Youth Villages maps future growth at annual conference
Daily Memphian
Michael Waddell
The assistance, guidance and support DaShawn Rounds has received from Youth Villages the past several years has helped him move from depression and suicidal thoughts to self-confidence and graduating from college.
Rounds, 21, grew up in extreme poverty in rough Chicago and Mississippi neighborhoods. He found himself eventually lonely and isolated from his family.
“People from Youth Villages have always shown me how much they care,” Rounds said. “Youth Village is a great organization. I’ve worked with many — I’ve been in foster care since I was 12 — and Youth Villages is by far the best.”
Rounds, who is a member of the organization’s YVLifeset program for youth aging out of the foster care system, shared his story at Youth Villages’ “Create Impact 2019 Employee Conference” this week at the Cannon Center in Downtown Memphis.
The nonprofit is growing locally and nationally, with new construction underway on its Bartlett campus, renovations ongoing and planned for its offices in Memphis and Nashville, and further expansion of its YVLifeset program on the horizon.
Several projects are underway on Youth Villages’ 82-acre Bartlett campus on Memphis-Arlington Road, which serves as a temporary home to more than 150 children ages 7 to 18 who suffer from behavioral and family issues and/or medical complications.
Construction is in full swing on the new $6 million Bower Family Activity Center, a 13,000-square-foot recreation center with a culinary arts school, gymnasium, movie theater, dance and yoga area, drumming and music room, covered basketball pavilion and covered picnic pavilion.
Work is also nearly complete on a $22 million expansion of Bill’s Place, adding 100,000 square feet to the existing 45,000-square-foot structure. The building will include 72 additional beds, a new school, gymnasium, outdoor pool, counseling rooms, medical area, educational areas, a theater, neuro feedback room, sensory room, computer labs and a music/drumming room.
“When Bill’s Place is finished, there will be over 300 young people on that campus, and we’ve just got to get them out and have more for them to do,” Youth Villages CEO Pat Lawler said. “If the weather cooperates a little bit, we’ll be in there this spring.”
About six or seven years ago, the nonprofit completed the largest clinical trial ever for a group of young people —1,322 participants from Tennessee, aging out of the foster care system.
“We had very, very good outcomes, but not perfect. And one area that bothered all us where we didn’t do well was in criminal justice,” said Lawler, who said people in the program who had legal trouble after age 18 usually dealt with more penalties because they could not afford a private attorney.
So last year, Youth Villages hired the Lewis Thomason statewide law firm to represent every one of its kids in Tennessee.
“What we’ve learned by hiring a law firm to represent our kids — almost in every case, their charges have been dropped, dismissed or expunged,” Lawler said.
The program has been so successful in Tennessee that Youth Villages plans to replicate it in Massachusetts and North Carolina soon.
The nonprofit is also teaching organizations in other states to use its Lifeset model, with partnering jurisdictions now in Washington, New York, Louisiana, Illinois, Connecticut, California and Washington, D.C.
“We decided four or five years ago we would have a greater impact across the country by helping others learn how to use our model versus us expanding ourselves,” Lawler said. “Just two weeks ago, we received another generous level of support from Blue Meridian Partners so we can expand this program much further over the next four and a half years.”
About 450 people are served by the Lifeset program each year, and Lawler wants to grow that number to 7,000 by 2024.
“Our overall goal as an organization is to make sure that every young person aging out of the foster care system across the United States — there’s about 20,000 a year — would have the opportunity to be served by the Lifeset program or another similar program with similar outcomes,” Lawler said.
Also at the conference Thursday, Nov. 7, the nonprofit’s annual Clarence Day Legacy Award went to Amy Linthicum for her work with Youth Villages over the past three decades and her spirit and commitment to helping others.
Youth Villages serves about 28,000 youths per year and employs a staff of 3,000 nationally at 80 locations across 20 states, with an operating budget of roughly $250 million. Its work involves trying to keep young people from being removed from their families by state government.
If they are removed and put into group homes, foster homes or residential treatment facilities, returning them home as safely and quickly as possible is the priority. The average length of stay for a child ranges from four to seven months.
