Kirby and the staff want to provide the support for the students to heal and to develop enough self-confidence to live healthy lives. For some, that means living different lives than their families are living. Many education experts say that kids wouldn’t have problems if their parents would just get involved. But the parents of most of the students at Lincoln High are themselves are struggling with the effects of their own childhood trauma, and many are passing the trauma on to their children.

As Kirby puts it: “Their family is in a plane that’s going to crash. We tell them: ‘You’re going to parachute out. You’re going to college.’ Their family is likely to say to them: ‘Hey you in the parachute — get back in this plane. We need you to go to work and support us.’ The people in the plane give lots of pushback: ‘What? You’re too good to be with our family now?’ Sometimes kids change back. Sometimes kids get healthy and say: ‘I don’t want to live like that anymore.’”