00:00 - Speaker 1 Have you ever met Kathy Rodriguez
from the Hispanic Chamber? 00:04 - Speaker 2
Yeah. 00:04 - Speaker 1
She was just in here this week. Oh yeah, I got
to get you squared away on your mic. 00:12 - Speaker 2
Kathy's amazing. She's a great speaker. She was. 00:15 - Speaker 1
You, and this is two back-to-back who speak almost as fast as I do oh,
faster actually, because I said we're at the end of the thing and she's going. I said you know,
when someone is with you that speaks fa
st, do you tend to speak faster? So I always
get criticized because I speak too fast. Slow it down a little bit. I said you're
the only person I've had sit in this chair that speaks faster than me, and I'm
trying to keep up with you. You do too. 00:41 - Speaker 2
Well, I think it's when I get passionate about something, my staff if I'm not sitting
with them at the table, or we were fighting with the county the other day and she says the
more passionate you get, the faster you go. 00:49 - Sp
eaker 1
Right right. 00:50
You need to slow down, and it's a good thing. Yeah, it is a good thing.
Okay, so good, yep, all right, debbie, I am so happy to have you join me today for this
conversation. I'm really looking forward to it. 01:05
There's a bit of irony in the conversation, though, because we started
this program, the Nonprofit Podcast Network, almost four years ago this month, and the
first episode we did was Kids First. Here we are with a refresh, which is because
what started t
he program was the failure, the inability of the organizations to do their
annual events that were coming up in April and May and June, because of the pandemic shutting
everything down and everything had to go virtual. And it was through just the foresight of
one of the agency executives, mary Town, who said maybe a podcast would work to help
nonprofits tell their stories about their virtual events. And then, of course, we've since
morphed into nonprofits telling their stories to the benefi
t of the nonprofit as a tool. So
thank you, and thank you for the organization. I know you weren't there at the time, but it's
really exciting to see it come full circle. 02:06 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I think most nonprofits are still struggling with
that. They're just getting back to doing in-person events. So this has
been. We're excited, too, that it's full circle and that we get the opportunity
to come back and share where we are today. 02:18 - Speaker 1
Because it's only the virtual ones we'
re doing repeats for, and
you have special privilege because you're the very first one. So it's just so rewarding
to see we're still here, we're still doing it, and we're doing it on a much grander scale than
we did when we oriented this thing as a pro bono support mechanism. So a lot's changed since that
first episode, and Kids First is an extremely, I think, necessary but really robust program that
many people probably don't have an understanding of. What the scope of service is. Can you
walk us
through what it is that happens with Kids First? 03:01 - Speaker 2
Sure, we are robust, I think, to your point. We get asked every day. We had no
idea. Tell us what you do. We have seven different entities inside of us, so we have our primary. We
are a family resource center, first and foremost, where folks can come in if they're struggling with
rent, if they need food assistance, if they need housing utilities, if they need help getting on
CalWORKs anything that could help their fa
mily, whole insurance, whatever those needs are.
We've got a team that works with them there. 03:32 - Speaker 1
And to ask you don't actually provide the food you would, or do you? 03:37 - Speaker 2
In some instances we can align, so we collaborate with many other organizations,
food banks, food source industries, and so we can have food brought in and we connect it
to that. It could be formula, diapers, all of those things. Some will come to us, some we
just connect them to directly and we'
re vouchers so we make sure they have the actual necessary
needs. Childcare, all of those things can be done with collaboration we use with other entities.
The other part of our service is we do counseling. 04:02
So I've got a bank of eight therapists on staff and they do marriage
and family counseling. They do abuse counseling, they do trauma-based therapy. They'll do it's
called PCIT, which is parent-child interaction. That's primarily if a child especially after
COVID we've seen these nu
mbers skyrocket If kids are having trouble concentrating in a classroom or
having disruption issues, we teach the child what to do and help mom and dad or caregiver work with
that child. We have an entire team of folks that we call parents as educators, so they work with
the home, go straight to the home with mom and dad from birth to five. It's a program that we work
with through First Five and we work through that. 04:40 - Speaker 1
First Five. The other state organization. Yes, yeah, okay
. 04:43 - Speaker 2
So that's one. We are an affiliate through them as well Work with prenatal all the way to age five,
and then we have we do a sex trafficking component for the children's side of that. I have a team
that's on the streets that does that. We also have we do classes and outreach education, I mean. So
it's there's just I have a staff of 35. It's there and they're all busy. They would tell me that
we could have a staff of 70. It's still not on. 05:12 - Speaker 1
I was just goin
g to say 35 seems small for the volume of service
you provide. Yeah, do you have an idea of how many people come through the organization
in, let's say, a given month or a given year? 05:26 - Speaker 2
Yeah, we serve about 3,500 a year Between 3,500 and 5,000, it
depends on the flow and how many people are in each family that we serve. But usually
we have about 560 families that go through the therapy model and then you have a total of
3,400 that will walk through the door that require the
Family Resource Center, with
the parents as teachers that need housing assistance. Whatever those numbers can
look like, but yeah, it's significant. 05:52 - Speaker 1
In terms of the connectivity. It would seem that you're
associated with a variety of different organizations. We are what would be
some of the more significant ones, maybe, that we're aware of in terms of the
collaboration and how you work with each other. 06:06 - Speaker 2
So we house the seat for the Placer Child Abuse Preve
ntion Council
for the county, which means any entity within the county that serves potential that can
do preventative measures for child abuse. 06:18
So it's us, it's CASA, it's Lighthouse, it is the Latino Leadership
Council, the Sierra Nevada Alliance, it could be the Boys and Girls Club, it can be anything that
has entities, it could be Stana Placer, so all the other entities that provide services to these
individuals. It's the food banks because, again, you see, when there's disparaging
numbers in
finances which affects their housing, it affects the abuse. Numbers go skyrocketing up. The more
stress in the home, the more probability of abuse. 06:49 - Speaker 1
And that abuse is both physical and substance, I would imagine. 06:52 - Speaker 2
Correct, and for right now we are just we're moving into the substance
level too. In fact, it was interesting because our staff were going through certification
for substance abuse only on the teen level. 07:03 - Speaker 1
Because they
don't have enough to do. Yet, right, right,
they don't have enough to do. 07:07 - Speaker 2
But I think it's. You know most folks have said well, we don't want to do.
