How a 12-Year Promise Breaks Generational Poverty

When I read the description, I was like, “Well, there’s some mistake that human services do not support individuals for 12 years.” Like, that’s that’s unheard of. That’s strange. And then when they were like, “No, no, this is this is their job.” Um, I yeah, I couldn’t even wrap my head around it. Welcome to the Know Your Ship podcast presented by E-Hub. I’m your host, Frank Dolce. So, with us today, we are so lucky to have Kelsey Lewis. She’s the executive director of Friends of the Children Utah. And you’ve been in that role for how long? Just over three years now? Three years. And you started when that organization decided to come to Utah? No, I’m

the second executive director. Yeah. We launched in March of 2020. Okay. Yeah. So, you’ve been in the role for three years. Have how long have you been with the organization the whole time? Mm-m. Since they were in came from a different organization. This is this is the good stuff. Oh, it’s the good stuff. Yeah. By the way, this e-hub gives a ship is part of the broader e-hub know your ship podcast network. So, welcome. Thank you for taking the time. Thanks for being here. We I already feel like we’re friendly. We’ve given you a nickname. Yeah. Koo. I like that one. Frank coined that. I did. Trademark. All right. Yeah. I think too I think

it’s important to mention that the Gives a Ship podcast is focused on local nonprofits uh as a way for e-hub to give back to the nonprofit community and highlight the organizations that are moving the needle in so many different directions. And so when we look at, you know, who we’re going to bring on to this, it’s who are those change makers, who are the individuals who are moving the needle and really making change happen in our in our background, in our community. Yeah. Thank you. That’s well said. Appreciate that. Well, we’re excited to hear your story and to hear about the organization and all of the things that you’re doing. So, I typically like to

start with kind of your background. Sure. How you how you got here, how you ended up here. Is that a good place? Uh, that’s what I would ask. Okay. Like, did you wake up one day and say, “I want to work here.” Or just I always wonder that. And by the way, if I say charitable organization, but you say nonprofit, nonprofit, is it all good? It’s equivalent. All the same. Okay. All right. So, did you did you grow up thinking that? Did you grow up thinking I want to work with a charitable organization? Was there some significant occurrence in your life? I knew from the time I was very young that I wanted to work

with children that that I knew. I don’t think I had really a concept of what that would look like. Um I think that my sort of path, the trajectory that I was on was oh I’m going to be a psychologist, right? Or so I actually um pursued uh social work. So in my undergrad and I have a master’s of social work with an emphasis in child welfare from the University of Utah. And I really I think because I had worked so much with children in my own childhood in my own formative years um I thought well that’s what I’m going to continue to do and do some kind of real direct service work. Uh my

first job like really you know forward facing in the community was with Division of Child and Family Services. So, I worked as a case worker in the foster care system, which was really eye opening for me coming from a place of incredible um privilege. I, you know, my I always knew where my next meal was coming from. I lived in a, you know, a nice home with my beautiful family, with my incredibly supportive parents and awesome siblings. And it was really eye opening to see what kind of challenges children are facing and navigating. So I found that both heartbreaking and also really um compelling and really motivating. I know I don’t or I guess I

should say came to know I don’t have the patience I think to be a really uh good direct service provider. And when I say that there was a time I thought I’m going to be a therapist. So, I’m going to be a clinical therapist. I’m going to help people resolve their problems. And fortunately, I didn’t go that direction because but by the time I finished my master’s degree, I was already in a nonprofit leadership role and um and I stayed on that track. I Yeah, I would have been a terrible therapist. I would have been a terrible teacher. I don’t think I have the sustained like patience that that takes. Um, and I be I

really think I see my um I guess my areas of strength really being um that kind of 30,000 ft view, right? Being able to look at a problem or look at an organization or look at some challenges more broadly. And while we would need to address um issues one-on-one, right? If we don’t have good public policy to support those um individuals, if we don’t have strong families and communities, if we don’t have the opportunities and those pathways, those that infrastructure in place, I’m not sure that one person can resolve that one-on-one with somebody. I’m looking at you, Preston, like you know what I’m saying? Exactly. I mean, when I look at our, you know, the

organization I work for, the other side village and the other side academy and what you do, um, you know, many of the students that we that we see have grown up in that environment. Mhm. Foster care and just in kind of a a chaotic family lifestyle. And so, you’re going upstream and really helping the generational poverty. So, how do you erase that? How do you affect it? How do you solve it? Right? And so what you’re doing aligns really closely with what we do. It’s just the folks that we’re serving are a little bit farther down the road than than the children that that you’re serving. But you’re like you’ll be your relationship with them

