My guest this week is Pat Lawler. Pat is the CEO of Youth Villages. Founded in 1986 with the merger of two Memphis-based residential campuses, Youth Villages is now a nationally recognized leader in the field of children’s mental and behavioral health. From the early days of serving just 80 children a year, we’ve since grown to help tens of thousands of children, families and young people annually, with a complete continuum of programs and services across 24 states and 100 locations.

RECAP

3:00 My Father, where did this come from?

4:56 What drew me in?

6:39 You don’t want to sell tools do you?-- intro?

7:35 Gone back to school

8:13 Drawn to the kids with the biggest problems

8:50 Driven to get to the root

9:15 How to help people with the biggest problems

9:49 What caused these conditions?

13:37 Generational change. Always sticking up

15:27 Learning to be a good parent. Ups and Downs

19:07 Commitment to overcome what comes your way

19:56 Persistent until we get your support

20:50 Research, data, exhaust all options- no turning back

21:20 Not be deterred 

21:38 The hardest thing is to change the way people think

22:25 Obsessive compulsive gene

23:05 Thousands of kids and families

24:18 The burden- the passion, the drive, the momentum, the enthusiasm, and the excitement

25:00 Clearly defined and measurable goals, hold accountable, talk experts and data

25:42 Relentless drive to make things better for other people

27:09 Horrible abuse, neglect that scars young people

28:20 Your passionate

29:28 Not now, maybe later. Failure with young people, what did we learn and do it differently learning and experience

31:30 We all need a support system- family is critical and data

32:50 They asked me to quietly close it down-- intro? 33:06

36:20 Pivot, change to support families

39:30 Peer group is key creating change

41:00 I couldn’t do other work

41:20 For the bad there is a thousand more good. Balance work and personal life

42:50 Be open to change, open to where other people are coming from, bring people along slowly, engaged in the process

48:45 The courage to try it

49:05 Committed and passionate- small steps impact their life

50:41 I don’t want to hear about your successes, I want to hear about your failures

57:29 Scaling that problem

56:14 Memphis, TN Murder rate is a serious problem

58:53 Data collecting around the country and scale. Meet needs and replicate it

1:00:13 Make it a safe place for people to live

1:00:55 Deaths across the country are overwhelming/ safe place for kids to grow up in

1:01:43 If people don’t have the opportunity to earn money they turn to crime

1:02:15 Very few cities have put together a comprehensive plan

1:03:55 I know we can do it. We will learn lessons align the way

1:04:51 Giving people hope and meaning into their life

1:07:40 we had passion but no expertise. We needed advice and counsel. These supports could read a balance sheet, help organizational chart, forecast a budget, could help us solve that specific problem and raised money before

1:10:14 Just excited today as I was 41 years ago and I still have that passion and commitment

1:11:00 Moving the organization forward. We need to identify the people that need us

1:12:18 We need to understand the capacity of the problem and scale it to meet the needs

RESOURCES

• AB JETS
• Youth Villages