We really focus on the child and the family. If a parent is connected with one of the kids, we
do that, but we're really concentrated on the kids and the family side. So our substance
abuse training will really be with teens, because that level has become so prevalent.
So that is another avenue of what we're just trying to exp
and what type of treatments we
can offer folks and where are we seeing those numbers change? We know that the numbers for
abuse in Placer County right now are between 16,000 and 17,000 a year. So there's still many
thousands between us and Lighthouse and some of the other agencies that we're making sure
they don't slip through cracks between us and Lighthouse and some of the other agencies that
we're making sure they don't slip through cracks. 07:47 - Speaker 1
That's just an astounding num
ber. That is sad to hear, but it's
a reality of something that we have to deal with and we have to find solutions to
these things. Better to have the care and the ability to care through a variety of different
organizations as opposed to silo. Correct, which is wonderful to hear. You mentioned Placer. The
organization serves just Placer County, correct? 08:07 - Speaker 2
Correct. So each we are, because so much of our of what we receive financially comes from the county.
The county funds qu
ite a bit of what we do. But we do collaborate with Nevada County because they're
they buck up to us on the Tahoe side and you know Nevada City and Nevada County, sac County. So a
lot of times when people are being referred to us it could be they're coming from a different
county into ours, or if there isn't enough housing or there isn't something and they get a
job moved to somewhere else. We'll collaborate with the other counties as well to make sure
those families still oh, so there's a
handoff. 08:41
Yep. 08:44 - Speaker 1
Excuse me, what are some of the more necessary programs that you're finding
you're having to deal with on a growing scope? 08:53 - Speaker 2
Oh gosh, I think just in the last year the shift that we've seen I think more
disparaging what we've seen the biggest increase has been housing needs. Where it's not, it's
really where we're seeing I'll call them the working poor. Right, they make minimum wage
or a little bit above that. They probably are still in s
ubsidized housing for some degree. If
they'll get a small increase, well then rent goes up. And if rent goes up higher than the increase
that they've received, then they can't make it. 09:23
Food costs have gone up so high. So if they have less on what CalWORKs are getting because
they've got a pay increase, then they can't afford the grocery bill. They have to make the decision
do they get child care for their children so they can work? Then what happens to rent? So we'll step
in and provi
de extra housing support. So we'll help pay utilities, we'll help pay rent and we
put them through a financial literacy program. So let's help you try to not go through this again.
We really want to work on the teach them how to fish component. Tough to do that with someone when
they're working on $1,000 a month fixed income. 09:58
What are we supposed to tell them? How do you budget the $1,000 for
your family of six? So it's kind of we really see that caught in the middle phase. But what
c
omes with that? It's not just the assistance. Now we're talking about the abuse numbers
that go up. And how do you tell a family that, if there's nowhere to go, park in your car with
your three children the last thing we want? 10:17 - Speaker 1
to recommend right. 10:23 - Speaker 2
So we're seeing far more of that come in. Those numbers
have increased by 38% this year for us alone. How many people are
coming to us for support there? 10:29 - Speaker 1
So it's housing support, not homelessness
. Yet Our goal is
to prevent so we can keep them out. 10:37 - Speaker 2
But we are emergency housing in a lot of cases too. We have families
that will say we have nowhere to go. So we have contracts with some of our local hotels that are
in town and we'll place them there for a week or two until we can get them. Housing Very limited.
There are not a lot of facilities for families, lots of locations that you can put adults but
littles really rough. There's just not a lot of locations there.
