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Community DC Michael Medero Childhelp · Community D.C.

0:07
Speaker 1: Good morning, and welcome to another edition of Community DC.
0:10
Speaker 1: I'm your host Dennis Glasgow. This morning, we welcome Michael Madoro.
0:13
Speaker 1: He is the COO for Childhelp, a nonprofit that provides
0:17
Speaker 1: support for victims of child abuse and neglect through its
0:20
Speaker 1: national hotline, residential facilities, and various programs. It offers twenty
0:24
Speaker 1: four to seven crisis interventions via phone, text and online chat,
0:28
Speaker 1: provides therapeutic foster care, and runs educational programs like child Help,
0:32
Speaker 1: Speak Up, Be Safe to prevent child abuse and bullying.
0:36
Speaker 1: This is a very important topic with many layers and
0:39
Speaker 1: a great conversation with Michael. I hope you have some
0:41
Speaker 1: positive takeaways from this very serious subject. Here's my conversation
0:45
Speaker 1: with Michael. Now, Good morning, Michael, Good morning.
0:47
Speaker 2: How are you.
0:47
Speaker 1: First off, Michael, let's tell everybody what child Help is
0:50
Speaker 1: and does.
0:51
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Dennis, thank you so much.
0:52
Speaker 3: Child Help started actually back in nineteen fifty nine following
0:56
Speaker 3: the Korean War. Actually, what it transpired was our founders,
1:01
Speaker 3: Sarah O'Mara and Von Fetterson, who are still the acting President, CEO,
1:05
Speaker 3: chair and vice chair of the board today. These women
1:07
Speaker 3: are ninety years of age, but they work eighty plus.
1:10
Speaker 2: Hours a week.
1:11
Speaker 3: I mean, these women are tireless in their commitment and
1:13
Speaker 3: devotion to this mission. But what really happened is that
1:16
Speaker 3: prior to the Vietnam War, they were both asked to
1:21
Speaker 3: go participate on a USO tour entertaining troops. They were
1:25
Speaker 3: entertaining troops in Japan when all of a sudden, they
1:28
Speaker 3: encountered the worst typhoon that Tokyo had ever experienced.
1:32
Speaker 2: They were held up in their hotel.
1:34
Speaker 3: Rooms and they got a little antsy and decided to
1:37
Speaker 3: sneak on out. And when they snuck out, they came
1:40
Speaker 3: across eleven children who were huddled together trying to stave
1:43
Speaker 3: off the winds in the rain from the typhoon. And
1:45
Speaker 3: these two women brought these children into their hotel room,
1:49
Speaker 3: gave them food, gave them warmth, gave them some shelter,
1:52
Speaker 3: and came to learn that these children were the results
1:55
Speaker 3: of American soldiers having relationships with Japanese women, and neither
1:59
Speaker 3: side the US or Japan wanted to claim these children,
2:02
Speaker 3: and they were actually considered which is probably one of
2:05
Speaker 3: the ugliest terms I've ever heard. They were considered to
2:07
Speaker 3: throw away children, and so they were just kind of
2:09
Speaker 3: cast out defend for themselves. And because a lot of
2:12
Speaker 3: orphanages in that area at that time didn't receive any
2:15
Speaker 3: form of financial stipend or subsidy to care for these children,
2:19
Speaker 3: no home would bring these children in and care for them,
2:22
Speaker 3: so they literally were left out in the streets to
2:23
Speaker 3: care for themselves. And Sarah and yvon just found that unacceptable.
2:27
Speaker 3: And so Sarah and yvon went and started working with
2:30
Speaker 3: our US military and expressed to our US military, Hey,
2:34
Speaker 3: these children are the result of your efforts and your
2:37
Speaker 3: actions here. You need to take charge of this situation.
2:40
Speaker 3: And in partnership with our US military, they ended up
2:43
Speaker 3: constructing orphanages, hospitals, schools, not just in Japan, but also
2:48
Speaker 3: in Vietnam. And then when the fall of Saigon came
2:51
Speaker 3: and the US military was getting ready to pull out,
2:55
Speaker 3: Sarah Yavaan said, well what.
2:56
Speaker 2: About the children?
2:57
Speaker 3: And the US military was just like, hey, we've done
3:00
Speaker 3: what we can do, but we're pulling out, We're heading
3:03
Speaker 3: back home. And so Sarah Yvonn orchestrated which something I
3:06
Speaker 3: considered to be America's best kept secret, Operation Babylift. And
3:10
Speaker 3: this is where Sarah and Yvonn worked with a number
3:12
Speaker 3: of other partners and commercial airlines in the US military
3:16
Speaker 3: and rescued more than thirty five hundred children who would
3:19
Speaker 3: have lost their lives during the fall of Saigon, brought
3:22
Speaker 3: them all the way to the United States, where they
3:24
Speaker 3: had awaiting adoptive family for every single one of those children.
3:28
Speaker 3: And as they got to the US, these were two
3:30
Speaker 3: women who originally when they went overseas for the USO tour,
3:34
Speaker 3: these were Hollywood starlets. They were both actresses on the
3:37
Speaker 3: Ozzy and Harriet Show. They both had married Hollywood producers.
