Leah Basaria, a CARE Coach at Valencia College, sat down with us at the recent 2023 Florida State of Reform Conference to talk about her priorities for health policy in the state. In her role, she connects students in need of social services to the appropriate resources in the community.
A specific focus area for her is improving health and and social services for incarcerated individuals in Florida.
“My classes are going to be teaching individuals who are ineligible for [certain] programs basic life skills like [having a] growth mindset, how to figure out their strengths, we construct a complete resume for them before they leave my class, have mock interviews, and then also connect them to all of the resources on the outside so they can access them once they are out, instead of having to go back to whatever got them thrown into the corrections establishment in the first place.”