So our team really helps
try to get them through the housing units, get them on lists, get them tied in with you
know, put them in with the housing authority folks. So wherever we need to assist, we do. Is
there even enough housing in Placer County for? 11:18
you see this Low-income housing, yes, no, okay, and the length of time. So those lists
can be months or years and then you're bumped of time. So those lists can be months or years
and then you're bumped. So if you're sitting at the top
of the list and someone comes
in, that is a more deeper financial stress. 11:32 - Speaker 1
Greater need. 11:32 - Speaker 2
You keep yeah, the greater need you're getting dropped. So
you could be sitting on that list for years. And you know, I think, if we're looking at
staff members that are making $22 an hour, $23 an hour and they've got more than or
even just a single parent at that level, that's you're not. You can't do childcare and
rent and food and life is just really difficult. 11:
54 - Speaker 1
Can't drive gas. Expense yes. 11:56 - Speaker 2
Placer County is not an inexpensive county to live in, and so we have to look at do
we help them find a more inexpensive spot? We have to look at, do we help them find
a more inexpensive spot? But if this is where they think their work is, where their
families are, it's you don't want to leave. 12:10 - Speaker 1
So housing may be at the top. What would be next in? 12:14 - Speaker 2
Child care, okay, so I think those, and that agai
n causes the stress. But the two
biggest expenses for a household are rent and child care, and so without that you're kind
of torn between it. We're seeing a lot where I can send my wife back to work, but then again
we'll lose our housing and so, or because the child care is so expensive, it can be almost 50
percent of somebody's income. It's just they're really trying to weigh the odds of is that being
helpful to take to send them there? If you can't put food on the table, you can't pay th
e bills,
no water, utilities and no house, then what? So? 12:51
The hard part for me is having to watch someone say tell me, what do I pick,
what comes off? And those are basic human needs, and so without those things it's tough for us to
even do therapy. If you're homeless basic human needs, and so without those things it's tough
for us to even do therapy. If you're homeless, if you don't have a place to be, then you coming
into therapy every week is the chances of you showing up weekly is
limited. Being able to go
back and say how does that work? How's your day, you tell me. So just putting ourselves in
their shoes. A lot of the cases which it's really hard to say, I've been there. Most of my
staff has not been there. I would say probably none of them have been in those same shoes. But
being empathetic and understanding, listening, really listening to what they're telling us their
needs are is what they're taking the time to do. 13:38 - Speaker 1
Continuing. So we've got ho
using and we have childcare. Maybe
get to the top three. What would be third? 13:46 - Speaker 2
Well, all of this is based on the mental health aspect of it,
right? So the mental health that comes with all of these entities is the key. It binds it
all together. So, if there's stress in a home, our goal is to avoid the abuse,
right, but I think what we're—. 14:00 - Speaker 1
Of which each one of these creates the greater likelihood. 14:03 - Speaker 2
Correct. So the amount of—if it's domestic
violence, if it could be child abuse, if
it could be you know, the trafficking component, it's the drug use, it's all of those things,
but I think that the mental health aspect of it ties even all those other aspects together.
That is the binder for everything. We do that because of the mental health issues, all these
other things fall into play, but that is still the overarching component and because of that
we have housing issues and child care issues, abuse issues, violence issues, and
so
all of those things continue to arise. 14:37 - Speaker 1
Tell me a little bit about the mental health part
of it. How is that serviced? 14:42 - Speaker 2
So most folks are either referred to us by a county entity so they can come through via a CPS
report or child protective services. Okay. Then we have the other component, which could be domestic
abuse. So if we hear that a report has been made in the community, we actually send a team out
to knock on a door. We understand that you may n
eed services. If it's a severe case, we send
two people out and then the social worker goes as well and we bring them in. The goal is to get
them into therapy. Make sure again that we're on their radar. They're on our radar. They need the
basic needs met. Let's get them the basic needs. 15:21 - Speaker 1
And is this your employed team? That's actually
going out. Yep Part of the 35?. 15:25 - Speaker 2
Yep. 15:27 - Speaker 1
Okay. 15:27 - Speaker 2
So they are knocking on doors every week, eve
ry day, and so it's.
Some are lesser cases than others, some are more stringent. It's for me, it's that's also.
You know there's concern there too. We always try to make sure there's at least two at a time
that go out. We know where they're going. Again, a majority of who we're serving are not. We're
not going to put you in a dangerous situation, but no one really wants somebody knocking on
your door saying I understand there was an issue, do you need our services? Some are more
amenable t
o taking that than others, but then we have our. We have an entire team
that's called. It's based on the abuse side, and so those folks come in. Again, a report is made.
We have a case manager specific to this subset of people and we can tell if sexual abuse has been
done in the home. Our goal is to quickly get that child into therapy so that we can help them
maintain a subset of some normalcy in their life. 16:24 - Speaker 1
Then what happens? They don't return to the home,
do they? Or do
they Depends? 16:29 - Speaker 2
on the case right. So it depends on how severe the case is and who the abuse was from.
So it could have not been somebody in the home, it could have been something outside, external,
and then you know, I think the other part of that is when there is trauma at home or bullying
that occurs, social media incidents, all of those things we have. Each one of our therapists has
some specialty elements to them. So whether it's parent-child interaction, where you've re
ally got
a kid that's struggling in school with outbursts and you know something else is going on at home
if they can't maintain it in the classroom, we work with the child and the caregiver to
ensure that we can bring them back into the fold so they can obtain the education and it's
not taking away from the other 30 kids in that room. That's key. It's making sure we're walking
through the trauma. All of our team is educated on the basic traumas, suicide prevention.
Those numbers are getti
ng lower every year. So if we can lower us meaning age, so we're
seeing kids that are getting lower and lower. 17:24 - Speaker 1
I was going to ask, yeah, not numbers. 17:27 - Speaker 2
The ages are getting younger and younger, which is frightening to really see that, and then
we really can see the nurture. So that PAT team, my team, that is, the parents as educators group,
to me is my best level of prevention. We're in there at the beginning with kids, maybe a lot of
single moms who didn't
really have a good mother figure to start with. They don't know how to
nurture, they don't understand good nutrition, they don't get all those elements that will set
their children up for success just getting ready for school, and so we have an entire team
that works with those households and make sure that we're getting those children ready
to be successful when they go to schooling. 18:10 - Speaker 1
How do the families? I see the referral process that either comes through
the school or f
rom the neighborhood or from law enforcement in a variety of different ways. You
get the referrals on issues that become obvious. How about families' awareness of the organization,
who can use the services? But it's not as severe, it's not a crisis mode, it's not a triage
situation where it's just to the benefit of your classes and things of that sort. How
do they find out about you or get to you? 18:40 - Speaker 2
So usually right now it can our social media, that we're out there.