3:40
Speaker 3: They really had Hollywood type aspirations, and so when they
3:43
Speaker 3: came back to the States, it was, okay, we did
3:46
Speaker 3: that with the USO. Now it's time to kind of
3:49
Speaker 3: pick up our careers. And they were getting recognized for
3:53
Speaker 3: what they had orchestrated with Operation Babylift, and then California
3:57
Speaker 3: Governor Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy tapped Sarah and
4:00
Speaker 3: Yvonne and said, hey, you two are the two that
4:03
Speaker 3: we need to tackle America's best kept secret, that being
4:06
Speaker 3: child abuse. And back then Sarah and yvon were like,
4:10
Speaker 3: what's child abuse? Nobody was talking about child abuse? What
4:13
Speaker 3: was happening behind closed doors? Stayed behind closed doors, and
4:16
Speaker 3: it was actually the Reagans that invested twenty five thousand
4:20
Speaker 3: dollars of their own money to conduct a feasibility study
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Speaker 3: for Sarah and Yvonne to understand what child abuse look
4:27
Speaker 3: like in America and from their Child Help was launched,
4:32
Speaker 3: and from there, over the last sixty seven years, Child
4:36
Speaker 3: Help has directly impacted the lives of more than fourteen
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Speaker 3: million children.
4:41
Speaker 2: Wow.
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Speaker 3: And we are currently arguably one of the nation's largest
4:44
Speaker 3: and oldest nonprofit organizations working in this space.
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Speaker 1: This whole story started with just an act of kindness
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Speaker 1: and then it turned into something incredibly large.
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Speaker 3: You'll see above the doorway of every Child Help facility,
4:56
Speaker 3: you will see the same words, and it's all who
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Speaker 3: enter here will find and love. And that is really
5:02
Speaker 3: what Sarah and Yvonne embody. That is what they brought
5:06
Speaker 3: into the organization and has carried us through these last
5:09
Speaker 3: sixty seven years. And that's really how they have tackled.
5:11
Speaker 3: The creation and the implementation of every programmatic service that
5:15
Speaker 3: we offer has been from an opportunity to carry love
5:19
Speaker 3: into a community or into an environment where there doesn't
5:21
Speaker 3: appear to feel like there.
5:22
Speaker 1: Is any Michael let's talk about mission and vision. What
5:25
Speaker 1: are those for Child Help?
5:27
Speaker 3: So the mission of Child Help is to work towards
5:29
Speaker 3: the eradication of abuse through prevention, intervention and treatment services, and.
5:33
Speaker 2: We do that through a comprehensive approach.
5:36
Speaker 3: So going back to our start again, the Reagans were
5:39
Speaker 3: the one that invested in that first feasibility study. So
5:41
Speaker 3: we began with government affairs. We began with trying to
5:44
Speaker 3: take a look at legislation that exists or needs to
5:47
Speaker 3: exist in this country to help keep children safe. And
5:51
Speaker 3: still to this day, Child Help works. In fact, Sarah
5:54
Speaker 3: and Yvonne were able to get the month of April
5:57
Speaker 3: to be congressionally recognized as Child Abuse Prevention Month, and
6:01
Speaker 3: the first Wednesday of every April has been recognized as
6:04
Speaker 3: Child Helps Day of Hope. And that's an opportunity to
6:07
Speaker 3: commemorate the number of not just survivors of abuse annually,
6:11
Speaker 3: but also recognize it in this country today. Right now,
6:14
Speaker 3: in this country, six children die every single day as
6:19
Speaker 3: a direct result of abuse. And what Child Up is
6:22
Speaker 3: working to do is to try to change that statistic
6:24
Speaker 3: by bringing in earlier prevention efforts and earlier intervention efforts
6:28
Speaker 3: into communities where we're seeing such a rise through government affairs.
6:33
Speaker 3: Child helped launch what is operating today as the National
6:37
Speaker 3: Child Abuse Hotline. The number for that is one eight
6:40
Speaker 3: hundred and for a child. And when Sarah and Yvaughn
6:43
Speaker 3: created this hotline more than forty five years ago, what
6:46
Speaker 3: they created was a hotline that is operating twenty four
6:49
Speaker 3: hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and
6:52
Speaker 3: sixty five days a year by professionally master or doctoral
6:55
Speaker 3: degree counselors. So these aren't volunteers, These aren't people who
6:59
Speaker 3: have worked on some all center or hotline somewhere else.
7:01
Speaker 3: These are actual counselors that are on this hotline that
7:05
Speaker 3: are able to take any call from any individual in crisis.
