A Founder’s Story
What If We Could Reach Them Earlier?
The first time Dr. Alicia La Hoz met him, he was eight years old and impossibly quiet. His feet didn’t touch the ground as he sat in the oversized counseling chair, hands balled into small fists.
Alicia knelt down to meet his eyes.
“Hi,” she said gently. “What’s your name?”
He didn’t answer. After several long seconds, he whispered, barely audible, “It’s my fault.”
Alicia paused. “What’s your fault?”
He swallowed hard. “They’re breaking up… because of me.”
That moment, his tiny voice confessing a guilt far too heavy for his small shoulders, changed everything for her. She’d counseled heartbreaking cases before: a sixteen-year-old mother traumatized by abuse, a nine-year-old girl entering foster care after witnessing her father overdose, couples repeating patterns they didn’t know how to stop. But something about this eight-year-old pierced her deeper than usual.
It wasn’t just the pain. It was the belief behind it:
He thought he deserved it.
For Alicia, this became the turning point.
She found herself replaying his words on her drive home, while cooking dinner, even in the middle of the night.
What if he had learned earlier that he wasn’t responsible for other people’s pain?
What if children didn’t have to carry wounds that weren’t theirs?
She began to notice the pattern everywhere—children blaming themselves, parents trapped in cycles they didn’t understand, couples fractured by habits no one had taught them to break.
The clinical system she worked in was built to respond to crises, not prevent them. That realization became the catalyst.
In 2006, fueled by compassion and urgency, she founded Family Bridges/Lazos de Familia. It began humbly with borrowed rooms, folding chairs, and volunteer facilitators, but the vision was bold:
Teach relationship skills early. Strengthen families before they fracture. Reach young people before trauma rewrites their future.
Over time, that vision expanded into programs, partnerships, and storytelling-based experiences: workshops, podcasts, videos, skits, theatre productions, mentoring, and school collaborations. Alicia blended three strands—clinical wisdom, biblical values, and creative storytelling—to reach families in ways that felt practical, emotional, and culturally rooted.
And then, in 2017, she created Wise Up Girl, a leadership and relationship program designed specifically for girls like the sisters, cousins, and classmates of that eight-year-old boy. Girls navigating chaos. Girls absorbing guilt. Girls believing they were the problem.
Her mission was simple:
Show them they aren’t.
Over the years, Family Bridges expanded nationally and internationally. Wise Up Girl began serving more than 500 girls annually, equipping them with tools for setting boundaries, regulating emotions, building confidence, recognizing healthy relationships, and learning leadership skills.
Still, Alicia wondered about that boy. Where was he now? Did he still believe it was his fault? Did anyone ever tell him the truth she wished he had heard sooner:
You are not responsible for the conflicts or choices of the adults around you. Their pain is not yours to carry.
She remembers the first time she watched a Wise Up Girl participant share her transformation on stage. The young woman spoke with clarity and strength about learning to value herself, recognize unhealthy patterns, and choose a healthier path forward.
At last, she saw the answer to her question years ago.
This is what early intervention looks like.
This is what prevention can do.
Across thousands of families, the outcomes reflected the impact:
More than 160,000 individuals served
Partnerships with universities for research-based evaluation
A dramatic increase, from 6.6% to 61%, in youth recognizing healthy relationship behaviors
Measurable declines in intentions to engage in harmful behaviors
These weren’t just statistics. They were proof of something she had always believed:
Healing is powerful, but prevention is transformational.
At events, Alicia sometimes shares the story of the eight-year-old boy. She never reveals his name. She simply ends with the same line:
“He taught me that early intervention isn’t optional, it’s essential.”
Today, when Alicia stands surrounded by Wise Up Girl participants, arms linked, faces bright with confidence. She sees futures wider than the wounds they once carried.
Her journey began with one child’s whispered guilt. It continues with thousands of young people discovering their value. And it all circles back to one driving question:
What if we reach them before trauma rewrites their story?