We have
our website. That's there. The schools know the county knows so everywhere. If you're
an individual that lives in Placer County, you can go to any Health and Human Services
office and we are there as one of the primary providers in the community. All of our
school partners know that we exist and that's where a lot of those referrals are
coming from. But I do think we're getting more and more individual referrals
that are coming through the door. 19:06
I know you helped my neighbor Sue. Can
you take a look at what I've
got, or I need help with this. I know you have helped. You know John that lives next door and I
think that's one thing that is the most surprising to folks. We're not talking about a subset of
people that live in someone else's neighborhood. These are your neighbors. People that live in
someone else's neighborhood, these are your neighbors. It's your next door neighbor. It's the
lady who is stocking the groceries at the store. It is the woman who's cleaning the
mall. It's,
you know, it's everybody that lives on either side of you. So it's abuse is not. It doesn't
subset it affects everyone and it doesn't matter. 19:42 - Speaker 1
It's not socioeconomic, it's a variety of different demographics
and ethnicities and social lifestyles. 19:51 - Speaker 2
It is. I think that's why most people are so surprised when we
say we have some of the higher numbers for sex trafficking for teens. We're the second
wealthiest county in the state. But with that wealt
h comes perpetrators too, and so those
numbers are high. We have a team that's on the streets every day working with those kids,
finding them safe, getting them into structure. But I think the oddity of that is there's nowhere
to put some of these kids. So when we find them, there's no place to help those kids find. So
they go to juvenile hall in a lot of instances, because that's the part where they can keep
them safe and contained. But now you're putting kids that didn't have any criminal
records
with kids that did, and so what's that do? 20:35
How's that helping when it gets them and they can pop in and out. So now mom
and dad come back into the picture, they can help with the safeguard, and then they're gone again
and the child goes back. So there's a lot of back and forth that happens there. We're really seeing
what the effects of that is, long term for sure. 20:52 - Speaker 1
In terms of assistance, I noticed from the website there's a variety of things you
can do to he
lp somebody who's maybe struggling, understanding that I've got to get this signed
up, I've got to do this, I've got to get into my Medi-Cal or whatever the program is. Sometimes
it's daunting. It's daunting for many of us, not to mention some of those who are challenged
with everything else that they're dealing with. What are some of the programs that or some
of the assistance benefits that you provide. 21:25 - Speaker 2
Well, I think English with a Suspective Second Language is number
one
, right? So because so many of our clients are only Spanish-speaking, it's getting through
those systems with Medi-Cal, with CalWORKs. If you don't understand the language as it is, that
is beyond daunting, You're never going to right. 21:40
If you're living in assisted living or in a rent-controlled facility.
Sometimes utilities are included in your rent. If you didn't know, and those numbers are up, you're
looking at eviction because you couldn't pay, you couldn't read your bills. So usual
ly our
team, our case management team, have between 60 and 80 families each that they work with and
that's exactly what they do. Bring us your bills, We'll take a look at them for you. If you need
help with this form, we're not just going to give you the form, we're going to fill it out
with you, get it into the system. If you need Medi-Cal and you don't have it already, our folks
will not just sign you up, but they'll make sure you've got a client or a rep and then maintain it
with you if
something comes in, if you get forms. 22:18
So it's everything to make sure that we keep the family whole and I think sometimes I have to
tell my team we have to be okay with. This is what we can do and be grateful that we were able to do
this much, because there's times it's daunting. We can't provide it all. There's not enough people,
there's not enough money. It's just, it's reality and I think that trying to really help these
folks grow and learn. We need more classes. We need to be abl
e to do more on that front. We do
a father only class of forever fathers and that's specifically for single dads or and those folks
come back over and over because of the camaraderie and they really can see the growth from here to
here. Many of our dads will tell you that story. 23:03 - Speaker 1
I happened to be at one of your events and it was a dad who had
gone through the program and told his whole story about just the upbringing with
his children and where they are today, and the kids
came up and spoke and it was an
amazing, amazing outcome of how that all ended up. And he now has since retired and gets
to spend a lot of time with his children. 23:24 - Speaker 2
Yeah, well, and he was an older dad to start with, you know, so it was really a
struggle when he had a fixed income with a wife that was struggling with abuse and drugs, and so
you know what he needed to do to keep his children safe. But having our because all of our classes
have a therapist and then a case manag
er and them teaching so they can walk through whatever issues
they are, and they also have the stories from the others on different lived experiences, and so
that one has been a huge, just a huge benefit to the community. We do a co-parenting class as well
to help folks that are in the mix of divorce or they're single or maybe it's a different caregiver
could be able to communicate with one another, because having those kids in the middle is where
you see a lot of trauma occurring, as well.
24:09
We do anxiety classes. We work on social media with the
kids of how to keep them safe in some of those entities. We're working on anything that
we see. If we see a large group of individuals come in with a similar kind of concept,
let's create a group out of this. Let's see what we can do to help these folks all
come together in that arena and we see the positive effects of that and I think you can
see crossover from one section to the other. 24:37
I think the other story that we had
at the event that was Lily, who is your
story for this. She was in our system from the time she was 10. And it was. She was one of those
kiddos that were just in the system. She ended up becoming a teen that landed in the sex trafficking
pool as well, and she connected strongly with one of our case managers who has really become a
maternal figure to her. She calls her before she'll call anybody else and we're making sure
that Lily shows up for these appointments. 25:07
Getting her there wa
s a struggle, so having a connecting point to make sure she's
getting those services that she needs. By the time she was an older teen, she got pregnant and
again our case manager was on hand when she was having this baby and the baby is thriving.
