Note: As of February 2013, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Evaluation Fellowship Program has closed. More information about the program can be found at RWJF.org.

Profile Terry Guerra

Terry is a product of the East and the West. She was born and raised in Manila, Philippines, but has now lived more than half her life the United States, whose diversity she relishes. Her own Filipino culture is a blend of indigenous Malay roots with Chinese and Indian undertones, 400 years of Spanish piety and passion, 47 years of American pragmatism, and the mélange resulting from the Filipino Diaspora across the seven seas to the different continents of the world.

Since 1996, she has contributed in various ways to ACHIEVEability, a West Philadelphia nonprofit organization. She has done maintenance, bookkeeping, job/career coaching, volunteer management, newsletters and websites, grant writing, and even neighborhood strategic planning. Her current focus is on partnerships, grant writing and special projects, such as community-based participatory research together with the Philadelphia Area Research Community Coalition. Her current research involvements include the Philadelphia Collaborative Violence Prevention Center, the Empowering Youth Grassroots Programs project, and the Healthy Brains, Healthy Behavior project.

She also had a range of experiences prior to coming to ACHIEVEability: valuations of pension plans, teaching from pre-K to graduate students, and volunteering in emergency rooms, churches and social service agencies. Her greatest learning and personal development came through working with Medical Mission Sisters. Terry looks forward to bringing her diverse experiences into her evaluation work. She hopes that the RWJF evaluation fellowship will help her organization to increase its impact in helping disenfranchised families help themselves in making a positive change in their lives and in their community. Terry’s life so far has embodied the building of bridges, the connecting of disparate people, ideas, and fields of study. She looks forward to developing skills in evaluation as a way of building bridges between practice and impact.

Terry has a BS, magna cum laude, in statistics from the University of the Philippines, an MS in statistics and actuarial science from the University of Iowa, a certificate in spirituality and women’s leadership from Hartford Seminary, and a professional certificate in affordable housing development from NeighborWorks America.

About ACHIEVEability

ACHIEVEability helps create cycles of success and break the cycle of poverty through education, supportive services, community and economic development, housing and accountability. Our comprehensive, intensive and integrated services helps low income, single parent families earn their college or equivalent post-secondary trade school diplomas, develop life skills, repair credit and build assets, obtain jobs and pursue careers, and raise well-adjusted children and youth by helping them build on their assets and address their needs. We provide them with affordable housing, case management, tutoring, counseling, life skills workshops, family enrichment activities, child care and transportation subsidies, a computer center, help with financial aid, tuition and books and leadership development opportunities.

About the Evaluation Project

The ACHIEVEability Admissions Program recruits, selects and admits applicants to the ACHIEVEability Family Self-Sufficiency Academy. The ACHIEVEability Self-Sufficiency Academy is a comprehensive program which helps low income, single parent families to advance and achieve goals in terms of parents’ post-secondary academic achievement, finances and employment, life skills and personal development, and children’s education and overall development. Services include: affordable housing, case management, tutoring, financial aid for education and supplies, subsidies for transportation and child care, a computer center, workshops on a gamut of life skills (parenting, financial, physical and psychological health, etc.), drug and alcohol counseling, family enrichment activities and leadership development opportunities.