, addiction and homelessness.

Jaid spent her first pregnancy on the streets, struggling to get clean and completely unaware that she should be receiving prenatal care. Her experience at the hospital giving birth, while deeply painful and traumatic, would ultimately inspire her to help other people in similar situations.

“My son was taken from me within four hours of me giving birth,” said Jaid. “I woke up in a room full of officers and social workers, they made Michael’s dad leave, and they told me I could only have supervised visits with my baby. They didn’t give me any options for treatment or alternatives to CPS (Child Protective Services), they just discharged me with nowhere to go and without my baby.”

Jaid relapsed a month later. Then the case worker messaged her on Facebook with pictures of her son, and told her she could visit him. “That woke me up,” Jaid said.

From that moment, Jaid began her remarkable climb out of the depths – stumbling at times – but making steady progress toward a stable life and a fulfilling career. She re-entered addiction treatment, signed up for every housing opportunity she could find, and researched programs that could help her support her sons.

Luckily, Jaid also found CWEE.

Today, Jaid is in active recovery. She is a loving, attentive mother to her sons Michael and Jayden, ages 2 and 1. She has permanent housing in a neighborhood she loves. And she’s earning her CNA certification through a program that will allow her to get paid for caring for Michael, who has complex medical needs.

“CWEE has been a great support for me. It gave me responsibilities and things that I am accountable for, and that’s cool because you feel like someone cares. CWEE helped me all throughout my second pregnancy, helped me with transportation, helped me access community resources, showed me how to sign up for SSI, and has guided me with life skills.

When you’re a recovering addict, you feel like nothing and there’s a huge question mark of ‘who am I going to be afterward?’ It’s a horrible, lonely feeling. At CWEE I was never judged for my past history. My CWEE specialist was my support, helping me get through ups and downs — not just financially but also making sure I was taken care of emotionally and that my babies’ needs were always met. They never gave up on me.”

Jaid now has full custody of both of her sons. She volunteers at drug treatment centers to help other women find resources that can help them too. Jaid wrote and recently published an article about her traumatic birth experience and went to a birth justice symposium in New York to speak about the system and her experience in it.