is it’s it starts for young and then it goes for about 12 years. Correct. So, and we’ll get into that, but essentially they establish a relationship with a kid and then a child and then they have a friend that’s that’s assigned to them for that kind of a mentor. Yeah. A mentor that’s that’s with them. So, I want to I want to dig into this a little bit. Um, so you’re going you go through school, you get a degree in social work, you get a masters in social work. Have you recognized up to this point that individual work is not going to be your path or is that something you discovered once you got into

the into the workforce? I guess. Yeah, it’s a good question. It really happened simultaneously because when I left Division of Child and Family Services, I was already in my master’s program and it was a master’s program for, you know, adults, right? Um, and I had left DCFS to go to work for an organization called Utah Foster Care. um started by Governor Levit, an initiative to find foster families because we had more children in need of foster care than we had families to care for them. And so I left and I ran their recruit recruitment program. So launched that and was there for 10 years. I finished my I finished my degree there and many of

my you know my colleagues and co-workers even if they were in a position like mine um they still pursued that clinical direction and I just knew that it didn’t feel right for me because when I got to be part of an organization that was really trying to impact broader change I was interacting with policy makers I was I learned how the court system works right like I like like understood like the mental health system and just saw the impact the fundamental impact that you can have if you are looking at systems change um on that broader scale looking at it as like an ecosystem if you will. So, if you could wave them at your

magic wand and say, “Okay, if I was to change this system right now, is there like one thing that just sticks out like a sore thumb?” Oh my gosh, if we could just do this, man, we would we would do the the system would be so much better as a whole. I think investing in early childhood. And when I say investing in early childhood, I mean the whole child. So, that is not to say that we’re investing just in a child’s education. When I think about early childhood, I think about like home visiting programs that look at what is, you know, the family and home situation that childs are that children are living in and

what do those families need to be successful, right? Because we don’t we don’t support children in a vacuum. Children thrive when their families thrive. And so I think if we started early earlier and really identified everything from um whether that those are learning difficulties, right? Like health needs um the the family support network. we would and we could really, I think, prevent a lot of the issues we see with substance abuse, with mental health, with domestic violence, with many of the issues that, you know, the the population that you serve and support are facing today if we started further upstream. So, sorry, I was just say, um, so our governor now and first lady, they’re

still focused on foster care and getting more families. So, it hasn’t gone away. Um, have we seen an uptick in indiv in families that are willing to to do that or is it still really hard in general? I think it’s still hard in general. I think that like the state of Utah is really incredible. I think um I was consistently impressed with the families who would step forward and wanted to support a child and really meet them where they are. I think that it is inherently difficult for families who have their they have their own challenges, right? And they’re navigating many of their own um you know barriers to commit to support other children. Um

and I think one of our unique challenges in Utah is we have big families and it is so important to keep brothers and sisters together whenever possible. and finding a family who’s able to take a toddler or an infant, but um you know, finding that family is able to take the toddler and the you know, kids in elementary school and middle school to keep those siblings together, that’s harder. That’s really harder. Is it fair to say that your friends, your your employees that are assigned to uh the children, is it fair to say they serve as almost like a foster parent or is it is that not the case? No, that’s a good question. The

really the the mentor role, the friend role, it does not replace a parent. It doesn’t replace a teacher. It is a supplement, a consistent caring adult who unlike you know vol volunteerism, volunteer mentors provide a really important service, but we have moved this beyond the volunteer realm and made and made it possible for individuals to really commit for the long term because it’s their job. They’re full-time paid professionals and their job is to support a cohort of youth who are experiencing systemic barriers, adversity, generational poverty, and they need someone to walk alongside them not for 60 days, not for a year, but all the way throughout childhood. So before we get too much farther down

this path because we’re I think we’re digging into the organization without defining ju just so you guys are obviously very familiar with it. You live in this world every day. I don’t and and I would say most of our listeners don’t. So, let’s do the 302 or you can take as long as you want commercial for Friends of the Children Utah. Mhm. And then let’s keep following down your track. I have a question. I have a follow-up question about that as well. And because you mentioned I’ve read all your material and so I’m getting really focused on what you’re doing for the children, but then you mentioned the families and so I’m really curious about