Now Lily has a job, she's got her own place, and that she will tell you that there's no way she
didn't think she'd be alive, let alone be able to help bring up another child, without the support
of our team. And I think that goes over and above wh
at you're going to get funding from a county, or
when you're looking for whatever kind of funding. 25:41 - Speaker 1
Well, it's also a testament to the team that you've got to engage
at that level to become a maternal figure. Yeah, that's your child and now your grandchild,
in essence, from a perceptual standpoint. 25:53 - Speaker 2
We just did it. We're doing a birthday party for the little one because
he's turning one. But I just think I do applaud my team because there's not one family th
at
comes through our doors that they don't get vested in. Sometimes I almost have to pull them
back slightly because you do. You do get vested in these hundreds and thousands of people that
walk through our door. You want to make sure they're all whole. You want to make sure that they
feel and that they can do for their children like you were able to do for yours, or at least give
the kids that chance so that there's you know. 26:24 - Speaker 1
The epitome of that servant's heart. Yeah, it
really is they are. 26:26 - Speaker 2
They're all servant leaders and some of them aren't, and I want to say that even
if they're in their young 20s, they're learning that concept of giving to others above themselves
and they really do put themselves in those shoes. I love that. My team will not just hand you a
sheet with the resources on there. Let me explain each one. If you don't understand it, I'll do that
with you. Let me get that through. Are you having troubles with groceries? Let me
call for you and
get that set up and so. But then it's teaching them the next level. Because you don't want to
get into the pattern. I'll do that all for you. 26:55 - Speaker 1
It's not an enablement, that's right it's. 26:57 - Speaker 2
We need to teach them to get themselves to a part where they can do it for
themselves. And now they are a strong and vibrant individual within that community and they become
sustained and viable, and so that's our goal for each of these families is to get th
em to a
spot where they can manage day-to-day life and there's no struggles that are happening with
it. I can't fix their income. A lot of the time. 27:19
We've had kids that have helped them
find a job, got them a job, but you can't hand hold them through that and
if they lose that job, you did your part. We need to continue it. This is how much you
can give and keep going to the next family. 27:34 - Speaker 1
Well, it's a sustainability too. 27:35 - Speaker 2
Absolutely. 27:36 - Speaker 1
They will self-select out at some point unfortunately that's the case
or self-select, in which is the success story. 27:44 - Speaker 2
I agree. I do believe that if I really look at the populace of who
we have, 95 percent of our people want to do better. They want to get to the level where
they don't need us anymore. You do have a small percentage of those individuals that say you're
going to help me, I'm going to take it. Sure, that's such a small percentage really who
use the system or w
ho are maybe think it's much easier if you just do it all and I don't
have to worry about it. But a majority again, that 95% that they want to be better. They want
to live a life where they're not having to come into our doors but creating an environment
that's not frightening for kids that come in. We moved both of our offices on purpose.
We wanted to have a more welcoming environment so it's not scary for the kids, it's not scary
for mom or dad or caregiver whoever it is that's bringing t
hem there. This is supposed to help
the family, not create more stress for them having to come into an environment that's
not welcoming or warm when they arrive. 28:40
that's not welcoming or warm when they arrive. So I think that we really have looked
at all aspects of how and where we serve and what that looks like to the
families that come through our doors. 28:49 - Speaker 1
And you mentioned your two locations. They are where. 28:52 - Speaker 2
We have an office in Roseville, actually r
eal close to the mall. There's a
whole subset of new low-income apartments that were built there, but we're right off a
bus line so any of our clients can get to us via bus or walk or drive. Easy location right off
the 65. And our other office is in Auburn, right behind the courthouse. That's up there, so again
right in the middle of the populace that needs us. 29:13 - Speaker 1
I didn't realize that they actually had an access point where they went to which is great,
yeah, because it's com
forting. They went to, which is great because it's comforting and, as
you mentioned, it's an environment that they can feel comfortable in, as opposed to do I have to
go to the police station. Where do I find you? How do I get my service? Tell me a little bit
about funding. How is the organization funded? 29:39 - Speaker 2
Well, we're split pretty much the organization funded. Well, we're split
pretty much. So we have a big chunk of what we do, probably in 65% range, is contracts with the
c
ounties and then another 25% is grants that we'll do and that could be with First Five. It
can be with. We just received a large grant from the Sierra Health Foundation to create a
suicide prevention app for teens. It can be the Kelly Foundation or Kaiser, I mean. So
those are the grants that we have and then we do need funding. We have funding to come in from
individuals that donate, corporations that donate in the two events that we do external revenue.
So if companies want to do events o
n our behalf, I love that, because then I don't have
to expend the money to create the events. 30:22 - Speaker 1
And the time and the energy. 30:24 - Speaker 2
And I still have a very small. We did put in
a development team because I don't believe any nonprofit that wants
to be sustainable can do it without one, and so we did hire a development director and
a grant a fledged grant writer that can help offset those funds and have the non-restricted
funding that's not tied to something specif
ic. 30:44
Because, I do think, with the changes that have come across the
state for cutting mental health services, we need to find those revenues in other areas
and then also looking at what are those key attribute things that we see coming
through the door the emergency housing, the childcare what else can we be doing to service
those entities so they don't become more severe in the system that we have? So that's right now.
I want to see more diversification of where the money is coming f
rom. We can't do it without
that big percentage that we get in contracts and grants from the county and the state Can't do it.
