Team Spotlight: Tia Hawkins, Case Manager
At Corrie’s House, healing begins with safety, trust, and relationships. Behind every participant’s journey is a trauma-informed team committed to meeting youth where they are, recognizing their strengths, and helping them move toward healing, stability, and hope. Our dedicated case manager, Tia Hawkins, plays a central role in helping participants navigate that journey.
Tia describes Corrie’s House as a place where youth who’ve experienced sexual exploitation are given a space to heal, grow, and work toward meaningful goals in a safe, trauma-informed, and supportive environment.
“Corrie’s House gives youth a place where they can feel safe, supported, and empowered to work toward a healthier future,” Tia shares.
While every participant’s journey looks different, Corrie’s House provides individualized support designed to address the whole person. Services include mental health support, case management, education advocacy, life skills development, healthy relationship education, employment readiness and job opportunities, recreational and community engagement, and support for family healing and reunification when appropriate.
At the center of this work is a belief that healing happens through relationships, consistency, and helping youth rediscover their strengths.
Walking Alongside Each Participant
Case management is a steady thread connecting every part of a participant’s experience. Tia explains that her role is not simply about coordinating services, but about walking alongside youth as they navigate challenges and pursue their goals.
On any given day, she may check in with participants, help problem solve difficult situations, coordinate with therapists, schools, probation officers, county social workers, and medical providers, or advocate for resources that remove barriers to progress. Relationship building is at the heart of her work.
“I support participants through guidance, advocacy, and connection to resources while making sure they feel heard and supported,” Tia shares.
Many youth must also navigate complex systems, including child protection, schools, healthcare, and sometimes the courts. These systems can feel overwhelming and intimidating, particularly for young people who’ve experienced trauma. Tia helps simplify complicated processes into understandable steps, attends meetings, advocates for participants’ needs, and ensures their voices remain centered in decisions that impact their lives.
Her role helps transform intimidating systems into experiences where youth feel informed, supported, and empowered.
The Empowered Living Plan: A Roadmap For Growth
A cornerstone of care at Corrie’s House is the Empowered Living Plan (ELP), a personalized, strengths-based roadmap created in partnership with each participant to guide growth, healing, and future goals.
Together, Tia and each youth identify strengths, needs, and individualized goals in key areas of life, including:
Mental and emotional wellness
Education and school success
Spirituality
Healthy relationships and personal boundaries
Employment readiness and job skills
Future housing goals
Life skills: budgeting, cooking, time management, communication, and decision making
Physical health and wellness
Family connection and reunification when appropriate
Personal growth, identity, values, and future aspirations
Rather than imposing expectations, the process begins with conversations about what matters most to the participant and what they hope for themselves. Larger goals are broken into manageable weekly steps that feel achievable and that momentum can build over time.
Participants regularly review their goals with staff, celebrate wins, and identify new areas for growth.
“Healing looks different for every participant,” Tia explains. “We meet them where they are and help them take steps toward where they want to be.”
Because healing is not linear, the Empowered Living Plan remains flexible. Goals evolve as participants grow, ensuring support reflects each youth’s readiness, pace, and changing needs.
Supporting the Whole Person
Tia’s work extends far beyond logistics and planning. It centers on helping participants build confidence, discover purpose, develop a stronger sense of identity, dignity, self-worth, and hope for their future.
Through consistent encouragement and meaningful relationships, youth begin recognizing strengths that may have been overshadowed by trauma. They build resilience, courage, leadership, creativity, and potential.
Life skills development is another essential focus. Through one-on-one guidance, everyday experiences, and group sessions with staff, participants practice emotional regulation, communication, conflict resolution, decision-making, budgeting, healthy routines, and workplace readiness.
When participants desire it, conversations may also include spirituality, cultural needs, or identity, creating space for reflection about who they are and who they hope to become.
What Empowerment Looks Like
For Tia, empowerment often shows up in everyday moments. Success is measured not only in major milestones, but also in meaningful everyday victories of increased stability, participation at school or in group sessions, stronger coping skills, greater self-advocacy, healthier relationships, or beginning to believe in a future they once struggled to imagine.
Each step forward matters and is celebrated.
Tia’s hope for every participant is lasting:
“I hope they carry a sense of self-worth, confidence, and the belief that they are capable of building the life they want.”
The Heart of Case Management
Many people assume case management is primarily about connecting resources. While resources matter, Tia emphasizes that the true work is relational.
Healing and stability require time, consistency, and trust. Showing up day after day to listen, advocate, encourage, and believe in each youth participant creates the foundation where transformation becomes possible.
Through her dedication, Tia helps youth take meaningful, achievable steps toward healing and independence that build the confidence, life skills, healthy relationships, and support systems enabling them to remain free from exploitation while empowering them to pursue their goals, discover their strengths, and build the future they dream for themselves.
We are deeply grateful for the transformative care Tia provides to youth who need to know they are supported, valued, and never alone. We could not do this work without our faithful community of supporters. Restoration is possible, and together, we are helping youth take meaningful steps toward healing, hope, and lasting freedom from exploitation.