Today we’d like to introduce you to Amber Rivas.
Hi Amber, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I was born and raised in SoCal! I grew up in Anaheim Hills, California with my parents, Mike and Cindy, and younger brother, Brandon. I played competitive sports in my youth and in high school and was incredibly fortunate to have parents willing to drive all over Southern California (and beyond) for soccer and volleyball tournaments. I do believe my love for sports and competition helped me develop as a teammate and as a leader early on. In my senior year of high school, I had an adverse experience with my varsity volleyball team that made me curious about the relationship between competitive youth sports and mental health outcomes for children, which drove my interest in psychology and human behavior.
I graduated with my BA in psychology from Pepperdine University in Malibu, California and soon after started my first job in social work as a residential counselor in a group home at St. Anne’s Maternity Home (now St. Anne’s Family Services) in Los Angeles. At the time, St. Anne’s group home provided residential treatment to 60 teenage girls, all of whom were pregnant and/or parenting and in the county foster care system, and up to 42 of their children under three years-old. Having grown up with little exposure to the foster care or juvenile justice systems, this work was a shock to the system. It took several months to adjust to hearing stories of trauma and abuse endured at the hands of parents and caregivers and even longer to understand the complex nature of navigating the Los Angeles County child welfare system. I learned early on the importance of building trusting relationships with the youth, and I also gained self-awareness of how I, a cisgender white woman, should be stepping into each conversation and situation. I was fortunate to develop several meaningful relationships with young women early on, which taught me just as much about myself as it did about working closely with young people — I was consistently amazed and impressed by these young and resilient women, still children themselves, now making the major transition to motherhood.
I committed myself to this work and was given opportunities to promote several times over during my time at St. Anne’s. As I ascended into progressive positions of leadership, I found great fulfillment in mentoring and developing staff members and creating a workplace culture where employees felt supported and understood their impact on our young families. After welcoming my first son in 2008, I felt an even stronger connection to the work St. Anne’s was doing in supporting young mothers and their children — my own transition to motherhood certainly highlighted the some of the obstacles these young women face, including identifying quality, affordable childcare, and having a support system to help when things don’t go as planned (which, with small children, tends to happen often).
I made the decision to return to school, and earned a Master of Social Work from the University of Southern California, concentrating on community organizing, planning, and administration. After graduating, I moved into the administrative side of St. Anne’s where I was given the opportunity to lead our national accreditation efforts and create the organization’s quality improvement (QI) department where I served as its first QI Director. In this role, I worked with department leaders to establish metrics for success and created systems to collect, analyze and share performance data with our stakeholders. I was then given the opportunity to serve as St. Anne’s Chief Operating Officer, where I oversaw all agency programming (housing, mental health, early childhood education, and workforce development), as well as the organization’s quality assurance and facilities departments.
At the beginning of 2023, after 17 years with St. Anne’s, I joined Aviva Family & Children’s Services as its new President and CEO. Throughout my career, and within each role I have served, I knew that my success relied upon a team of individual staff members — each with a different skillset, each with their own goals and aspirations, and each with their own personal story. I carry this same approach with me to this new role, and have found that Aviva has a team of strong leaders and staff members who are committed to serving this community.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I think that my history of playing competitive sports has helped me to view obstacles as opportunities and struggles as key learnings. There would be no light without the dark, and I truly believe that every challenge I have faced has taught me something, made me stronger, or bestowed upon me a gift that I didn’t know I needed. When I look back at my journey to this point, I find myself feeling immense gratitude for every twist and turn, including those highs and lows. Whether it was a colleague or supervisor with whom I just couldn’t connect or a particularly difficult client case that was near impossible to navigate, I have had my share of challenges. However, in looking back, I can say with certainty that the most difficult period of my professional life was experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Leading an organization that serves some of the most marginalized individuals and families in Los Angeles during one of the most unprecedented, unpredictable periods in modern history was a very difficult time. From making sure we had adequate safeguards and procedures in place (in compliance with ever-changing city/county/statewide ordinances), to obtaining PPE for hundreds of staff and clients, to moving 80% of our workforce to remote work, to obtaining the resources our children and families needed most, to keeping my own family safe and schooled from home…each day felt like a new battle. I am grateful to have had colleagues at the time who were willing and able to roll up their sleeves and do whatever was necessary to continue meeting the needs of our families while ensuring the safety and well-being of our amazing staff members. I think one of the lessons I will take with me from this is the importance of developing relationships with your peers where there is a sense of shared responsibility and mutual respect. Looking back, even though it was certainly a dark and scary time for many, I can point to dozens of instances where the beauty of teamwork and selflessness shone through — I am really proud to have been a part of that.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
As mentioned earlier, I currently serve as the President and CEO for Aviva Family & Children’s Services, a nonprofit organization based in Hollywood and serving children, youth and families across Los Angeles County. Aviva has been providing critically needed services to our communities for over 100 years. One of the most impressive features of this organization has been its ability to evolve to meet the ever-changing needs of the Los Angeles community and its service recipients –– most recently with the reopening of its famous “pink home” in Hollywood, which previously operated as a group home for teen girls in the foster care system, and now serves as an interim housing program for women and children experiencing homelessness.
Aviva’s incredible staff, made up of social workers, case managers, therapists and counselors, help to instill hope and support healing through compassion and connection, and our impact is pretty astounding: Aviva serves more than 3,200 children (birth to age 21) and caregivers each year, and our programs annually impact more than 6,400 clients, families, and household members.
Aviva offers services and supports through four main program areas: Crisis Intervention, which are intensive community-based services provided by multidisciplinary teams, which aim to stabilize families and promote healing so that they can remain together; Mental Health Services, which provide a safe and compassionate environment for youth and families to address issues impacting their mental health; Foster & Adoption, through which Aviva recruits, trains and supports resource families to offer loving homes for children (from birth to age 21) in Los Angeles County; and finally, Wallis House, our Interim Supportive Housing Program for women and children, which offers interim housing, food, essential resources, therapeutic care and case management for unhoused women and their children.
How do you define success?
I think success is unique to each person. Success is best defined by having set goals — these can be large, lofty goals that may take months or years to achieve: obtaining a college degree, passing an exam, remodeling a home, getting a promotion at work. While having some of these larger goals is great, it’s also important that we create smaller goals that we set for ourselves each day or week or month that help us along the way: wake up on time for school, drink eight glasses of water a day, call your mother once a week, submit that monthly report at work.
Establishing goals, both small and large, is necessary so that we can celebrate our progress no matter how big or small. I think sometimes we can get hung up on the outcome and completely miss out on the journey that gets us there. I have made it a point to celebrate “small victories” among my teams, and I think it helps to keep us grounded in our purpose while recognizing that success comes in many shapes and sizes.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.aviva.org
- Instagram: @avivasocal
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AvivaSoCal
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/avivasocal/
