About Us | Our Student Population

FACES recruits students from local high schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. The backbone of the FACES program is our numerous partnerships with high schools, colleges such as UC Berkeley and health care institutions in the local areas.

FACES has a small but dedicated staff:

Tomás A. Magaña MD, Co-Director : Dr. Tomás A. Magaña, M.D., M.A. serves as Co-Founder and Co-Director of FACES for the Future. He oversees all programmatic operations and development. He is also a member of the pediatric medical staff at Children's Hospital & Research Center at Oakland, and medical director of St. Rose Hospital's Silva Pediatric Clinic in Hayward, CA., which serves predominantly underinsured, uninsured and immigrant patients. <read more>

Barbara Staggers MD, Co-Director: Dr. Staggers is Co-Founder and Co-Director of the FACES Program. A leader in adolescent medicine and a national authority on high-risk youth, urban and minority youth, violence, and healthcare concerns for multicultural societies, Dr. Barbara Staggers is division chief of Adolescent Medicine at Children’s Hospital & Research Center at Oakland. <read more>

Catherine West, Program Coordinator: Catherine West is responsible for the planning, coordination, and supervision of the daily operational activities of the FACES for the Future program. Catherine A. R. West, graduated from Brown University in Providence, RI with a bachelor’s degree in Community Health in 2003. She has worked extensively with communities of color. For her honors thesis, she studied in Mexico for 5 months and conducted qualitative ethnographic research with undocumented and documented Mexican immigrants in Providence, RI about access to health care and social cohesion. As a Health Career Connection intern, she worked with the Latino community in Boston, MA to design program implementation and evaluation materials for an asthma initiative in the homes, schools, and community. <read more>

René Macias, Psychosocial Coordinator: Mr. René F. Macias is the Psychosocial Coordinator for FACES and has been dedicated to the program since October 2000. He is an Oakland native with several years experience working with “at risk youth” and with community organizations throughout the East Bay. He began his career as a student at Fremont High School in 1992, where he trained as a Peer Educator to teach his classmates about conflict resolution, contraceptives, and other health related topics. Since then, he has worked at group homes, psychiatric facilities, and several non-profits organizations in a counseling capacity. Due to his diverse career experience in counseling, he has been able to create new components for the FACES program. He created and directs the Youth Health Leaders group, the FACES Media Project, Case Management Internships, and the psychosocial component. <read more>

Tyrell Jackson, Academic & Career Coordinator: As Academic & Career Coordinator, Tyrell Jackson coordinates all components of the academic and career programs. He brings with him over seven years of experience in working with disenfranchised youth here in the San Francisco Bay Area as well as extensive knowledge in the Health Care sector. His past work experience has included coordination of an internship program for Eastside San Jose youth; several years of work on behalf of children in Dependency Court system; and 4 years experience providing vocational and academic services to students moving into Allied Health Career programs at Bay Area Community Colleges. He has also participated in regional employer taskforce for Radiology Technicians (sponsored by BayArea Works), where he worked closely with Bay Area Hospitals in regards to meeting their employment needs. As well as developed Health Career training programs in collaboration with City College of San Francisco. <read more>

Yesenia Valenzuela is a graduate of the FACES Program and now works as a Peer Case Manager. While in FACES, Yesenia was a Youth Health Leader (YHL) and is now co-teaching the YHL curriculum in addition to providing individual case management. Her mission is to help the students in the FACES Program make the best of their experience and understand their life and career choices. She acts as a broker for the students providing the necessary academic, mental, and emotional tools necessary for them to suceed in the development and realization of their goals. Her unique personal experience as a Latina and professional training make it possible for her to become involved with the students and give back to the community through FACES. She currently attends Merritt College furthering her career as a social worker.

Rachel E. Crawford is an alumna of the first graduating class of FACES for the Future in 2003. She became a Youth Health Leader while in the program where she gained experience in Peer and Health Education. Currently, she is a Peer Case Manager for the FACES for the Future Program. Her mission is crisis prevention. Her focus is to examine the students’ issues through a cross-cultural and psychosocial perspective with the purpose of understanding the student as a whole, in order to provide quality assistance and assure their success in the FACES Program and at large. She endeavors to become a Psychologist.

Aairam Thomas, Study Coordinator for the Outreach & Training Cores for the NCMHD's Grant for Excellence in Nutrigenomics. He can help FACES youth learn about the many organizations in the East Bay community that are working to eradicate health disparities, such as UC Berkeley School of Public Health, Alameda County Public Health Department, the Hall of Health, the Ethnic Health Institute (EHI), and the African American Wellness Project (AAWP). As the Study Coordinator he constantly looks for ways to allow FACES students to gain experience through hands on work with these organizations. <read more>