Riva Levy Hopes Princeton's Prevention Programs Can Help Kids Be Inspired, Not Hindered, by Life's Confusion and Chaos

Princeton, NJ – Even as Covid 19 is dissipating, the pandemic is still generating aftershocks – including mental health challenges for the younger generation. One Princeton resident with a front row seat to those challenges is Riva Levy, the municipality’s prevention programs coordinator for youth.

When the pandemic was at its height, Riva drew on her expertise and experience and altered her programming slightly, realizing that “during Covid, there was a clear need for teens to give them an opportunity to talk to people and open up.” At a time when in-person social contact and connection was at a standstill, Riva acknowledged that “not meeting was not an option.” So, even when young adults were already spending countless hours on Zoom, Riva switched to Zoom to make her connection.

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As the world has reopened and life has returned to normal in many senses, Riva still notes increasing anxiety about the future among young adults. The “unknown causes us to worry,” she says, since we cannot control what is coming next. The pandemic heightened these fears, since it altered everything from the economy, schools, social environments, politics, and more.

A continued lack of stability creates more “fear of what is to come,” says Riva. “More knowledge keeps us grounded because we can take control over our lives.” But when this knowledge and stability are missing, young adults and teens can sometimes turn to “using substances to numb or deal with their feelings.”

To Riva, confusion is part of life and growth. “But when you don't feel good about yourself and there is a lot of anxiety, it makes it harder to enjoy this confusion.”

To manage this confusion and handle the chaos, one of the best ways to “enjoy” or “immerse oneself” in the confusion is to foster connections and community engagement: Riva notes that when people are feeling lost or are in doubt, “one way to feel good is doing good things for others.” She views the act as truly symbiotic, helping both parties to create bonds and aid others.

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Until last year Riva worked under the umbrella of Corner House, which for more than 50 years had been the municipality’s drug and alcohol treatment and prevention program. But then the municipality outsourced its mental health and addiction services to Catholic Charities -- except for Riva’s job. She is now the prevention programs coordinator for youth for the municipality of Princeton, the same job she had at Corner House. She also is an inpatient clinician at Princeton house behavioral health.

In her development of the programs at Corner House and now municipality, Riva turns to what for her is a familiar model - Israeli youth movements. In Israel, she explains, “kids belong to youth movements where older teens meet with younger teens, completing activities and socializing with them on a weekly basis. There is no clear agenda or task, rather the continuous goal is to create a safe space and foster relationships with an older role model.” Having successfully created an adjacent program model in Princeton, her dream is to have this in “other towns in America.” For now, though, Riva continues to integrate her programming into the school system, urging more private schools in the area to join, and expressing how lucky the town and young people are to have resources such as these.

Riva’s own experience with community minded youth movements began as a child, growing up in Israel on a kibbutz. Her parents, although they initially met in New York City, chose to raise their family in Israel. Both were members of a New York City based Zionist youth movement called “Hashomer Hatzair,” but the two separately relocated to Israel to help build Kibbutz Ein Dor, where Riva and her siblings were raised. Her father arrived in Israel immediately after serving in the American army in World War II. Riva’s mother, having completed her psychology degree, arrived later in 1952. The two reunited and were married on the kibbutz.

Each and every day, Riva’s parents strove to raise a family and “build [the] kibbutz as part of its worldview.” On the kibbutz, kids slept in their own children's houses, and parents in a separate house. The idea behind this design was that “once children arrive at the ‘parents home,’ between the hours of 4 and 7 p.m. [after the completion of the work day], all attention [from the parents] is devoted to their kids for this period of time,” Riva says. Once this socializing was finished for the evening, the “parents bring their kids back to the children's house.” The structure was incredibly community driven - whether it was the nuclear family community which had designated time to bond, or the greater community which most adults worked for and gave back to.

Interestingly enough, Riva met her Howard in Israel but in a different capacity. She recounts the story of meeting the “really tall guy” at an Israeli hotel. As it turns out, Howard, a former basketball player at Princeton University, was staying at the hotel where Riva worked as part of a trip to Israel to coach basketball clinics. At the time, he was a member of the coaching staff for the Princeton men’s team. She was then a student at Tel Aviv University, but eventually left to return with Howard to the United States. She enrolled in George Washington University, where she earned her BA in Judaic Studies and Religion, before relocating with Howard to New York City. She later earned her master’s in social work from Rutgers. He started his law business, but the two moved to Princeton shortly thereafter, where they have resided ever since, and have become integral members of the Princeton community.