how you weave into that network and this bridge both. Yeah, bridge both with the mentor or friend, which now I I don’t know how I didn’t catch this in your material. Like that’s that’s not a volunteer position. That’s a full-time job position. Okay. Correct. Anyway, let’s start with that. Let’s start with the Yeah. Tell us about the organization. Yeah. So, um I think I’ll start by saying I didn’t think Friends of the Children was real when I heard about it. So, I um after moving out of child welfare, I worked in early intervention with infants and toddlers with developmental delays and disabilities and ran organizations and programs supporting those children from birth to three. It’s

that same charitable not nonprofit. Oh, nonprofit. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And I was running an organization in Salem, Utah. And um a friend who is also a nonprofit consultant and recruiter said, “I think you need to like learn about this organization. This there’s a position open. I think you’d be really good for it.” And when she when I read the description, I was like, well, there’s some mistake that human services do not support individuals for 12 years. Like that’s that’s unheard of. That’s strange. And then when they were like, “No, no, this is this is their job.” Um I yeah, I couldn’t even wrap my head around it. I was like, “That’s that’s that that’s really

strange.” You know, we usually segment by age, right? or like um you know where they are developmentally. Um and Friends of the Children takes a really different approach. So we were founded in Portland, Oregon in 1993 by Duncan Campbell. Duncan experienced um incredible adversity growing up as a child. And when he found his way and he went to law school and he worked in the juvenile court system and eventually um made um a lot of money in the timber industry, he looked back and said, “What is it though that helped me not repeat the cycles and the patterns that I was born into and how do I make sure other children have that?” And he

credited some caring adults who maybe they were they were a coach or a teacher but they took a vested interest in him and he learned from them and he was able to you know he was supported by them in a really meaningful way and he was like that’s mentorship like that is so powerful why can’t we make that somebody’s job and so that’s where friends of the children came from and um the organization has been around for more than 32 ers. Uh we have 43 sites across the country. Utah is one of those. We um function as all the sites are independent nonprofits. So while we’re part of a national network, um we are functioning

individually in communities as independent 501c3s. And it what is really unique and special about this approach is we identify those children who are facing the greatest barriers. 100% are experiencing generational poverty. They have the highest ACES scores if you’ve talked about that before. Uh adverse childhood experiences. Um these are families living in domestic violence contexts. They may be having interaction with the child welfare system. We know that these are the children who if we invest today are going to really have the greatest shot tomorrow. So we through a network of community partners primarily division of child and family services. We work with the children’s center Utah community action. We identify those kids and we meet

them and observe them and get to know them and their family and then we invite them to be part of this program and we pair them with a friend. A friend is the full-time paid professional mentor. Most of our friends uh come actually with some educational background and they mo most have bachelor’s degrees, some have associates degrees. We even have a couple with a master’s degree and we try to pay them on par with teachers um with rich and competitive benefits knowing that we’re asking them to make a commitment to these children and we pair those children with a friend and commit to walk alongside them. So every time a youth is enrolled in our

program we we know that we are committing to be with them all the way through high school graduation and beyond. How early do they start? between the ages of four and six. And how do you measure who need the most? That’s a fair question. I would say I don’t know probably much like Preston, you do when when you are looking at neighbors who are going to be part part of your community and part of your program. Um we’re not investing in in children who are experiencing circumstantial poverty or or a traumatic life event. What would be circumstantial? What? So, so and when you say a traumatic, you’re like one singular traumatic life event that doesn’t

necessarily a a child with an incredible family and rich support network and all the advantages in the world, but they lost a parent in a tragic accident. Gotcha. That child, I’m not minimizing experiencing profound trauma and needs help and support. Yeah. We’re We want to find that child. The best way to describe it is if you think about children in a hospital, we want to serve the children who are in the ICU. What’s it like when you pair them up and then how many say how many how many kids can a friend be assigned to? I can I can imagine there’s a lot of day-to-day and interaction and so you know too many too little

how many is there, you know, kind of a a sweet spot? Eight. So a full-time each friend has eight eight children on their roster. Youth on their roster. Youth on the roster. Okay. And that friend is required to or spends about how much time per child, 3 to four hours a week. So that is 12 to 16 hours a month. And that’s intentional time um with the youth. That includes, you know, whether it’s like preparing for the outing they’re going to do today, finding some resources that that parent requested, traveling to pick up the child, traveling to see them in school, and the time they spend face to face, and and they’re and most they’re

in school, so I’m sure the hours are probably a little bit different than most traditional business hours. Yeah, we we really love it when a school will um will partner with us and give the friend access to the youth because some youth really benefit from having somebody who especially in elementary school checks in with them and maybe it’s just there to like sit next to them if they need a little help whether that’s behaviorally or they need to go, you know, sit aside and do some independent reading. um and often be a liaison between the child and the family and the home when that’s really difficult for parents to do. Yeah. Can can you uh