7:09
Speaker 3: Those calls are completely confidential, they're completely anonymous. We have
7:13
Speaker 3: technology built into our system that allow these counselors to
7:16
Speaker 3: understand the community resources that are available within the geography
7:21
Speaker 3: of where that caller is coming from. And we also
7:24
Speaker 3: have translation services a part of this hotline that allow
7:26
Speaker 3: those counselors to serve up to two hundred and thirty
7:29
Speaker 3: different languages, So we really have the ability to meet
7:32
Speaker 3: anyone where they are at right now. Back in twenty nineteen,
7:38
Speaker 3: in partnership with HHS, we were able to expand the
7:42
Speaker 3: hotline to include text and chat capability, and that became
7:46
Speaker 3: a major game changer for us, because up until that
7:48
Speaker 3: point in time, about ninety percent of the interactions that
7:51
Speaker 3: our counselors were having were with adults in crises, people
7:55
Speaker 3: that were calling up and saying, I'm about to offend,
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Speaker 3: I'm about to abuse, I'm at my witch and I
8:00
Speaker 3: can't take this anymore. Help me, stop me, prevent me
8:03
Speaker 3: from doing some kind of harm. Once we included text
8:07
Speaker 3: and chat capability, the pendulum swung the other way. Now
8:10
Speaker 3: ninety percent of our interactions are with youth in crises
8:14
Speaker 3: who are reaching out and expressing I don't feel safe,
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Speaker 3: I'm in a dangerous situation, I don't know what to do.
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Speaker 3: And that's really the value of what that hotline offers.
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Speaker 3: And that hotline is the hotline of record for the
8:25
Speaker 3: Department of Health and Human Services for the United States
8:28
Speaker 3: as well as the Department of Justice for the United States,
8:31
Speaker 3: so we are the hotline of record for anything that
8:33
Speaker 3: results around child abuse. We also operate Child Help, Speak Up,
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Speaker 3: Be Safe. In Child Help, Speak Up, Be Safe is
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Speaker 3: the only prevention education curriculum on the market today designed
8:45
Speaker 3: to educate students from pre k through twelfth grade not
8:49
Speaker 3: only on the signs and symptoms of abuse, but more importantly,
8:52
Speaker 3: what to do when they witness or experience abuse. It's
8:55
Speaker 3: built in an ecological way, so the maturity of the
8:58
Speaker 3: curriculum and the nature of the curriculum continues to advance
9:01
Speaker 3: as a child and as a student gets older. But
9:04
Speaker 3: what is reinforced in this curriculum, which is taught twice
9:07
Speaker 3: a year every academic year. The reinforcement to the availability
9:12
Speaker 3: of a professional counselor through that hotline. So for Child Help,
9:15
Speaker 3: the national approach is, we want to educate children at
9:19
Speaker 3: the youngest age possible. We want to keep that education
9:22
Speaker 3: going with them all the way throughout their high school years.
9:24
Speaker 3: We want the curriculum that consists of educating the entire
9:27
Speaker 3: community that surrounds that child, and we want that child
9:31
Speaker 3: and we want that community to be aware of the
9:33
Speaker 3: availability of a professional counselor twenty four to seven three
9:37
Speaker 3: sixty five. That education at intervention is where Child Helps
9:41
Speaker 3: sees the trajectory to breaking the cycle of abuse in
9:44
Speaker 3: communities across America.
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Speaker 1: Michael how does everything work after the phone call starts, so.
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Speaker 3: It really goes by a unique call, so every call
9:52
Speaker 3: is unique. Then it's just like you said, when a
9:54
Speaker 3: call comes in, we are not allowed to track.
9:58
Speaker 2: Calls, so when the call can includes, we.
10:00
Speaker 3: Are not allowed to follow back up with them directly,
10:03
Speaker 3: but we do make our salves available to them if
10:06
Speaker 3: they would like to follow back up with us. Oftentimes,
10:10
Speaker 3: it's identifying the right community resource for the nature of
10:14
Speaker 3: the call that comes into play. So if a caller
10:16
Speaker 3: is calling you in and saying I'm in immediate danger, it's.
10:19
Speaker 2: That immediate connectivity to nine one one.
10:22
Speaker 3: It's that ability to facilitate emergency resources to them right
10:26
Speaker 3: then and there, and sometimes it means staying on the
10:28
Speaker 3: line with them until those emergency services become available. If
10:33
Speaker 3: it's a I've got a question, I've observed something in
10:35
Speaker 3: a classroom. So for example, I'm speaking to you right
10:39
Speaker 3: now from Scottsdale, Arizona, and it's about one hundred and
10:41
Speaker 3: ten degrees outside right now.
10:44
Speaker 2: If somebody, if we see a child walking into a.
10:46
Speaker 3: Walmart grocery store and he's got a beanie on his
10:49
Speaker 3: head and long sleeves and long jeans and he's dressed
10:53
Speaker 3: like he's going to be going into the winter cold
10:55
Speaker 3: and he's.
10:55
Speaker 2: In this heat.
10:56
Speaker 3: That could be a sign and a symptom that they're
10:59
Speaker 3: trying to cover up harm that's been done to that child.
11:02
Speaker 3: So a lot of what we do is educate community
11:05
Speaker 3: members wants signs and symptoms to look out for. And
11:08
Speaker 3: so if a caller comes in and says, you know what, Hey,
11:10
Speaker 3: I've got this child that's come on into the store.
