COSTA MESA : Save Our Selves Changes the Guard

Monday was an ordinary day at the local social service outfit Save Our Selves. Children played while their parents waited for bags of groceries. Volunteers passed out checks for lodging, medical care and other needs.

But behind the scenes, inside the onetime light industrial building that now houses the agency, there was a changing of the guard. Jean Forbath, founder of the 20-year-old charity, turned over the reins to her successor, Barbara Considine.

Considine, 33, a staff member with the Orange County Human Relations Commission for four years, was named executive director of SOS by its board of directors in July, after Forbath’s announcement that she would retire.

Forbath is continuing some involvement with SOS and spent Monday morning orienting Considine to the tasks at hand.

By midday Monday, Considine had already filled at least one page of a yellow legal pad with a list of things to do and was hard at work trying to learn names of volunteers and settle into a routine.

She will be working very closely with about 200 volunteers who keep SOS afloat and ensure that the agency’s philosophy--”We are here to serve, not to judge”--is carried out. Two mornings a week, she will do financial screening, talking to clients about their needs.

In addition, she will be working on several projects. One of them is overseeing the moving of the organization’s medical and dental clinic from the city-managed Rea Community Center to the new building. Construction is due to begin within the month.

Another ongoing project is maintaining good relations with neighbors, an often elusive goal at the agency’s old home.

“Since we’ve been here, relations have been good and we want to keep it that way,” Considine said.

She also will be working to raise more funds and bring in more food to the agency. A tour through the building Monday revealed that the agency’s supply of food is down a bit.

“I don’t know if it’s just because it’s the summer or if people think we don’t need it now that we’ve moved to this nice, new building, but there’s a real scarcity of food for our clients,” Considine said.

Considine’s new office is just a desk in a back corner, but it’s an improvement over working in the basement of a county building, she said. Now she has a window, albeit one with a view of parked cars beyond steel bars and a chain-link fence.

“I’m just grateful for a window with sun and air,” Considine said.

After graduating from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Considine worked for the federal VISTA program, doing community work in migrant camps. She was also a union organizer for the United Farm Workers.

Before joining the Human Relations Commission, she worked at processing plants in Watsonville and Fullerton as a bilingual liaison between workers and management. Her fluency in Spanish has already come in handy as she interpreted on Monday for a man who needed physical therapy for an injured knee.