can a friend do like group activities? So, several several of his the youth on his roster or her roster and they can all do stuff together. Absolutely. And usually the friends, so we have um eight full-time friends on our team currently supporting 62 youth and they do that all the time. They plan group activities like we’re going to go to the climbing wall um dinner today. We’re going to um go and do a field trip to Adobe in the summer. We plan those group activities all the time. And what’s really cool is that the children like are expanding their network and their social capital and their relationships with the other children in the program and

they don’t feel like they’re in a program. It doesn’t feel sterile and clinical like that. They come to our clubhouse. They’re with their friends out in the community and at school and at home. And they get to know these other other children. They get to know the other friends. They get to know me and you know administrative staff as well. And is it is it normal to to pair them same sex? So 100%. Okay. Okay. I have so many questions. Well, that’s what we’re here for, right? Yes. One is how do friends how are friends taught to interact with the family? Uh well, let’s let’s start there and then I’ll follow up with another question.

When we hire a friend, we are looking for individuals who have had some experience working with children and families. So whether that’s as a teacher, as a camp counselor, working at um Boys and Girls Club, um that kind of experience and like your question is exactly like how do they sort of like learn how to work with a family? And that is a such a good question because that is next level, right? like interacting with a family and building that rapport and that trust because positive change doesn’t happen if we don’t have these trusting relationships and so that’s really important that a friend does that. So once friends are hired, in addition to the experience

and education that they may bring to the job, many have the lived experience too, Preston, like you keep talking about, um, they go through intensive training screening and Yeah. Well, yes, the background screening. It’s a whole I’ve worked in for the government. I’ve worked for nonprofits. I’ve never been as vetted as I was for this organization in terms of like all the background screenings and all the tests and yeah, we do the full wrap back um uh screening and yeah all like all of those things and then a comprehensive training program. Yes, that has been developed over several years I through through our national network. Um but that’s not where it ends. Like I mean

we do ongoing insurface training. Right now we’re actually partnering with trauma-informed Utah to become a trauma-informed organization. And so that is an organization that on several levels and across like everything from like your policies to your environment to like your expectations for interaction that we will function as an organization that is assuming trauma and approaching not just the children and families we serve but each other through that lens. And so those um that training is ongoing and essential in the work we do. Yeah. Go ahead. I was going to say I mean a whole slew so many. Yeah. It’s hard but really the purpose of of the podcast is is to really shed light on

on nonprofits doing great work and and informing our listeners like here’s what’s going on. Here’s how you can get involved. Um if you were to say okay I I just had a um you know $2 million donation out of the blue. What what would that do? Would that just open the doors for a lot more kids that are maybe on a waiting list and be able to hire more friends and like what would that do for your organization? Yes, that exactly. You need more friends, right? We have there are more children than we can support. Right now the 62 children that we’re serving are primarily with Salt Lake Valley. Um some have kind of like

moved it maybe into Utah County. We have a couple in Davis County and Tilla County. This need extends far beyond. Yeah. Because as far as proximity, you got to keep in mind travel time and everything else. So, right, we would be able to hire more friends and we we constantly accept referrals from those established referral partners um in hopes that, you know, yes, we can we can serve that child, but we have a cohort of eight youth. We now need to be able to invest in, you know, in their salary. Is fundraising uh the is that your biggest obstacle that you have to overcome or Yes. Yeah. You just don’t you don’t there’s much more

work to be done and you don’t necessarily have the resources to be as effective as you want to be. That’s what keeps you up at night cuz you’re like, I have this long waiting list and every week and month and year that goes by, it’s less time that these kids would have someone that’s to really be a preventative measure and and help them with eliminating this generational generational poverty ultimately. Yeah. And so like a guy a guy like me um what my best opportunity to be supportive is through what a donation. I’m not necess like I don’t qualify to be a friend. That’s that would be a full-time job. Correct. So, what how how does

the community provide the resources to help expand your work? Well, certainly donations are like essential and always appreciated. Donations in every amount make a difference. you know, whether that’s someone who gives us, you know, $25 a month so we can buy snacks, you know, healthy snacks for our clubhouse or pay our mileage for a friend. It’s all really important up to, you know, uh donors who give us $100,000 a year to support an entire cohort of of children, right? But it’s how do you stretch that dollar to in any nonprofit? It’s like how do we stretch this, right, as much as we possibly can and be a good fiscal agent for it, too. And one