11:12
Speaker 3: He looks like he is malnourished, he has looked like
11:16
Speaker 3: he is not dressed appropriately for the environment that we
11:19
Speaker 3: are in, then we will help identify some community resources
11:22
Speaker 3: here in Arizona. For example, that might be the Department
11:25
Speaker 3: of Child Safety to come on down and interview that
11:28
Speaker 3: child or take that child's account of what's happening, and
11:32
Speaker 3: we'll be there to kind of help facilitate that record
11:34
Speaker 3: keeping and moving on forward.
11:36
Speaker 2: We are not a reporting hotline.
11:38
Speaker 3: So if somebody is just like there has been a
11:40
Speaker 3: very clear sign of abuse, or a child has come
11:44
Speaker 3: in and is disclosed that they are in an abusive situation,
11:48
Speaker 3: then we help facilitate the call between them and the
11:52
Speaker 3: local law enforcement agencies for them to make a proper report.
11:57
Speaker 3: We don't take that actual report. It varies by the
12:01
Speaker 3: nature of the call that.
12:01
Speaker 2: Comes on in.
12:02
Speaker 3: But for us, it's really the navigation of community resources
12:06
Speaker 3: for individuals that are either experiencing abuse or feel there
12:10
Speaker 3: at risk for abuse.
12:11
Speaker 1: Michael, if you could tell us a little bit more
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Speaker 1: about these wonderful and credible counselors.
12:15
Speaker 3: These people are the lifeline and the are the vital
12:18
Speaker 3: element that helps protect and prevent abuse from happening for
12:23
Speaker 3: the children that are experiencing it. All of our counselors
12:27
Speaker 3: are trained in trauma informed care and trauma informed language,
12:31
Speaker 3: and that that's very important because oftentimes children and adults
12:36
Speaker 3: that disclose don't always recognize the immediate trauma that they
12:40
Speaker 3: are experienced, but then the visceral trauma that accompanies those
12:43
Speaker 3: that are around that child, as well as the long
12:45
Speaker 3: standing elements of trauma that carry beyond that report of abuse.
12:49
Speaker 3: And so our counselors have that level of sensitivity and
12:52
Speaker 3: that level of training to not only be able to
12:54
Speaker 3: care for the immediate needs of that child, but also
12:57
Speaker 3: to be able to care for the long term wellbeing
12:59
Speaker 3: of that child. So that is one thing that I
13:01
Speaker 3: would want to stipulate first and foremost. We also have
13:04
Speaker 3: that support our counselors, we have victim advocates.
13:07
Speaker 2: So a lot of.
13:08
Speaker 3: Times families and children need additional support when their case
13:13
Speaker 3: has started and then when their case has closed. So,
13:16
Speaker 3: for example, other programs that child offers is Child Help
13:19
Speaker 3: pioneered the multidisciplinary model of advocacy centers, and so what
13:24
Speaker 3: that means was when Sarah and Yvonn were taking a
13:26
Speaker 3: look at in the earlier days, what happens to a
13:30
Speaker 3: child when they are disclosing abuse. What they came to
13:33
Speaker 3: discover was that a child would typically have to go
13:35
Speaker 3: to about six or seven different entities to disclose their abuse,
13:40
Speaker 3: and that would take anywhere between six seven eight months
13:43
Speaker 3: to gather all of that information from talking to law enforcement,
13:46
Speaker 3: medical personnel, legal personnel, therapists, counselors, attorney generals, etc. And
13:53
Speaker 3: so every single time a child discloses what happened, they
13:57
Speaker 3: are re traumatized from that abuse as well as the
14:01
Speaker 3: longer and longer it takes for all of that, all
14:04
Speaker 3: of those meetings that take place, more and more evidence
14:07
Speaker 3: is lost. They would hold an offender accountable, and what
14:10
Speaker 3: they discovered was.
14:11
Speaker 2: That at the end.
14:13
Speaker 3: When a situation arose to a point of a case
14:16
Speaker 3: and somebody coming into an arrest, when it brought in
14:19
Speaker 3: front of a courtroom, it typically was the child that
14:22
Speaker 3: was on trial, not the offender, because when a child
14:26
Speaker 3: has to tell their story to so many different people
14:28
Speaker 3: over such varying periods of time, little details of the
14:32
Speaker 3: story tend to change, and as those changes happened, prosecutors
14:35
Speaker 3: would then hold those child, well, you said it here
14:37
Speaker 3: this way, but then you didn't say that in this
14:39
Speaker 3: situation when you spoke to that individual. Why the varying
14:42
Speaker 3: did this really happen? This really didn't happen to you,
14:45
Speaker 3: did it? You're making this up because and that would
14:47
Speaker 3: be typical of what would happen in these cases. So
14:50
Speaker 3: what Sarah y Bond created was the multidisciplinary model of
14:54
Speaker 3: care in which all of those professionals work together under
14:57
Speaker 3: one roof. So, for example, here at the AD because
15:00
Speaker 3: he's centered in Phoenix, you have got child help working
15:03
Speaker 3: under the same roof as Phoenix Children's Hospital, the largest
15:07
Speaker 3: child crimes unit of Phoenix PDM, the Office of Child
15:11
Speaker 3: Welfare and Investigations, the Department of Child Safety, the Attorney General,
15:15
Speaker 3: everybody working together under one roof. The environment that the
15:19
Speaker 3: child walks into is a child centric environment. It's not
15:22
Speaker 3: an intimidating police station or a cold and sterile hospital room.
