Serena’s Story: When One’s Advocacy Clashes with Other’s “Advocacy”

Serena’s Story

Serena is an activist and mother; a great communicator and an empathetic person; masterful listener; and counselor of people in crisis, big or small. Her life’s commitment is to make the world a better place for her child, others’ children, and humankind. After receiving a Master of Social Work from Nazareth College, she looked to carve a career path that falls in line with her passion for helping her community.

A position opened at Bivona Child Advocacy Center (CAC) for a Stand with Young People therapist. The candidate would be part of the Person in Crisis (PIC) Team. Their role would be to assist with child-centered crisis calls to the Rochester Police. The position came about after multiple stories of the Rochester police responding to calls involving children, and the police either handcuffed or pepper sprayed children, or both.

The position’s intent is to keep everyone safe and not have the police need to use force on anyone in mental crisis, especially children. A highly respected community leader recommended that Serena apply for the role. Within days, she interviewed with Bivona CAC hiring team and the PIC Team hiring committee. A member of the PIC Team committee recognized Serena and said they need not look for another candidate. Their search was over. Serena interviewed in the morning, and before lunch, she received the news that she was hired. Serena was going to make a living helping the community that she loved.

It was a dream come true. Then, it became a nightmare.

Three days after starting her new job, Serena was fired with no specific reason given. It was all confusing since everyone at Bivona CAC was kind to her and applauded her experience and professionalism. She went out solo with the PIC team to shadow them when they responded to calls to oversee mental health/wellness. Yet just three days after starting, she was told she was no longer an employee of Bivona. She was not given a reason, just vague hints. As they were ushering her out the door without even a chance to collect the books she left at the office, they applauded her on her calmness and “professionalism” taking the news…which to me is a red flag. Did they think she was going to throw a tantrum in the office? How was she supposed to act?

Exclaiming, “Wow you’re so calm,” while you are unceremoniously firing someone is not a compliment. It is condescending. The ordeal was baffling and embarrassing. She had no idea what she had done to warrant termination. It took a conference call between Serena, an advocate (another highly respected community leader), and the executive director of Bivona CAC to find out the reason for the firing. She was told a “third party” was not happy with some of Serena’s social media posts.

The Hidden Truth

If you are lucky enough to know Serena, you know her posts are primarily sunshine and butterflies. She speaks of wellness and how to center oneself when in crisis. There are east/southern African proverbs and positive reflections. She asks her media followers to provide happy thoughts for the day. If her Instagram took tactical form, it would be a hug from an old friend. She is one of the few people who is as positive in real life as she projects online. Who on earth would have an issue with her social media content?

It took more prying to learn who the “third party” was: the Rochester Police Department.

Members of the police department did not like that Serena had posted a status in favor of the Black Lives Matter movement and reallocating substantial portions of the Rochester Police department’s budget to fund city education, health, and wellness services. So, Serena took a job with the goal of advocating for her community. However, she was fired for advocating for her community. The entire time of Serena’s interview, employment, and firing, administrators of Bivona would not stop showering her with praise. They told her that she came highly recommended, and her work in the community is valuable and a testament to her character. They told her that her firing is no reflection of her performance.

Therein Lies the Problem

The reason Bivona CAC, a private company, fired a person more than qualified for a job, was because the Rochester Police Department, a municipal organization, demanded it. In fact, No one at Bivona CAC can publicly make any “Black Lives Matter” declarations, not even on their personal accounts, lest the RPD refuse to work with them, thereby effectively shutting them down. Were these individuals and not organizations, this would be an extortion case.

The purported reason for the creation of the PIC team is to HELP the police by making their presence less needed. It is so professionals trained in helping mentally ill people would assist people in crisis. This thereby relieves the police of the added responsibility of managing said crises.

Daniel Prude needed a mental health professional, not a police force.

The police even knew that they had done wrong. The department and city spent months covering up his death in police custody.

The Police Are Not The Only Issue

Bivona is a white owned company who claims to advocate for Black and Brown children in crisis. However, beyond the PIC team, most of their work is in the suburbs, not the city. To their credit, Bivona’s work in the Hilton School District was critical in unearthing the principal’s abuse of children (incidentally, those Bivona CAC employees were Black women). However, the staff is predominantly white, and there are no BIPOC executives at all. Even the Black women who unearthed the Hilton incident no longer work there.

The way they ushered Serena, a Black woman who has more experience in the communities they claim to help, does not make it look like Bivona is genuinely interested in helping anyone Black or Brown in crisis. I have no issues with a white person founding a program to help Black and Brown folks, so long as they let Black folks with more experience than them talk the helm in directing that help. We know more about our neighborhoods than a white person from Pittsford or Webster could. Even those of us who are not originally from the city know more about the Black experience in America than any white person could possibly grasp.

Serena has the same goal as (supposedly) Bivona CAC and the Rochester Police Department: to make the city safer for everyone, and to make the police’s job easier.

Sometimes people with differing views need to work together to meet a mutual goal. In the three days that she worked at Bivona, she showed her willingness to do that, interacting with both counselors and the police officers who were called. Not once did any friction arise with her interactions. She worked to understand the points of view of everyone involved. Rochester Police’s blanket refusal to let someone work with them just because they said, “Black Lives Matter,” reads as insincerity in their wish to make Rochester safe.

The funding for Bivona is not even primarily city/police based; The money for the position for which Serena applied came from a private benefactor. Yet the police have enough power that they can hold funding hostage for a private company because of the utterance of said phrase. Thankfully Bivona CAC decided to separate themselves from the funding and this specific SWYP Therapist position after some public outcry about Serena’s firing. However, they should have stood up for an employee who was qualified for the job.

The Rochester Police Department needs to be more honest about their intentions for the public. To be clear, the members of the PIC Team seem genuinely dedicated to helping their community, much like Serena is. On the other hand, given what transpired and how much the Rochester Police Department flaunts the PIC team in reports to the news media, it appears that they only created the PIC team as a money wasting public relations stunt, much like their equestrian department.

About Chris Thompson