About Us
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Bounce Back Generation's mission is to help individuals, families, organizations and systems bounce back from toxic stress and trauma by building and sharing practical tools for resilience.
In 2011, we began our work as the Healthy Generations Project in a public housing community in San Francisco. A grandmother told us "we are all suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder" because of the constant presence of violent crime, drug use, poverty, institutional racism, and domestic dysfunction. That moment set us on a journey to understand how stress and trauma were impacting the community, and inspired us to work together to build resilience.
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With the wisdom of the community and intensive study into the leading scientific research on the health impacts of trauma and toxic stress, we have created and tested practical tools that have improved educational achievement, support healthy childhood development, increase community involvement, and transform individuals in our participant communities.
One of our proudest achievements is our peer hiring and training program: parents, grandparents, and concerned community members are the change agents for themselves, their families, and communities--what we call “resilience-builders”. We believe our model can be achieved in any group, large and small. We can help organizations, teams, families, and individuals put our tools into practice: with our 6 Building Blocks to Resilience, Reboot the Village process, and Roadmap to Resilience, we offer easy-to-implement large scale systems changes. Our staff is mostly comprised of former peer trainees, bringing years of experience as resilience-builders in their community and personal lives.
By becoming a Resilience-Builder, each of us has an opportunity to improve outcomes for this generation, and generations to come.
Our Mission
Meet The Team
Staff
Jennifer strives to understand and change what keeps people from living their fullest and freest lives. She knows that from our pain and trauma can come great strength, joy, and connection. Jennifer is an attorney and close to 20 years of experience leading community development organizations, community policing, and health and education-related programming. She builds resilience by spending time with her son and two dogs in nature to contemplate and recharge.
Jennifer Dhillon
Executive Director
Tori is an autistic non-binary lesbian filmmaker, content coordinator, and illustrator originally from South Florida. They believe that individuals should be protected, nurtured, and empowered in an aim to heal the collective. They build resilience through organizing local movement meditation events, drawing, painting, and spending quality time with their loving partner and two puppies.
Tori Taylor
Content Coordinator
Shankel began working as a resident Community Leader with BBG in 2018 and later becoming the program manager in 2020. Born and raised in San Francisco, Ca her lived and work experiences make her uniquely situated to understand trauma and its impacts and to provide training on developing resilience. Shankel has done work with youth such as previously being a youth outreach supervisor with over 5 years of experience training youth and adults in life skills and resilience-building.
Shankel McNeal
Program Manager
Annie is a Program Manager and came to BBG with a background in nonprofit administration and community organizing. She cultivates her favorite building blocks—belonging and storytelling—through cooking and baking, art, and prison-based reading and writing communities.
Annie Reynolds
Program Manager
Angelica lives in the Potrero Hill neighborhood with her 3 handsome sons and 3 dogs. As an independent, hard-working, loving, and caring mother, she has found many coping skills to keep her resilient including cooking, pampering herself (shopping for makeup), listening to music, and going for a drive.
Angelica Rebolledo
Peer Filmmaker
Micah is a former housing commissioner and single father raising his very talented 6-year-old daughter in San Francisco. He's demonstrating resilience through working long hours as a security officer while pursuing a career in the film industry.
Micah Allen
Peer Filmmaker
Niesha Brown has been a resident in Potrero Hill off and on for the past 42 years. She is a long-time community leader, supporter, and entrepreneur; and a proud parent of a 27-year-old College Graduate. She loves animals--especially her dog.
Niesha Brown
Peer Filmmaker
Community Advisors and Filmmakers
Petra has been a resident at Potrero for 20 years and is a very involved and beloved member of the community. She enjoys walking the children to elementary school and cooking for the community. She loves her dog Sassy, who is her constant companion.
Petra Wynn
Advisory Committee Member
Eddie is a loving father of 7 daughters and a community health leader in the Potrero Hill community, where he has been a resident for 38 years. He enjoys traveling and attending conferences with the A. Phillip Randolph Institute.
Eddie Kittrell
Advisory Committee Member
I am a filmmaker for Bounce Back Generation. I worked with the unhoused population in my previous jobs. We were trained and worked with the principles of trauma informed care and resilience building in mind. Although these jobs were personally fulfilling they could also be stressful. Sometimes I brought this stress home with me. To help me with my own resilience, at the end of the day I would go to a quiet place and play my guitar. This practice, which I do until now, helps me cope with stress, calms me down and gets me ready for sleep.
Gene Manalo
Peer Filmmaker
Ren Weber is a mixed writer born and raised in San Francisco. She attends UC Berkeley and is majoring in psychology. She is a creative writer and has been published in The New York Times Modern Love column and The Rumpus. She is a graphic designer for BBG.
Ren Weber
Graphic Designer
Keya is a single Black mother of 4, whom she loves so much. She lives in San Francisco supporting her family and working in her community. To build resilience, Keya turns on some music (oldies but goodies) and finds a relaxing eternal summer in her alone time.
Keya Pikes
Advisory Committee Member
As a parent, educator, and artist, Jeanette enjoys connecting with the community through the arts as a vehicle of change and self-discovery. She believes creativity is powerful and savored two-fold when it blossoms in spite of, or as a result of, adversity. Jeanette experiences resilience in the beauty and joy found in expression.
Jeanette Au
Art Therapy Peer Filmmaker
Board Members
Radha is the principal of Seshagiri Consulting, providing policy analysis and strategic planning for corporate, nonprofit, and government agencies. She has a BA in Economics from UC Berkeley, an MPP from Georgetown and Oxford University in International Management. Radha and her husband live in Berkeley with their two daughters.
Radha Sheshagiri
Mandisa holds faculty positions at Napa Valley College and California College of the Arts teaching humanities, women’s studies, and diversity studies. She is finalizing her PhD. dissertation on sustainability and bio culture while she lives in the Bay Area with her teenage daughter.
Mandisa Amber Wood
Darbi holds a Bachelor’s in Social Work and is the Chief Strategist and Director of Contracts at East Oakland Collective with decades of experience in Senior Leadership in the SF Bay Area nonprofit sector. She currently is raising her two adopted children in her footsteps as social justice leaders. In their free time, her family loves hiking and on the river with their dog Mars and traveling to tropical beaches for ocean adventures.
Darbi Howard
Priya Brinton
Bio coming soon!
With a Masters in Public Health, Emily has worked in underserved communities from a trauma informed lens to address homelessness, food security, and peer support programming. Emily is a Midwest transplant to the Bay Area and enjoys cooking and yoga.
Emily Claassen