of the good things I think about where we’re at today is that we have the infrastructure we need. We don’t need someone else to come do payroll or HR. Oh, we do need a building. Oh, we you’ve seen my building. It’s we way outgrowed our little t our little tiny building. Um but like we can also use inkind support. You know, walk back at all those like fun things you’ve got out here. All the field trips and things like that. baseball table, pool table. What like what if someone gets you know sponsored a night at I don’t know huge pop game mammoth hockey I mean any sporting events yeah that’s that’s really a long way

that’s really huge what you know when when you’re in poverty your world can feel so small just because of access and so a lot of our kids haven’t set foot on a college campus before right you know they don’t know what you know skills and trades are out there they don’t know what sports they might be good at if they’re interested in music. So, helping them find their spark and then really facilitating that is an really important part of what the friend does. And so, we partner with organizations like you’re talking about like take them to a jazz game. Um, we have a wonderful paleontologist who’s worked with one of our friends whose child really

wants to be a paleontologist. He’s only 11 years old. Um, but making those connections and just giving them access and opportunity, helping them see what’s possible, right? Cuz that’s what lights that spark so we can build on that and, you know, help them move forward. Yeah. It could be a musical instrument, it could be sporting equipment, be a lot of different things. H, that’s amazing. Okay. I like a lot of things obviously about the organization, but one thing that I really like is you back up all of this stuff with data. like you guys are very successful with the mentorship program. Can you talk about some of those numbers and the successes that you have?

Absolutely. So, um because we’ve been around for more than 32 years, we do have this longitudinal data to show that when children are paired with a friend throughout childhood, they really go on to have outstanding life positive lifelong outcomes. um 85% of the children paired with a friend graduate from high school, which may sound like that’s not very significant, but compared to 50% of their parents graduating from high school, that’s huge. That’s really huge. Um 92% of children avoid the juvenile justice system despite 60% of their parents being involved in the criminal justice system. Uh 93% avoid teen parenting. that is such a protective factor and a you know can help prevent poverty and keep

opportunities open and um 92% of our children avoid teen parenting although 85% were born to teen parents and so as you can see we’re able to just really shift that trajectory and you know regardless of where this child started give them different opportunities. It’s the power of the mentorship and power of the friend. And what do you attribute that to? Is it just exposure to a different life opportunity or circumstance? The way I think about it, we aren’t just providing a social service, right? This is a strategic investment in a child’s future, right? And through the context of that relationship, we have the we have the power to impact their mental health, their health and

their well-being, their educational outcomes, their social network, right? Like open up this whole world and in in many cases for a lot of children just help keep them safe, right? Whether that’s safe in the community or safe in their family. Um because you know I was a case worker for DCFS. I didn’t see those children for 3 to four hours a day. And I’m not saying that that’s what DCFS’s job is. But just to contrast and draw a comparison, this is a touch point that every week this child and their family is interacting with a friend. So we’re laying eyes on that child often setting foot in their home talking to the parents multiple multiple

times a week. So when families experiencing, you know, serious adversity and a lot of the toxic stress that comes along with those challenges, we’re able to identify red flags and mitigate risk before it becomes a crisis in the children or in the circumstance. All all the above. So that that’s an I think that’s an interesting part of this is I’m certain that not all families are completely on board with having this opportunity for their children. Is that something you face? And how do you how do you manage that? I’d say when we get to know a family and a child and we present the program to them in my experience they all want to be

part of it then the level of the parents engagement that there is variation in the level of the parents engagement so not necessarily saying no I don’t want to be part of this program but either by choice or circumstance the parent can’t be or isn’t as involved right right And I think for many of the parents, some of them aren’t ready to make some of the changes that, you know, may really help them thrive, help their help their children thrive. And but we will still be there for their child along that journey. And I imagine so they’re the friends with them 12 years after 12 years. I’m sure they still keep in touch and and

all of that. It’s just not on a right paid basis. Right. Right. No, that’s absolutely true. Absolutely. Um most of our parents, you know, we do um a family needs assessment when a child enters the program. We do regular needs assessments. We do caregiver surveys to really, you know, do quality assurance checks and see how is this experience for you as a parent and consistently parents tell us, I know that I can turn to my friend, my child’s friend, to friends of the children in in the time of crisis. And the reason that is so important is because so many of these families they don’t have the social network. They don’t have that support. I

