Youth Development Spotlight: Deseree Stanfield

Deseree Stanfield has always loved helping others and started “officially” doing so at just 12 years old by tutoring refugees in English at the West End Center. If that doesn’t tell you about her character, I’m not sure what will! (Except the rest of this blog).

Deseree has a Bachelor’s in Sociology and is a Qualified Mental Health Professional specializing in Children. As aYouth Development Specialist and Day Treatment Provider, Deseree has now made a career out of childhood goals.

"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life,"–that’s an important quote for Deseree. Although most people use this expression in finding their next job opportunity, Deseree uses it to describe what she does now.

“While there are certainly challenging days, I never question whether or not I’m doing what I should be doing, where I should be doing it.”

With the Teen Outreach Program®, she still gets back to her roots with the West End Center, and other locations, helping kids and teens learn important life skills and service learning.

Seeing the kids she helps learn and grow in confidence is Deseree’s favorite aspect of the job. A close second, and is equally rewarding, is when a kid knows they are in a safe place to feel how they need to feel.  She describes a time when one of the younger kids were having a rough day. He was fidgety and had a hard time concentrating on his homework. After a few minutes, he stood up, walked over to Deseree, and leaned on her for a little bit. After some light talking, Deseree asked if he was ready to get back to his seat and he was. After that little moment, he was able to quickly finish his work.

“After he finished, I told him how awesome he’d done and he smiled. I knew then that the spell of his rough day was over.”

Find out more about what Deseree does at the West End Center by reading our last blog post