15:27
Speaker 3: It's an environment that is multi colored with toys and decorations,
15:32
Speaker 3: all things to make a child feel safe. When a
15:35
Speaker 3: child is greeted the first time inside a playroom, which
15:38
Speaker 3: they go into a playroom that is secured, nobody outside
15:41
Speaker 3: of a credential person can get into that room. Once
15:44
Speaker 3: they go in there, the first person that meets them
15:46
Speaker 3: is a non uniformed forensically trained interviewer, somebody that is
15:52
Speaker 3: going to get down on their level, make them feel comfortable,
15:55
Speaker 3: and then gradually bring them into a room that we
15:58
Speaker 3: call a forensic interview room.
15:59
Speaker 2: And when they go I went to that room. This
16:01
Speaker 2: room is bland.
16:02
Speaker 3: There's no decorations or paraphernalia in that room of any kind,
16:05
Speaker 3: so that there's nothing there to stimulate creativity or imagination
16:08
Speaker 3: for a story. Inside that room is hit in audio
16:12
Speaker 3: and video equipment, and that forensically trained interviewer gets an
16:15
Speaker 3: opportunity to speak to that.
16:17
Speaker 2: Child and allow that child to disclose what happened.
16:20
Speaker 3: Adjacent to that room is a forensic monitoring room, and
16:23
Speaker 3: that entire team that I just mentioned of professionals is
16:26
Speaker 3: watching that interview in real time.
16:29
Speaker 2: That interview is being recorded.
16:31
Speaker 3: When that interviewer is done, he or she will go
16:33
Speaker 3: into that monitoring room and ask that team of professionals
16:36
Speaker 3: if there's anything that they would like to ask that
16:38
Speaker 3: child or to have that child elaborate on. He or
16:41
Speaker 3: she will go back into the interview room conclude the interview,
16:45
Speaker 3: and when that interview concludes, that child never has to
16:48
Speaker 3: tell their story again, they never have to be re
16:51
Speaker 3: traumatized by their abuse. They immediately begin working with child
16:54
Speaker 3: Help and our team of counselors and therapists immediately begin
16:57
Speaker 3: working with them to provide them the healing journey that
17:00
Speaker 3: they need to get on the other side of the
17:02
Speaker 3: trauma that they experienced. That entire team of professionals now
17:06
Speaker 3: takes that interview in real time and moves Dennis, I
17:09
Speaker 3: can't tell you the number of times I have literally
17:12
Speaker 3: seen police officers and investigators sprints out of the advocacy
17:16
Speaker 3: center to go to the location where that child was
17:19
Speaker 3: abused and be able to collect the evidence in the
17:21
Speaker 3: exact spot that that child said that it would be
17:25
Speaker 3: because of the timeliness of being able to get that
17:27
Speaker 3: interview and get that team of professionals together. Historically, that
17:31
Speaker 3: evidence likely would have been lost, never would have been captured,
17:34
Speaker 3: because too much time had gone by and too many
17:36
Speaker 3: things would have compromised that if that piece of evidence
17:39
Speaker 3: ever got brought forward in the first place. So those
17:42
Speaker 3: are the elements of what big our counselors, our therapists,
17:45
Speaker 3: our victim advocates, our model of multidisciplinary care so exceptional
17:49
Speaker 3: in addressing this space.
17:50
Speaker 1: Well, I got to tell you, it's extraordinary, and I'm
17:52
Speaker 1: glad you went into dealteal about that because it's so
17:55
Speaker 1: well thought out and I know there's a lot of
17:58
Speaker 1: different buckets that you're working with. Then I want to
18:00
Speaker 1: ask you one more thing about the counselors when it
18:02
Speaker 1: comes to people like me. Even though I've met people
18:05
Speaker 1: in the fire department, the police force, nine to one
18:07
Speaker 1: on operators in my job, and lots of other people
18:10
Speaker 1: that are in crisis management, one of the things that
18:13
Speaker 1: I take for Grant and Michael, maybe you did too
18:15
Speaker 1: before you got into this gig and you're helping so
18:17
Speaker 1: many people, is that when people hear a ton of
18:20
Speaker 1: trauma or they see a lot of trauma. It has
18:22
Speaker 1: a physical and a mental effect on them. And with
18:25
Speaker 1: that said, I realized that they're trained and once again,
18:28
Speaker 1: everybody's different out there, and we certainly get that in
18:30
Speaker 1: their journey. But when it's dealing with the counselors and
18:33
Speaker 1: all the other people that are working with all this
18:35
Speaker 1: trauma and hearing some really horrific things every day, how
18:38
Speaker 1: are they taking care of to make sure that they're
18:40
Speaker 1: not only doing what you need them to do, but
18:42
Speaker 1: also they're also taking care of as human beings as.