know you you described that too with um you know some of the individuals supported by the village. They burned some bridges very much so which and now they’re isolated and you know have children to raise. Um they need that long-term support. They need that extra support. I mean, trying to reconnect families, it it takes time and trust and it’s not an overnight thing once they burn those bridges. Um, it can be tough and sometimes it never happens, right? And they’re just not willing to do that. How do you deal with say a family that’s got multiple children that are interested in it and you’ve got friends, you know, do you assign different friends and how

does that work? Because the program is so resource and time intensive. I mean we are saying we’re going to invest in this child you know for 12 years. Um as a common practice we don’t typically enroll children from the same family. We’ll enroll one target child and then do our very best to provide concrete supports and that wraparound support to the entire family which includes siblings. Uh full disclosure, when we launched in March of 2020, which is a terrible time to launch a relationshipbased program, right? Yeah. You know, we were we were just getting started, we had the resources um you know, and the money to launch the to launch the organization and so we

did enroll some sibling groups from families who are still in our program today. But as a general practice, yeah, we we don’t do that. Do you see some of the friends that have or excuse me the kids that have graduated, moved on that want to become friends? Is does that happen a lot? It does. And because we’ve only been around, you know, 5 years, we’re not we’re not to that point yet, but um so many like of so many individuals are inspired and feel so connected to the organization that yes, they want to continue to be involved. Um a lot of our graduates go on to be part of a speakers bureau, right? um to

talk about the program and share their experience. Um you know, the first individual that I really got to know who benefited from this program, and I can use his his name, um Jimmy Terrell, uh from Portland, Oregon, he’s in his 30s now, but when he was first paired with a friend, it was early on in the program. He was 8 years old, a little older than the youth that we um that we we start with today, but he watched his father be murdered. um his um he didn’t have contact with his mother because she’d been in and out of the prison system and he was being raised by grandparents. And he said being around drugs

and violence and having every police officer in Portland know my family and all my extended relatives very well is just normal life to me. and he went on to be the first in his family to graduate from high school, to not spend a day in jail, and to go on to college. And he has two beautiful children. And he credits his friend John for walking him through that. He’s he said, “I never felt judged by John, but John was just always there to help me understand, you may not see it, but there are choices here. Mhm. How can I help you make those choices? Yeah. How can I help you figure this out? Your past

doesn’t define you. And it’s not and it’s not easy. When he was 15 years old, his grandfather died. His um and he was on track to enter the foster care system. And he made a plea with his friend to the courts to work toward emancipation cuz he didn’t want to go into foster care. And so, Friends of the Children worked to see like, how do we get you into an apartment with this intensive support from your friend and get you a job? And he was able to do that. And from those circumstances, end up going on, you know, to have a family of his own. And just to hear him say with tears in his

eyes, my children will never have to experience what I did. I mean, that’s incredible, right? That’s incredible. I think we’d love to have one of those one of your graduates. What do you participants in on the program? I think that would be fascinating. Yeah, let’s do that. Incredible. That that would be you’re not your organization. Well, the Utah chapter isn’t even old enough to have a graduating class, right? You’re all of your kids are still between the ages now of five and 12 are still in the program. So, what does that look like? What is the what is the 12 year when you get to that mark? What does it look like for the for

the kids for the children? I will say it it changes. You know, when we launched, like Preston’s seen, our little clubhouse in Karns, we were able to make this tiny space work because it’s with little children and so you can make small space go a long way and still do a lot of activities um and limited space and be creative and then also really, you know, utilize the community, right? We’re right by the Kern’s Library. We spend a lot of time with the Karns Library. Um out we have outdoor space near us and parks. Um, but as you get older, kids like they they’re adolescence and they’re like, “We want something like cool to look

forward to. We need something like at this clubhouse isn’t just like for little kids.” So, we have to um begin to really shift our our programming and our focus to accommodate adolescence. And, you know, these kids are in different places. Our 5-year-old isn’t going to want to do the same thing a 13 or 14year-old is doing. And so, we um are adapting and pivoting to be prepared for that. and high school. Um, you know, my understanding from the other chapters in the network is middle school, junior high school, that age is really crucial because that’s a time when developmentally children adolescence are separating and they want to have be independent. And while it was really

cool to have a friend who came and hung out with you in elementary school, that may not feel so cool in middle school. But if we can like maintain that relationship and that connection during those years, the majority of of children when they’re in high school, they’re like, I’m so glad you’re still here because now I have to figure out what comes next and you’re going to be the person to help me do that. Mhm. So, where do you see your organization five years from now? Is that kind aspirationally? Sure. Yeah. Um, I want us to be serving like 200 youth, right? Um, extending down into Utah County all the way up, you know, like