Although Riva and Howard did not raise their children in Israel, she mentions that most of her “nieces and nephews are in Israel,” and that all of her children are “very connected to Israel, and feel very loyal to the country.” Today, her children are ages 30, 27, and 24. Her son went to Franklin and Marshall where he played basketball and received his degree in Political Science. Today, he teaches in the Bronx. Her older daughter earned her degree from Cornell’s Hotel Administration and Hospitality Management School and is now pursuing a graduate degree in Food Studies at New York University. Her younger daughter graduated from Lehigh University with a degree in Political Science and is about to start her graduate degree in Social Work.

Howard continues his legal work, while also currently coaching the Mercer County Community College men’s basketball team. Riva describes his role as multidimensional - he is a “teacher, parent, mentor, coach, and social worker” all at once. He, too, appreciates the importance of being in and contributing to the community.

Assuming various roles in the Princeton community, Riva’s current primary jobs are her work at Princeton House - a residential treatment facility, and for the Human Services Department of the Princeton Municipality. In previous years, she also worked for Princeton Public Schools running programs including the Teen Advisory Group (TAG), Growing up Accepted as an Individual in America (GAIA), Peer to Peer, Seniors for Seniors, and more. She created the 101 Fund Talent Show, a scholarship fundraiser that still occurs annually, and is the former Riverside PTO president. Additionally, she taught Jewish Center students and led the Center’s Israel programs.

In the years following Covid, Corner House - one of the organizations which Riva had previously worked for - became part of the Princeton Municipality. Corner House was a behavioral health center committed to preventing and treating alcohol and drug addiction by engaging and supporting youth, adults, and families in life-long healthy living and recovery. This came in the form of various programs, events, and counseling options. Corner House sought to engage youth and create a safe space to meet others and express individual personalities, while simultaneously educating about drugs and alcohol. Interactive games, story examples, and other exercises were designed by students in leadership programs, and presented to younger students at various schools in the Princeton area. One goal of the programs was to normalize students making mistakes with drugs and alcohol, but creating an environment where participants feel safe enough to seek advice and guidance from their peers and mentors. Additional programming has been developed in recent years aimed towards acceptance of diverse viewpoints, cultures, and opinions.

With the change in leadership at Corner House in 2023, Riva explains that Corner House was also funded partly by the municipality. When the municipality became the sole operator, the transition was seamless. Riva has maintained the programs that she cultivated at Corner House and continues their mission. She credits the Municipality for “agreeing [and acknowledging] that [Corner House’s] leadership programs should continue, and assumed her current role as prevention programs coordinator for youth in the Municipality. In this capacity, she continues working to help the next generations of leaders and most importantly: humans. It is the “connection that is so important,” she adds. The goal of all of these programs is to remind everyone that they have people who care about and are there to listen to them.

In addition to her current work for the Municipality, Riva also works part time as a mental health clinician at Princeton House. Princeton House - overseen by Penn Medicine - provides 24/7 inpatient intensive care to members. Riva describes her role as a therapist in providing both one-on-one services, and doing what she does best: creating and facilitating group spaces. “The beauty of groups is that they foster interaction,” she notes. Working at Princeton House for almost 20 years, she has tirelessly provided patients with resources and skills to feel safe and to seek out help.

Returning to the topic of harnessing and controlling confusion, Riva reminds us that when people are “at war” with their own mind, they must turn to others to ground them. This could be family, friends, teammates, colleagues, or perhaps someone you have just met. Networks are found in communities, and Riva wholeheartedly believes these networks can be synthetically created. People who are not born into a strong network must have the opportunities to build one, which is what Riva strives to do in all her initiatives. Confusion and anxiety are inevitable, especially as young people with the fallout from the pandemic and the constantly changing world.

As Riva says, the key is interacting and building a foundation “to ground yourself.” Your network should encourage and provide you with the confidence to “embrace confusion,” allowing it to inspire rather than hinder you.

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