California Prevention Education Project- CAL-PEP

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Gloria Lockett

Carla Dillard Smith

Lisa Ryan

Sonya Richey

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EXECUTIVE BIO

Lisa Ryan- Youth Services Coordinator

Lisa Ryan has been with CAL-PEP for the last 16 years and is the youth services coordinator for the Growth Spot youth program and Young Sex Workers Project. CAL-PEP’S original focus on substance abusers and sex workers prompted Lisa to seek employment with the agency. As a person whose family has struggled with addictions, Lisa was personally motivated to learn more about the effects of substance abuse on women. Lisa has been instrumental in the development and implementation of several innovative programs at CAL-PEP. She was the co-creator of a drop-in program that helped substance using women and sex workers become clean and sober. Lisa also developed CAL-PEP’S first prevention video for young sex workers. The video was filmed in Oakland and is used as an outreach tool throughout Alameda County. Additionally, Lisa created a media campaign that profiled substance abusing women who became clean through CAL-PEP’S drop-in program. The objectives of the campaign were to dispel myths about addicts and inform the public of their lives before and after addiction; the women wanted readers to know that substance use did not define them and to ask society for another chance. This media campaign was included on palm cards and distributed on the buses throughout Oakland.

Lisa believes that CAL-PEP delivers services like no other agency and that CAL-PEP “mirrors the community”. Lisa takes pride in the standards set by the agency and admires the strong women, both employees and clients, who have come through the doors of CAL-PEP and is “proud to be one of the ones still fighting.”