north to Ogden with um, you know, friends, cohorts of friends, um, really supporting those families and kids across more communities. I mean, not to sound cliche, but we like the village where we say it takes a village to build a village. It takes a village. And so, no, not cliche. every city could use a friends of the children literally like just in their backyard to help in any in any neighborhood, right? So the numbers behind that, what does that look like? What does it cost? What is your annual budget to to cover to to manage 62 in your program? Our current operating costs are around 1.6 million. And that’s all of our all of our

staff. Um, eight full-time friends, a program director. Um, just really quick, you mentioned how we support families. We have a full-time dedicated family engagement coordinator whose responsibility is to provide some of that direct support to lean in when families are in a crisis and help the friend manage that. Um, and then also does a lot of really um, proactive work. So, we do a strengthening family coping resources series for some of the families who are, you know, experiencing domestic violence context. It’s a 10-week course. Um, we do partners in parenting. We do family engagement events where we bring all the kids and families together, but um often just trying to also connect them with resources

and learning opportunities in the community. Um, so yeah, so that’s one of our very the very important positions. And then really it’s like myself and our development manager and our program slashoff slash everything person and our HR payroll. Yeah. Is your development manager out is is the development manager doing the fundraising and or is the development manager in a different is that fundraising? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Friendraising for all those friends. Yeah. Friendraising so we can have so we can have friends for children, right? But you know, you look at your impact and your results and your outcomes and if you just put a number, which you hate to do, right? You hate to say, “Okay,

but from a system level from someone, and this is just based on my own experience and what the state publishes in terms of someone that’s been chronically homeless, it it costs roughly $60,000 on average just to support that that individual.” So, if you can get them ahead of the get ahead of the game and the numbers that Kelsey’s thrown out, think of the the taxpayer cost, just savings alone from that. Who if you’re if you’re looking at generational poverty, yeah, you’ve got to go upstream. You can’t just wait for the the disaster to hit. The Harvard Business School of Oregon um did a study uh and found that every dollar invested in Friends of the

Children saves the community $7. And so over the course of um a child’s like time in the program, you know, from kindergarten through high school graduation, that’s $900,000 um that the the you know, the community will be saved in the cost of services like you’re talking about. Um um not to mention saving a life, right? And bringing a future. And one of the things I think that we don’t always measure like um is generational change. Like when we’re able to break a cycle, well, we’ve impacted generations to come. So, right, like my friend my friend Jimmy is not part of the criminal justice system. He is not homeless. He is a parent who works for

the the juvenile court system and has two awesome kids of his own. That is a huge savings to our society and our community. Not just, you know, monetarily, but on every level, right? Our health, our well-being, our spirituality, our families. Like that’s that’s what we hope for. But by the way, you mentioned that and I’m just curious. Is that you mentioned spirituality, that’s what I was think that’s what I locked on to. Is that something that is uh part of the program? Is there some spiritual element to the program? I’m not saying there has to be or not, just out of curiosity. Well, it totally depends on the child, right, and their family and what

we support. But I think that when I think of spirituality, I actually think of part of our strengthening family and coping resources um like course that we do with families. Um and you we lean into just really some of those basic things, right? like how do we build rituals and sit down and have dinner together, right? Um how do we have conversations um that really like build rapport and trust and build each other up? And some of those things might seem really normal to the families that we that we came from um that we grew up in. Other families, they they need some help and they need some role modeling those areas. And I think

spirituality is one of those things and that is an area that we work on with families to talk about what that means to them. Not that we we certainly don’t define it for them, but recognizing that what does that mean? Is that is that meditation? Is that you having uh a connection to the fa a faith community? That’s a can be a real powerful protective factor for families, right? Is there an what’s the age range of your friends in the program? And what is the demographic or gender split? I I guess there’s more male than female. We always get more referrals for boys than girls, too. Um, the youngest friend is 26 and the oldest

is 47. Yeah. Yeah. Wide. Yeah. And is there what’s is there a limit in terms of you have to be at least 21 to be a friend? Is there a limit on the age? Not necessarily. However, because we, you know, want them to have at least like an associates degree and some experience, they’re usually going to be, if they’re entry level, in their 20s. And are you currently hiring? We are. We’re actually hiring a female friend. Um, not because we have enrolled more youth, but we are actually filling a position, which which happens sometimes, right? So, we had uh one of our female friends is moving on to another opportunity and um we we need

