Double Pride Mission Statement

It is the mission of Double Pride to empower people in The Deaf Community and other diverse communities. We provide cross-cultural programs, products, and services to individuals, couples, families, organizations, and service providers to meet both their personal and professional development needs.

By incorporating the best of both deaf and hearing worlds, our clients double their pride, their power. We accomplish this through: training and public speaking, counseling and consulting, teambuilding, workshops and events. We also provide a wide variety of publications and videos, unique retail products, sign language education programs for all age levels, as well as a unique and comprehensive web system full of relevant information.

At Double Pride, we know our clients are the most important aspect of everything we do. Therefore, we strive to maintain high quality products, effective services, and to employ only dedicated and skilled people. Our employees are encouraged to strive for the highest technical, organizational and people skills, while reaching for both their professional and personal goals.

We also support charities and non-profit organizations to the extent of our abilities through the Leo M. Jacobs Fund. It is in all these ways we proudly contribute to the worldwide awareness of deaf cultures and cross-cultural communication.

Sheila Jacobs MFT has first hand experience of living in two worlds. Growing up using American Sign Language (ASL) at home, Sheila was the only hearing person in a large Deaf family. Her parents, sister, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and some cousins are deaf. Many of her deaf relatives were active and well known in the national Deaf Community for several generations. Her experiences juggling her two worlds,the Deaf world and the Hearing world, and her studies in intercultural communication and cross-cultural psychology educated her extensively about the issues deaf and other multi-cultural groups face daily.

She worked for fifteen years as a freelance interpreter with a national reputation, and taught ASL and interpreting for ten years at the prestigious Vista College in Berkeley, California. In the mid 80's, Sheila was highly active in the international Children of Deaf Adults (CODA) movement, helping to plan the first CODA Conference and then serving on the first national CODA Advisory Board.

She is now a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in the San Francisco Bay Area, specializing in deaf/hearing, multicultural, and couples counseling. Blending her life experiences as a Coda (child of deaf adults), with her experiences as a counselor and as an interpreter, Ms. Jacobs has developed new counseling approaches for bilingual and bicultural individuals, couples, and families.

The result is her revolutionary company Double Pride. The Leo M. Jacobs Foundation works along with Double Pride's corporate divisions to address the counseling, consulting, training, education, public speaking, as well as the retail needs of her clients. Double Pride has been built to showcase her revolutionary approaches that empower her deaf and multi-cultural clients personally and professionally in order to have the best of both their worlds at home, at school, and at work.

In addition, she aims to serve mainstream America in helping deepen their understanding and experience of how to build better cross-cultural bridges with diverse communities at home, at school, and at work.