From Grieving Teen to Young Adult Ambassador: Kalicia’s Valerie’s House Journey

Five years ago, Kalicia C. was a 16-year-old sophomore at Lehigh Senior High School trying to navigate life after the death of her father, Kevin.

Today, she is a Young Adult Ambassador at Valerie’s House, a social work major entering her senior year of college, and someone who helps support grieving teens who are walking a path she knows all too well.

“My first experience with grief, I was 14 years old and I lost my grandma on my dad’s side,” Kalicia said. “And then 2 years after when I was 16, I lost my dad.”

Originally from Jamaica, Kalicia and her family had only been living in the United States for about seven months when her father died from COVID-19 in June 2021.

“It was very sudden, very abrupt,” she said. “It wasn’t expected or anything like that.”

The loss impacted every part of family life.

“We were drifting apart,” Kalicia said, describing the relationship between her and her mother after her father’s death. “We weren’t as close as we used to. We were constantly arguing.”

Several months later, a school counselor connected the family with Valerie’s House.

At first, Kalicia wasn’t interested.

“I wasn’t open to it because at the time I didn’t think I needed it and I thought I had everything figured because I’m 16,” she said.

She remembers attending group nights at the former Valerie’s House location and spending her first meetings mostly silent.

“My first night I didn’t talk. My second night, I barely talked.”

That began to change as she got to know the facilitators and other teens in her group.

“I think the people that work here are very genuine,” she said. “I feel like my experience of ours, even at 16 and my sister at the time was 9 years old, we could feel that the people here wanted to help us.”

One of those people was her facilitator, Carolyn, who helped make a lasting impact on her life.

As Kalicia became more comfortable sharing her story, she also began imagining a future where she could help others.

“I realized I would love to do something like this,” she said. “This is where I want to, this is what I see myself doing for a career.”

Now a social work major, she volunteers with Valerie’s House group nights and community outreach efforts, often working with teens.

“I do like the teen group because I feel like you’re at the age where you’re learning to know yourself,” she said. “Especially because that’s when I lost my dad.”

For Kalicia, one of the greatest gifts Valerie’s House provided was helping her learn that grief doesn’t have to remain locked away.

“I can speak about my grief. I can talk about my dad and I’ll be fine,” she said. “I can honor him by speaking about him without breaking down.”

That ability has transformed not only her own life but also the way she supports others, including her younger sister.

Today, Kalicia serves as a reminder to teens that life can look very different than it does in the earliest days of grief.

“It will get better,” she said. “You don’t know at the time, especially when you’re a teenager. You feel like you’re not seeing five years from now. You’re not seeing that things will get better.”

Looking back, she never imagined she would become a Young Adult Ambassador helping other grieving teens.

“I would have never thought five years from now that I would be a social work major, in my senior year of social work to work in grief,” she said.

When asked if she feels like she is becoming the person she needed when she was 16 years old, her answer came quickly.

“Yes, I do.”

Through her work at Valerie’s House, Kalicia is helping create the kind of support she once needed herself — proving that while grief changes us, it can also inspire us to help others find connection, hope, and understanding.