That's huge. But the other piece and it is huge. 31:17 - Speaker 1
You're over a $3 million organization. Yeah. 31:20 - Speaker 2
Yeah, so we're sitting at about 3.5. So if but again it's, we could double that and it not
be enough for the amount of people that we serve. 31:31
It's I think we're looking at how we go out and work with, and I think that's
what we're loo
king at building now with some of our city partners that we work with, because we
do work really strongly with the city of Lincoln. 31:42
They have been amazing. The city of Roseville have been wonderful to us. Rockland and Auburn are
huge entities, but in working even for the city of Lincoln, they have been fantastic to say, okay,
let's sit down, let's look at the problems that we have, collaborate with nonprofits, elected
officials and the corporations to come together to look at these iss
ues, because most of these
cities and within a county they're moving them to that area specific right for the attributes that
the community has. Well, if you're going to see a large populace now of homeless people sitting
on the streets or folks with mental health issues walking through your path, your business is going
to suffer for that. So we really need to look at how we keep communities safe, but there's just
not enough money in the city pots or the county pots. So I think it's got to
be we've got to
do more collaborating between the for-profit, nonprofit and elected official sectors to
come together to look at these programs. 32:36 - Speaker 1
Well, and one of the things that I did see that I think was something
I haven't seen on other sites. I'm sure it exists, I just haven't seen it, but you have what the
contribution equates to. Yeah, so a $50 donation equals this, and it's on the website in little
boxes all the way up to a $7,500 donation, which I think gives an int
erested donor the ability
to look and go. Okay, I see what the value of that contribution is. I can see tangibly that this
much money will equal that sort of service. Right, and that's. It's a wonderfully robust site, almost
overwhelming in some cases, because you have so many services that you're offering, but you break
them all out. And the other thing that I think is amazing to me is that you also offer everything
in Spanish. Yeah, tell me a little bit about that. 33:31 - Speaker 2
So wh
en we started to see more and more of our populace that was
Spanish speaking, there wasn't, and I will give credit to our other counterpart that does
the same similar services to we do. We each have different attributes, but understanding that
the populace of individuals that need support, if we didn't have Spanish-speaking staff to help
them, where else could they go? So it's making sure that our case managers all of my nine case
managers, seven of them are fluent in Spanish. I've got two
fluent speaking therapists. We've
got, you know, all my front desk staff is fluent in Spanish, so that no one could come through our
doors and not feel that they can communicate and get the help that they need. If someone came in
that wasn't Spanish speaking but spoke Tagalog for Filipinos or Farsi, we do utilize a translation
service so that we can still help them. 34:21
But I think that we saw such a prevalent number that
were coming in with Spanish speaking needs that that's where we con
centrated having
specialty help there for those folks. 34:32 - Speaker 1
You know something else that is interesting in the percentage of
the population, you know, certainly there's a density level in various markets, but as we
get out into the more rural areas it becomes higher density. Hispanic Roughly what percentage
would you say is Hispanic that you serve today? 34:52 - Speaker 2
We're in the neighborhood of about 37 percent. 34:55 - Speaker 1
So it's over a third of the. 34:56 - Speake
r 2
Yeah, now, that's just. That's fully Spanish speaking. Yes so we have,
there's far more in the population that probably. 35:03 - Speaker 1
Or Hispanic, but they're bilingual or monolingual English. 35:06 - Speaker 2
But we really concentrate on if, in particular, when mom or dad can't speak
English, you do not want a child having to translate, and particularly in therapy, we
want to take that child out of that scenario. 35:19 - Speaker 1
Or even financial. Yeah, exactly, no, seven-year-ol
d
should have to do that, correct. 35:23 - Speaker 2
So our goal is to take them out of the loop, specifically
so we can again empower mom and dad to get the help that they need
and give them the resources. 35:33 - Speaker 1
This is an amazing conversation, just because of the depth and scope of service
that you provide out of one organization and scope of service that you provide out
of you know, one organization. Is there any other collaborative that you work more
with than another? Is t
here someplace that you see yourself connecting often? That would
be the greatest percentage of time that that. 35:56 - Speaker 2
I will say our partnership with the County has been immeasurable. They, they're I, I, I am in
awe of what Placer has done for the community and how much they vest into that. So whichever level
of employee we work with across the board there, their caring, compassion, their need to want the
community to be at a certain level is, I think, to be applauded in that res
pect. I think for groups
like us, you need that partnership respect. I think for groups like us, you need that
partnership. If we're looking at, I think, the next strongest one, we've got a great
relationship with the Latino Leadership Council Anywhere inside of our group that works with
us on the Child Abuse Prevention Council team. All of those folks combined look out for the kids
in the community. So I think they're all really, really important and we would consider just
hand-in-hand co
llaborators there. But I do think the people that hold it all together
are the county, the folks at Placer County. 36:56 - Speaker 1
That's amazing, because you have a long tenured career in nonprofits. To hear
you applaud the county is I'm pleased to hear it, because it's a state entity that most of
us criticize more often than anything, and that's great, it's great, it's great. 37:10 - Speaker 2
It is. I will say it was a learning curve Because I've never had
to work that involved with a r
ed tape kind of, where you had to follow the protocols
that come with it. And I'm sure most of them are saying, well, you still
don't know it all, and that's okay, we're still learning. More to come, that's okay.
