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Published on: 6/28/2008
Last Visited: 6/28/2008
Rita Epps: Profile of a Life Dedicated to Youth
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Rita Epps
Reflecting on her life, Rita Epps knows what it is to struggle: She became an unwed mother during her senior year in high school, has been on welfare, and starting at age 19, raised her younger brother and sister in a one-bedroom apartment on Adams Mills Road after the death of her mother from a brain hemorrhage.So it's no surprise that today Epps is able to connect with the young people she motivates as the job coach for the Academy of Construction & Design at Cardozo.
"I tell [the students] all the time, it is not impossible, it is difficult," says Epps, who took care of her siblings by working two part-time jobs at the school's library while enrolled at D.C. Teacher's College."I am a living witness to what is possible."
Today, Epps, 62, reaches out to more than 70 students at the Academy of Construction & Design, plus those she assists through the D.C. Apprenticeship Academy, also held at Cardozo, but in the afternoons after school lets out.Her goal: "To make them true productive members of society."
The journey to the Cardozo Academy started for Epps after she graduated from the D.C. Teachers College in 1970 with a degree in speech and language therapy.She would spend the next four years working at The George Washington University, where she helped undergraduates, graduate students, and teaching professionals develop creative strategies for their teaching curricula.
"I learned there that you have to look at people as individuals, find out what gets them excited, and introduce a concept that way," says Epps, who would take that innovative spirit with her as she moved on to work in the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) as a speech and language therapist for emotionally disturbed adolescents.There, she worked with young people ages 13 to 22 who, although they might not attend college, still needed a support system while preparing to enter the workforce.
"Again, I found myself assisting other teachers with creative ways to teach concepts to students," she shares, noting that her classroom became a resource room for others.
But in a tragic turn of events, she was hurt on the job by the very students she was trying to help.
"I got thrown into a wall by a student and lost my kneecap," recalls Epps, who retired from DCPS on disability in the early 1990s.
But despite that incident, she never lost her love for working with young people.
After retiring from DCPS, she enrolled in what was then known as the D.C. School of Law, where she graduated with a J.D. in 1997.It was a move that would propel her deeper into her passion for giving back to youth and the community.She then accepted a position working with Edgar Cahn, a professor at the UDC David A. Clark School of Law and founder of Time Dollar Youth Court, where teen juries judge cases of teens arrested for the first time for nonviolent offenses.
"It was my job to find community placement for youth who were sentenced by a jury of their peers," says Epps, who eventually transitioned into a position as a community outreach coordinator for Cahn's Time Dollar Inc., where she remained until 2000.
"It is who I am," she says of her endeavors with troubled youth."I understand them because we all have some level of emotional disturbance."
Her next stop was at the Columbia Heights Shaw Family Support Collaborative, where she found herself focusing on affordable housing and job opportunities for in-need District residents."I started working with organizations and looking at the need for families to have employment, looking at the barriers to employment, [and] with all the development and gentrification going on in the area, what prevented families from getting jobs," she explains.Her experience with the Collaborative gave her the opportunity to tackle such issues as First Source law and job development.
"We looked at literacy, resume development for people who had not worked-all of those issues," she says.
All these experiences would prove handy when she arrived at the Academy of Construction & Design at Cardozo in 2007.The relationships she had cultivated with JOBS President Rev. Anthony Motley and others associated with the JOBS Coalition helped get Epps in the door.And after a four-month process, she officially signed on as the Academy's job coach, with duties that include tracking the 2007 graduating class and providing assistance with job leads, college information, and other support students might need as they move forward in life after the Academy.
Her nurturing continues at the Apprenticeship Academy, where she advises apprentices on financial literacy, among other things."When you provide someone with information, it can be transforming for them, and the reward is in what you give someone [so] they can go with it and grow," says Epps.
As she looks to the future, she sees challenges ahead.
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Still, Epps is optimistic, and plans to work diligently to increase participation of minorities and women in the trades by upping the retention and graduation rates of students at the Academy of Construction & Design.By touching the lives of the young people who come through the day program and giving them the "right tools" as they transition into the adult apprenticeship program, Epps says they are given what they need to be successful.
"And hopefully," says Epps, "connected them with resources to increase minority participation in the trades."
Left to Right: Cardozo Academy Manager Shelly Morrison, 2007 graduate Angelo Green, and Job Coach Rita Epps, who serves as an "extension" of Morrison.
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Epps is a "mother figure" to Apprenticeship Academy student Toni Robinson.
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