I was born on November 21, 1983, to my parents, Janet Marie Lederhaus and Scott Charles Lederhaus. It was at St. Joseph’s Hospital in the City of Orange, CA. I am a quadruplet, which is to say I was born with 3 others, Eric Scott Lederhaus, Jeffrey Allen Lederhaus, and Kate Marie Lederhaus. My mother was taking fertility drugs at the time as it was difficult for her to get pregnant naturally. As is often the case in this situation, she had multiples. We are fraternal, and are all still healthy and alive (as we were quite premature; I was 2 lbs 9 oz as a newborn). It was required that we stay in incubators for a period of time before we were safe to go home.
My parents were surprised when my mother got pregnant with my younger sister, Jenna Rose Lederhaus, on August 14, 1985. So I have a total of 2 brothers and 2 sisters. We grew up in Southern California. Specifically, a city called Claremont, which is about an hour east of Los Angeles; also known as the “Inland Empire”. My father is a retired brain surgeon, and he practiced from about the early 80’s until he retired in about 2018ish. My mother worked as a nurse, but eventually stopped working to take care of and raise all of us.
My siblings and I all went to the same schools together, even up through undergrad. I went to Claremont High School from 1998 through 2002. I performed well in school and my fondest memories come from running on the cross county and track and field team, where I developed my love for running that I enjoy today. After high school, and for reasons still unknown to me, my siblings and I (including my younger sister a year later) went to the same college — UCSB (University of California, Santa Barbara).
We were there from 2002 through 2006. I earned my bachelor’s degree in Psychology. It was after college that my siblings and I finally parted out own ways. I moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2006. The reason I moved there was because a job in “wilderness therapy” was recommended to me. I worked as a staff at a program that tried to support and rehabilitate adolescents who experienced a range of mental health, behavioral, or substance abuse issues. I would live out in the woods every other week, and work with rotating staff teams to support these teenagers during their time in the program (usually 3–4 months). After a couple years working in wilderness therapy and later a residential treatment program, I decided to go back to school to get my master’s degree in social work. I was accepted to the University of Utah and was enrolled in the program from 2008 to 2010. I lived in Utah for most of my 20s, from 2006 through 2012. My love for running grew as I enjoyed running on various trails or mountain ranges throughout the beautiful state.
I started to sign up for more races as I started to run with friends who were interested in the same — long, grueling but gorgeous running. After graduate school I worked for a therapeutic boarding school and later a substance abuse rehabilitation program with teenagers as an intern social worker. I did that for a couple of years before I decided to move back to California to be closer to my family. *This is where things take a negative turn, and it relates to why I am requesting your services. I am happy to elaborate more on that if you’d like, but it doesn’t make for a positive bio.
I spent a couple years in southern California, but eventually made my way up to the Bay Area, where I have lived since 2014. I held a few random jobs from about 2012 through 2014, but returned back to social work in 2016. Since 2016, I have worked in a variety of settings, mostly with aging adults or adults with significant health issues (which also includes issues with substance abuse and complicated psychiatric conditions).
Since 2016 I’ve worked as a social worker at a skilled nursing facility (Vasona Creek Health Center), a program called Homebridge (in SF, which aims to provide in-home care to struggling adults and seniors), as an intensive case manager for a nonprofit called the Institute on Aging, and finally for the City and County of SF where I work for a program called In-Home Supportive Services.
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