More to come, that's okay, we're still learning. 37:25 - Speaker 1
More to come, that's okay. 37:27 - Speaker 2
More to come. But I think that I don't think I realize the scope that
they have too in the internal departments and so, where you have health and human services and
you h
ave the children's services of care and the adult services of care, and how many people
go into each one of those entities and how they're subsided off and although they're not out with
those individuals day to day, they really do try and listen to what we're telling them and
sometimes, you know, their hands are tied too. So when we're looking at these cuts that the state
has handed down that goes to the county and then the county's having to pass that message, do I get
frustrated? Absolute
ly, and I know they feel it, but it's. I'm fighting for the people that
come through my door, they're fighting for us and the people that come through the door.
So it just feels like that domino effect. 38:11
And I do feel a lot of times they're stuck in the middle of. 38:15 - Speaker 1
But they're communicating and you have a great relationship with them
and you're advocating for your own cause, which you should yeah. That's to be expected. 38:23 - Speaker 2
So it's been. I've learned more i
n this one year
than I have in most others. 38:28 - Speaker 1
You say one year than I have in most others. You know, and you say one year, I want to circle back.
We didn't address the age of the organization. 38:37 - Speaker 2
Yeah, we turned 35 this year, so we started in 1989. And again we were just the council. So when
they started it we were supposed to be the realm defined where all the services was and pull it all
together and make sure we gave the resources. But the county realized th
ey had needs and so they
said, well, hey, do you think you can pick up this service? And so the parents, as teachers,
came to be. And then it's well, we really need additional help. Could you think you could do
the family resource part? So that part ended up. 39:04
And then it was well, we need more therapists in town, there's not enough. Could you
take on a therapy element? And then, of course, it was the sex trafficking component that no
one would really love to have. Most people don't as
sume that it's there in their neighborhoods,
but it is. And so we put that team in place. And so each one of those entities have continued to
grow and we are where we are today, and so it's. You know, I think just it's sad to me that we're
needed. I'm happy that we're here to serve, but it does make me sad that there are that many people
that need to come through our doors every year. 39:36 - Speaker 1
Understood and I think in many cases we would say that for so many
nonprofits. But thank
God that you exist. 39:45 - Speaker 2
And I think you can be a nonprofit that yes, you're staffed, but
I've got to tell you I've worked with a lot of groups. Number one this is probably
the most educated group of individuals. 39:53
I've met with More than half of my staff have master's degrees they are, and most of
the and I call them kids only because of my age, but my case managers they're in their young 20s.
They all want to go back to school and get their master's to help more people wan
t to go back to
school and get their master's to help more people so that servant leadership ability that's innate
in them. I love that. I call us the Oakland A's of mental health, because we bring them in, we train
them and then we move them on to the next and I'll take that. As long as they continue helping other
people, I'm OK with that, with that piece of it. 40:24 - Speaker 1
And I'm sure, sadly or beneficially, there's probably some
AI component predicted that you can start to begin p
lugging in to say this is what we can
expect, based on history and where things are at. 40:37 - Speaker 2
Yeah, it's been. I think, again, the amount of information that comes out
of what we do, providing back to the county, what the county gets and brings out to the
community, is just it's cyclical, right, I think you can just see it goes round and
round in each industry and we're, I think, seeing the shift. I think, you know,
the pandemic brought a lot to light. Has everything gone back t
o normal Day-to-day
looks relatively? But I think the after effects of what some of these families have occurred
I think the majority of the white collar. You see a different level when you're down
here again working a minimum wage job. 41:16
I think a lot of those folks have really felt they've never come out of it.
It's just they have not gotten to a space where they're back to normal day-to-day activities.
Those are the folks that are sitting in our lobbies every day and it's, I think, t
hat we call
them working poor. The working poor are just, they struggle. They struggle with day to
day, but again, we couldn't survive as a community without them doing their work on a day
to day basis. So I just I think, as all humans, we need to be cognizant of who else, who,
what neighbor do you have out there being a little kinder to the person at the grocery
store, a little kinder to the gal at the mall, because what you say and do to them is
what's going to come. Sit in my lobby. 41:
56 - Speaker 1
Right, right, in so many different ways. We had Blake
Young from the Sacramento Food Bank on, and his comment that struck me just so vividly
was it's that person that you just described, it's your next door neighbor who has food
insecurity because they had to make a decision Do we go buy food today or do we pay rent? And we
don't have the ability to do both. So how do we help? And they're engaged in our communities.