another friend for her cohort of youth and we are working really hard to provide a traumainformed sort of goodbye for this friend. Um and then we put in some you know some procedures and practices around we make sure that these children are still included that other friends are bringing them to activities. our family engagement coordinator is um including them until we can hire that friend. So cuz that happens. It’s you know would wave a magic wand and what would I wish for for our organization that I had enough um resources to pay people that they could see that this is a job they could do their entire lives. Yeah. Mhm. Right. You know, we tend

to um in in so many systems in in government and um the private sector that people are on a career path, right? So, if you’re really good at doing this job, well, we’re going to promote you to the next level and so you’re going to be a manager and then you’ll be a director. Well, what if someone’s just really good at doing this job? Why can’t we let that be their career path so they can continue to excel and thrive um and mentor others in their, you know, into that role? But it’s um you know I won’t lie. I think that’s a that is a difficult job to do for a very long time. Yeah.

Takes the right person. Yeah. Yeah. Really does. And there are friends who have done that who have stayed with the youth all the way um you know through the program. Wow. Have you ever thought you could use your talents in the private industry somewhere in private industry somewhere? No. Why wouldn’t you consider providing your abilities outside of the nonprofit? I I don’t think I would care. I mean, that that sounds um it sounds kind of obnoxious to say that. Like I this is a very difficult job. And by difficult, I mean like when you’re in a leadership position for a small nonprofit, like you’re carrying the weight uh of the world on your shoulders and

trying to um trying to keep so many balls in the air. I wouldn’t do that for any other purpose. You know, you’re dealing with human lives, right? And I just I’m not sure I would feel motivated. I will say there was a time a moment where I I tried my hand. People would say, “Oh, you’re really good at a sales job.” No, I was not because I don’t I just even if it was something I liked or a product I thought was valuable, I wasn’t motivated by the like the sale and the and the reward. Um, this this motivates me, right? And that’s not to say that those aren’t incredibly talented and successful people who

are really providing cool things. just this is like this took me away from my children, right? This is I made a commitment to this career. Um, you know, I was a working parent for years and I’m not sure I would have felt the same way about it. Um, if I was doing something that didn’t really impact children and families the same way. Yeah. I don’t know. How does that does that how does that land? That sounds kind of weird when I say it out loud. rethinking my whole No, I I think it’s you look at the guests we’ve had on and and there’s kind of these aha moments along the way that just kind of

led you to that and um whether you’re working with kids or adults or refugees or whatever whatever population um it’s a different f it’s a different breed I think but but yeah it’s it’s super taxing mentally. Well and could I do it? Sure, I I could. And I love working with people and I like, you know, um driving positive change and all and all those things. I just think I might not do very well cuz I might not care about it the same way, you know? Mhm. Yeah. I don’t know. Is that how that felt for you when you were when you were in the private sector and found and dealing on Wall Street? There’s

there’s there’s you know, you have to find fun in your job. You have to enjoy it. Mhm. Right. when it gets to the point you’re just like you’re not enjoying it anymore, then I think it’s time to take a step back and say, “Okay, where do I need to be?” Mhm. Regardless of whatever job you’re doing. Yeah. Well, I I have really enjoyed this conversation. It’s been so what’s the what’s the word? Like insight. You’ve been so insightful. It’s been uplifting. It’s eye opening. Thank you. I just it’s such a privilege to sit with you and talk about this and yeah, thanks for what you and your organization does and the many amazing organies for

giving a ship. Yes, Frank, you know, sometimes I give a ship until it hurts. Yeah. You know, here the other thing that I might just say is just how fortunate um how I think Friends of the Children truly has been blessed since we’ve been here in Utah because some incredible families um and individuals in the community have seen the value in this model and in these relationships and they’ve cared about our kids and they’ve made significant investments and this work we couldn’t do that work this work without them and every single donation matters, right? Like I said, just the $25 a month that that still makes such a difference. And so it’s so important because

you look at how many federal cuts. I mean, I was at the capital this morning just listening to budget lines be cut after cut in education and you name it. And it’s like, wow. Yeah. This is the world we live in and and every nonprofit’s feeling it. If that’s, you know, what you the funding stream you rely on. Mhm. Where would where will people find uh the the website and all the information that all the things at friendsutah.org and you’ll find how to find learn more information who to contact for volunteer and yeah and there is there are volunteer opportunities. There certainly are. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Kaou. Cool. It’s been it’s a new nickname.

I need I’ll get a name badge. I like it. I think that works. Kaou, thanks for being here. Appreciate you. Appreciate it. Thank you for listening to the Know Your Ship podcast presented by EHUB. Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review.