18:44
Speaker 2: Well well being.
18:46
Speaker 3: You're talking about vicarious trauma that our counselors experience, which
18:50
Speaker 3: they experience on a daily basis, having to carry this on.
18:53
Speaker 3: When I first started, I've been with Child Up for
18:55
Speaker 3: thirteen years. When I first started, one of the very
18:58
Speaker 3: first things that I did was sit on a hotline call,
19:01
Speaker 3: and so I spent about maybe three three and a
19:03
Speaker 3: half hours listening to some of the calls that came
19:06
Speaker 3: on in and in that time, I think it took
19:09
Speaker 3: me at least a good two to three.
19:11
Speaker 2: Months before I could turn.
19:14
Speaker 3: Off what I had heard. Just in those few hours
19:17
Speaker 3: of listening to the call. Our counselors work full eight
19:20
Speaker 3: hour shifts every single day of the week, so the
19:24
Speaker 3: amount of I carrious trauma that they carry with them
19:26
Speaker 3: is significant, and their well being.
19:29
Speaker 2: Is very, very important to us.
19:31
Speaker 3: We invest a lot in mental health services and care
19:34
Speaker 3: for our staff. We take into consideration what they need.
19:38
Speaker 3: We have different sound baths, yoga, wellness initiatives that.
19:43
Speaker 2: We put in place.
19:44
Speaker 3: We try to schedule them in a manner that gives
19:47
Speaker 3: them a significant amount of time off in between shifts
19:50
Speaker 3: so they're not working back to back shifts so much
19:53
Speaker 3: so that they can have some of that mental break.
19:55
Speaker 3: But yes, it takes a very special person to be
19:59
Speaker 3: able to care for this population, especially from the position
20:02
Speaker 3: of a counselor or direct care staff. The experience in
20:06
Speaker 3: the stories and the heartache that they have to listen
20:09
Speaker 3: to and help these children navigate and support is incredible.
20:14
Speaker 2: And they are angels on earth. They are angels on Earth.
20:17
Speaker 1: They sure are. And I'm glad that you had a
20:19
Speaker 1: chance to talk about them and those important people that
20:21
Speaker 1: are part of the team. We are going to give
20:23
Speaker 1: the website at the end. Then there's so much on
20:26
Speaker 1: the website, folks, it's easy to navigate it. It is
20:28
Speaker 1: nice to look at, but there's a lot of research
20:30
Speaker 1: on there, information and you can really dig in there.
20:34
Speaker 1: So Michael will give the website at the end if
20:36
Speaker 1: you already have in Google that, we'll give the phone
20:38
Speaker 1: number again as well. But I did want to go
20:40
Speaker 1: over a few events, donations, and other programs coming up.
20:45
Speaker 1: So why don't we do this because we did mention
20:47
Speaker 1: off the top that you are here locally in the DMV,
20:50
Speaker 1: but also you work domestically too. Can you explain how
20:53
Speaker 1: that works?
20:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we've got again we're in every single community
20:58
Speaker 3: across America with the hotline and that prevention education curriculum
21:03
Speaker 3: that I spoke with you about. But right here in
21:05
Speaker 3: the DMV area, we operate the Child Up Alice Tyler Village,
21:09
Speaker 3: which is right outside of Fredericksberg and in Virginia's in Lygnam, Virginia,
21:13
Speaker 3: right outside of Fredericksburg. And this was a two hundred
21:17
Speaker 3: and seventy acre former horse farm that we converted into
21:22
Speaker 3: a licensed psychiatric residential care facility. Now, oftentimes when I
21:27
Speaker 3: say psychiatric care facility, people think of white padded rooms
21:32
Speaker 3: and straight jackets, and then no, I want you to
21:35
Speaker 3: imagine two hundred and seventy acres of pine trees, open
21:38
Speaker 3: land for children to recreate and explore, to go on
21:42
Speaker 3: scavenger hunts, and to go trekking and hiking. We have
21:47
Speaker 3: on this campus cottages that these children live in, and
21:50
Speaker 3: these are home style environments where every child has their
21:54
Speaker 3: own bed, their own footlocker, their own closet. There's a
21:57
Speaker 3: kitchen and a living room, an area for them to
21:59
Speaker 3: do their studies. They all have chores just like we
22:03
Speaker 3: all had when we were kids growing on up. And
22:06
Speaker 3: they receive every form of therapeutic care that you can
22:08
Speaker 3: imagine on this campus, from traditional talk therapy, music therapy,
22:13
Speaker 3: art therapy, equine animal therapy. We even have a chapel
22:18
Speaker 3: on that campus for those that come from a faith
22:20
Speaker 3: based community and would like to continue to practice their
22:23
Speaker 3: faith there on the campus non public school, so that
22:26
Speaker 3: they don't fall behind in their studies. The children that
22:30
Speaker 3: live on this campus are children who have experienced the
22:33
Speaker 3: worst forms of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse that you
22:36
Speaker 3: can imagine. These are the type of stories that you
22:39
Speaker 3: hear the movies make and Lifetime Channel makes those television
22:43
Speaker 3: series and dramas about These are the stories where children
22:45
Speaker 3: are carved into and burned, severely mutilated. These are the
22:49
Speaker 3: type of stories that happen that bring these children into
22:52
Speaker 3: our care. Their stories are so graphic and so horrific
22:56
Speaker 3: that these children have been removed from the care of
22:58
Speaker 3: their homes and placed in our care to be able
23:02
Speaker 3: to have one goal, and that goal is to get
23:04
Speaker 3: them into a less intense facility or care. Sometimes that's
23:08
Speaker 3: family reunification. Sometimes that's foster care or adoptive care, or
23:12
Speaker 3: a group home or kinship care. It varies based upon
23:15
Speaker 3: the nature of the trauma that that child has experienced.