They are doing what they need to do, they are working. They
just don't have the capacity to
contribute the same way everybody else does. 42:31 - Speaker 2
Completely, and I do think what I hear a lot. You almost expect that in Sacramento
because you know there's a shift in population, right? That you've got the upper echelon, the mid,
but you have the low and people know they know those neighborhoods. But when someone says Placer
County, they say, oh, you guys are in a bubble. 42:49 - Speaker 1
Do you see the people marked at the mall? There's that m
all. 42:51 - Speaker 2
It's always packed, but we do. Every community has a subset of people that need help,
and I think that it's as the more population moves into the area, the larger those numbers are going
to be, because you're already going to start. You're going to see the shift in classes that
come through. We're not a class society, but we are. You do have the poor, the working poor. But
if you have a minimum wage job, you don't qualify for Medi-Cal, you don't qualify for all these
assistance. So the minute you have, anything. 43:25 - Speaker 1
Oh, because you have too much income to qualify Right, even though it's virtually
no income, correct, not enough for your family. 43:36 - Speaker 2
But so you know, the levels of how you obtain help is how much money you have
coming through the door with how many people in that household. And or you know, we see a lot
of folks that are that may land in our county, that were getting away from abuse in a different
county. So they
come our way and I have to tell them well, if you don't have somewhere to live,
we do not have a lot. There's not a lot of space left, and particularly for families there's, you
know, for if you are a homeless male or an adult, there's a gathering in in our area. That's
great. But if you're a family, if you're with, you've got littles. We have virtually very limited
space, virtually nowhere to put them. And that's what do you do with that? Again, you don't want
to tell them there's the park
, you know. Park your car. Where do the kids go to school? How
are they getting food, how are they showering, how are they making their basic needs? So that's
where, any way, we can intervene. To make sure those littles get a fair shot at things is what
my team is there for Making sure that they have a chance to have a traditional upbringing that
you would hope for your own child. So I think that's and I can honestly say that I've worked
for a lot of nonprofits that I feel really proud at t
he end of the day, that I know we've made
an impact. But here there's not one family that walks through our door that we don't say we know
we've made a significant impact in their life, that we're changing it for the better,
and that makes you sleep at night. 45:01
No one in my building is going to get rich. That's not why they're doing
the jobs. And a lot of them take that work home at night or they stress over it and that. And a
lot of them take that work home at night or they stress over
it and that the compassion it takes
to work in a facility like this. It's hard work. It is work that is daunting. A lot of times You're
taking their problems home with you. You go home and you feed your child and think, well, gosh,
the Joneses, that I just tried to help today I couldn't even give them that food. So it is
really making sure, taking care of my team, that they have those mental health breaks,
that we're paying attention to, that. Some of the abuse stories are significant and
it's
tough for them to hear it, and when you're 25, hearing some of those dealing with some of that
on a day-to-day basis could be beyond daunting. 45:44 - Speaker 1
Sure. 45:44 - Speaker 2
But they come back the next day and they want to help the next family and
that I'll be eternally grateful for them for. 45:50 - Speaker 1
So at this point, what would you say is the greatest need? We have the opportunity here
through the program to talk to potential donors, the philanthropic community, vo
lunteers. What does
Kids First need more than anything at this point? 46:07 - Speaker 2
Money. It's to fill that gap. It's to fill the gap of what we just lost
from the state when they cut those mental health dollars back. So where we did have dollars that
were for the lowest level income and now that's been cut to again you have to have no income or
be on Medi-Cal to be able to get this particular service, so that working poor subset of people
are going to be left without services if group
s like me don't have the funding to come in to pay
the staff to be there. So we're definitely going to see a gap of what we can afford to bring in
to serve the people versus what we're going to obtain. And so where most of groups like myself
that were heavily subsidized by the county and the state are and now are not, it's that the I
don't. It's all traditional fundraising, but it's. You're really going to have to do the traditional
fundraising component where we didn't before. 47:00
And a
friend of mine who's a business owner, she actually said to me you know, but aren't you
funded solely by the county? Why do you need to do fundraising? Well, funding has shifted and with
that shift it's again I think people want to put, especially when you're talking mental health, it's
kind of that voodoo piece. No one wants to admit that. But if you want to keep your neighborhood
safe and you want to make sure that you go into the grocery store and you're not worried that
someone's going
to have a gun or that there's whatever other mental illnesses that are causing
erratic behavior out there, you need to make sure that our businesses stay viable and sustained.
So I think having the traditional donor know no, we're not subsidized by the county 100%
anymore, that's just not happening. 47:41 - Speaker 1
It doesn't exist. Yeah, what's the best way to get in touch with you? 47:46 - Speaker 2
You can call us. We're at 916-774-6802. You can visit our website, which
is kidsfirstnowo
rg. Those are the biggest way, but we've got people that will answer locations.
We're both locations. You can call us anytime, send an email. You can send me an email
directly if you wanted to. I'm dgabledge at kidsfirstnoworg, so we'll take you any
way. You want to reach out. We're here for you. We're at almost every outreach event
you can find. My staff will be there too. 48:12 - Speaker 1
And you went through those quickly, so I'll definitely put those in the show notes
as well. Great, s
o that if anybody wants to, they can get there. Debbie, congratulations on
the incredible work you're doing for the county and the greater community, the greater Sacramento
area, because without what you do today, greater Sacramento area, because without what you do
today, I can only imagine the numbers that we would have, whether it be mental health or kids
in crisis, families in crisis, homelessness. So many services that you provide are amazing, just
amazing, and congratulations to your
team. So thank you for coming on today. I appreciate that.
Thanks for having us. This is amazing and it's like an anniversary for me, because it was four
years ago that this was the first one. So I'm so, so grateful to not only Kids First, for
being that first episode, but I have to say thank you to Mary Town, who is Elevate Public
Relations for— she's on my board Even better. 49:07 - Speaker 2
Yeah. 49:07 - Speaker 1
Even better, for even better, even better, just for that outreach at the t
ime, because what we're
doing today has grown so much in the significance of what we're doing. And the opportunity to
provide a voice for nonprofits, to record and distribute at no charge is another benefit. You
don't have to worry about the money on that one. 49:26 - Speaker 2
Right, thanks, thanks, jeff. I appreciate that and I think, finding
folks like you and Mary and understanding that groups like ours always need leaders. So we need
Mary, so we need you, we need those folks on the boa
rd that can help us open doors, that can
connect us to other services, that can help with the collaboration, that can connect us to
other funding sources, other funding sources. So if there's folks out there that want to get more
involved with children's services or, you know, fighting child abuse, this is a great way to help
is to get more involved. Give me a call, send me an email. I'll send you the information, but we
would love to expand that group a little bit more. 50:02 - Speaker 1
W
ell, thank you. 50:03 - Speaker 2
Thank you, I appreciate the time. 50:09 - Speaker 1
How long we go.
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