Next Steps Executive Director Pam De Santiago has professionally lived and breathed social service for over ten years, although her calling came long before then. Always based in The Colony, she has deep roots and connections to the people she serves and the people who are her resources.
As a child she always felt intense empathy and the calling to counsel. In 2012, she joined Metro Relief in The Colony to coordinate volunteers and lead an outreach for people experiencing housing crisis. She then moved on to become a recovery coach. Pam personally shepherded so many people to rehab and stayed in the lobby for so long each time, that in 2015 the rehabilitation center sponsored and paid for her Nationally Certified Peer Recovery Support Specialist (NCPRSS) certification. It helped her change her conversation from focusing on what clients can’t do because of their addiction and choices, to what clients can do using what they have. This profound change deepened her commitment to social service in The Colony.
In 2019, she perceived a need for increased local service in The Colony. What if, she asked herself, the community came together to support the community?
So she took a deep breath and used her contacts and resources to create and open Next Steps, a 501(3)(c) non-profit devoted entirely to local services. It was tough to describe – “what do you do?” people would ask – but the answer was and is, “Next Steps helps people in The Colony who are either currently in crisis, or who need coaching and resources to avoid a crisis.” Doors she did not even knock on began to open, and her stellar local reputation has helped the organization become firmly implanted into the fiber of The Colony.