23:18
Speaker 3: But the average day for a child on that campus
23:21
Speaker 3: is a little less than a year, typically about nine
23:23
Speaker 3: to ten months of the year. Average age is between
23:26
Speaker 3: six and sixteen years of age that they stay on there,
23:30
Speaker 3: and our staff are twenty four to seven on that campus,
23:35
Speaker 3: and you have got more Angels on Earth working there
23:40
Speaker 3: our et Quine Animal Therapy programmed. As an example, there
23:43
Speaker 3: was an amazing story once and now there's been a
23:45
Speaker 3: few of these where you have had children who have
23:47
Speaker 3: experienced such horrific abuse and trauma that they've been nonverbal.
23:52
Speaker 3: But they come into our care and they have not spoken,
23:55
Speaker 3: and they don't understand how to express themselves in any
23:58
Speaker 3: mature way. And then with our animal therapy, we hear
24:02
Speaker 3: words like I love you for the first.
24:04
Speaker 2: Time because these children have an.
24:06
Speaker 3: Opportunity to care for an animal and receive the care
24:09
Speaker 3: back from that animal. I can't tell you the number
24:12
Speaker 3: of times I've walked into our art therapy room and
24:15
Speaker 3: you see the art projects that children start when they
24:18
Speaker 3: first come into our campus, using a lot of blacks
24:21
Speaker 3: and dark blues and purples, because the feelings that come
24:25
Speaker 3: out from them are not light and not bright and
24:28
Speaker 3: not vibrant. And then it changes, and then you can
24:30
Speaker 3: see how their illustrations have gone from sad faces and
24:35
Speaker 3: monsters to suns and rainbows and animals and smiles.
24:40
Speaker 2: I love when we get to see that. It's part
24:43
Speaker 2: of our chapel.
24:44
Speaker 3: We have a choir and the children, if they want,
24:47
Speaker 3: have an opportunity to learn how to sing and be
24:50
Speaker 3: a part of the chapel, and children who have never
24:53
Speaker 3: spoken a word standing front and center stage just bellowing
24:57
Speaker 3: out at the top of.
24:58
Speaker 2: Their lung songs.
24:59
Speaker 3: Love is Some of the most beautiful towns you're ever
25:02
Speaker 3: ever going to hear. These are some of the experiences
25:05
Speaker 3: that happen right here in Virginia on that campus, and
25:09
Speaker 3: it is phenomenal.
25:11
Speaker 2: It is life changing.
25:13
Speaker 3: Oftentimes, especially in our industry, when you hear words like
25:16
Speaker 3: residential treatment facility, there are a number of for profit
25:20
Speaker 3: companies around America that operate these type of facilities, and
25:23
Speaker 3: they operate them in a for profit way. It's a
25:26
Speaker 3: bed for a head. They're not providing that level of care,
25:29
Speaker 3: that level of support that you will find at this facility,
25:33
Speaker 3: which we affectionately call a village.
25:35
Speaker 2: So you won't find that at You'll find that.
25:38
Speaker 3: Level of care and support at a child of village
25:39
Speaker 3: that you won't find in some of these other facilities.
25:42
Speaker 3: And a lot of times, especially people in the child
25:44
Speaker 3: welfare space, try to make efforts to close those type
25:47
Speaker 3: of operations and entities down. When we support that if
25:51
Speaker 3: there's not care for a child, if it is truly
25:54
Speaker 3: a bed for a head type of an operation, and
25:56
Speaker 3: you're not providing them type of therapeutic care and sensitivity
25:59
Speaker 3: and understanding that these children need, by all means, we
26:02
Speaker 3: were standing right there in that child welfare spase and
26:04
Speaker 3: we don't want to see those operations continue. But at
26:07
Speaker 3: that child help village. That's not what you will see
26:10
Speaker 3: in experience. You will see what I started our interview
26:13
Speaker 3: with originally. All who went he here will find love.
26:15
Speaker 3: You will see love on that campus. When I first
26:18
Speaker 3: started a child up and I was taking a tour
26:20
Speaker 3: of that village for the first time, there was a
26:23
Speaker 3: young boy. His name was David, and he was about
26:25
Speaker 3: seven eight years of age, and he stood out to
26:28
Speaker 3: me on my tour because his suit was about three
26:30
Speaker 3: sizes too big and he was wearing it. But he
26:33
Speaker 3: was wearing this suit because all he heard was that
26:36
Speaker 3: somebody important was coming on to campus, and all he
26:41
Speaker 3: was hoping for was that somebody was going to see
26:44
Speaker 3: him and want to adopt him. That was so he
26:46
Speaker 3: dressed in the only thing that he had, which was
26:49
Speaker 3: a suit, and he was excited. He was too big,
26:51
Speaker 3: and he stood out for me, and he and I
26:53
Speaker 3: had a wonderful conversation, and he did ask. He was
26:56
Speaker 3: bold enough to sit there and say, would you adopt me?
26:59
Speaker 3: And I was bolden to go back and say, I'm
27:01
Speaker 3: not here to adopt you, but I am here to
27:02
Speaker 3: help make sure that your journey moving forward is one
27:05
Speaker 3: that is full of brightness and hope. And love, and
27:08
Speaker 3: he did end up getting adopted by another family and
27:12
Speaker 3: to my knowledge, you know, that has worked out very
27:14
Speaker 3: well for him. But that is the type of care
27:17
Speaker 3: that we exuberate on that campus.
27:19
Speaker 2: They have arts and crafts. The community plays a vital role.
27:22
Speaker 2: We were talking a little bit about events.
27:24
Speaker 3: We do a number of events in the DMV area
27:27
Speaker 3: to support that village.
27:29
Speaker 2: Coming up.
27:30
Speaker 3: For example, in April, we will be having our large
27:33
Speaker 3: gala which will be in the Tysons Corner area over
27:37
Speaker 3: at the RITZ there. One hundred percent of the proceeds
27:40
Speaker 3: that are raised from that gala go to support this
27:43
Speaker 3: village operation and our hotline calls that serve all of
27:46
Speaker 3: the DMV area, as well as support for our prevention
27:49
Speaker 3: education resources in the DMV area.
27:53
Speaker 2: We've got at the latter part of October.
27:55
Speaker 3: On October twentieth, we've got to dine and drive a
27:58
Speaker 3: golf event that are going to be doing out there.
28:01
Speaker 3: I got to find out, I got to remember the
28:03
Speaker 3: golf course on the top my head. I don't remember
28:04
Speaker 3: if it stop.
28:05
Speaker 2: My head, but I'll get that to you at conclusion
28:08
Speaker 2: of our interview.
28:09
Speaker 3: But we do a number of things we do the
28:11
Speaker 3: biker community out in the DMV area always does a
28:15
Speaker 3: ride to bring awareness and attention to our village and
28:19
Speaker 3: then support our village out there. So it's a phenomenal community,
28:23
Speaker 3: but it's a phenomenal operation. We typically have at any
28:26
Speaker 3: given time somewhere between fifty five to sixty children residing
28:30
Speaker 3: on that campus at any given point in time, and again,
28:34
Speaker 3: our goal is not to keep the child there any
28:36
Speaker 3: longer than they need to be. Our goal is to
28:38
Speaker 3: get them into a less intense facility and to get
28:41
Speaker 3: them onto.
28:41
Speaker 2: A pathway of healing.
28:43
Speaker 3: And the real objective is for them to be able
28:46
Speaker 3: to move on from nightmares and start having dreams of
28:48
Speaker 3: their own, dreams of ambition, dreams of a family of
28:51
Speaker 3: their own, dream of education of their own, dreams of
28:54
Speaker 3: professional aspirations of their own. We want to give them
28:57
Speaker 3: that opportunity to dream and live and whatever it is
29:01
Speaker 3: that they want to be, something that oftentimes when they
29:04
Speaker 3: come to us, was never a gift that they ever
29:06
Speaker 3: were able to receive, something that Dennis, you and I
29:08
Speaker 3: most likely took for granted in our Michael.
29:10
Speaker 1: One last time, let's give the website the phone number
29:12
Speaker 1: and how you can contact Child.
29:13
Speaker 3: Help Absolutely if you have a question or a comment
29:17
Speaker 3: or anything related to a vice that you would like
29:19
Speaker 3: to talk with one of our counselors about.
29:20
Speaker 2: That number is one eight hundred for a child.
29:24
Speaker 3: You can find all the information on our website at
29:26
Speaker 3: childhelp dot org.
29:29
Speaker 2: And we do.
29:30
Speaker 3: We are thankful, so incredibly thankful for the amount of
29:33
Speaker 3: donations that come in and those that support us. We
29:35
Speaker 3: could not operate without our donations and our donors making
29:39
Speaker 3: our mission possible. You can donate right there on our
29:42
Speaker 3: website at childhelp dot org.
29:44
Speaker 1: All right, Michael, please give my best to all the
29:47
Speaker 1: counselors and the people on the phones, and all the
29:49
Speaker 1: people on your team that do such incredible, tireless work.
29:52
Speaker 1: I appreciate your leadership and your passion for what you do,
29:55
Speaker 1: and I'm glad we could feature you on Community DC.
29:57
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Dennis, thank you for the opportunity.