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You Can Mentor: How to Impact Your Community, Fulfill the Great Commission, and Break Generational Curses
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You Can Mentor: How to Impact Your Community, Fulfill the Great Commission, and Break Generational Curses
youcanmentor.com
Creators and Guests
What is You Can Mentor: A Christian Youth Mentoring Podcast?
You Can Mentor is a network that equips and encourages mentors and mentoring leaders through resources and relationships to love God, love others, and make disciples in their own community. We want to see Christian mentors thrive.
We want to hear from you! Send any mentoring questions to hello@youcanmentor.com, and we'll answer them on our podcast. We want to help you become the best possible mentor you can be. Also, if you are a mentoring organization, church, or non-profit, connect with us to join our mentoring network or to be spotlighted on our show.
Please find out more at www.youcanmentor.com or find us on social media. You will find more resources on our website to help equip and encourage mentors. We have downloadable resources, cohort opportunities, and an opportunity to build relationships with other Christian mentoring leaders.
You can mentor is a podcast about the power of building relationships with kids from hard places in the name of Jesus. Every episode will help you overcome common mentoring obstacles and give you the confidence you need to invest in the lives of others you can mentor.
Speaker 2:Hey. If you didn't know, I, Zach Garza, have teamed up with the Mentoring Alliance. It's our vision to mobilize godly people into the lives of kids and family to do 2 things, provide tangible help and eternal hope. Currently, we are in East Texas and Central Texas, but we want to grow. We have full time jobs available.
Speaker 2:So if you're looking for a job in the mentoring field, please reach out to us. We also have part time staff jobs available. If you're a college student or know of any college students who are looking for summertime jobs, we're doing these summer camps down in East Texas. They're amazing. Come on down to Tyler, spend a summer with us, help kids, get to know our organization, find some friends.
Speaker 2:It's a great thing. So full time jobs for anyone, part time jobs, specifically kind of for college students. But go to our website, the mentoring alliance.com. Go to the upper right hand corner. Click that working with you tab and all the information that you need is there.
Speaker 2:Feel free to reach out to me or go to our website, social media, all that good stuff to learn more about the Mentoring Alliance. Thank you very much. You can mentor. Mentors and mentoring leaders, Zach Arza here with the You Can Mentor podcast. I got 3 things that I would like to ask of you today.
Speaker 2:Number 1, if you are a mentoring organization and you would like to be on our podcast or learn more about the best practices of mentoring, please reach out to us, www.youcanmentor.com. You can send us an email, zach@youcanmentor.com, or stephen, it's with a p h, at youcanmentor.com. You can also find us on social media. Give us that DM, and we'll get back to you. We just wanna get to know you and we wanna learn more about what you're doing in your communities to advance mentoring.
Speaker 2:And we believe that interaction leads to innovation. So let's work together and advance the kingdom through mentoring. Number 2, if you know of someone who would benefit from the You Can Mentor podcast, please share our podcast, share our information with them. That would be super helpful. And then lastly, if you could rate our podcast on Apple Podcasts, give us that 5 star.
Speaker 2:It will help spread the word about mentoring and, You Can Mentor podcast. Because we really do want every mentoring org in America who is trying to make disciples through mentoring to know about us. We wanna get to know about them so we can learn from them and work together to help kids reach their full potential. So that's what I got. Please do those things.
Speaker 2:Reach out to us. Share and rate. Appreciate you. You can mentor.
Speaker 3:Welcome back to the You Can Mentor podcast. This is Stephen Murray, and I'm here with a very special guest, Janae Bennett from Youth Leadership Foundation, the one and only. How the heck are you, Janae?
Speaker 4:I'm doing so great, Stephen. I'm so excited to be here. And just thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 3:Well, it's in honor. I've connected with Janae because she leads an organization called Youth Leadership Foundation. It's a nonprofit organization in DC. So that is the capital if you are listening from Trinidad and Tobago or wherever you hail from, the capital of the United States of America. I hope you I I know you you grew up in DC.
Speaker 3:You probably have a little you take that personally. Like that's, that's just, you know, you're you're like the capital, the best of the best.
Speaker 4:I'm an ambassador.
Speaker 3:We're we're looking up to you, Janae. They provide quality 1 to 1 mentoring programs for students from areas of concentrated disadvantage, age 7 to 17, across the DC area. Currently, I mean, this year, I think you've served over 350 students in DC and Maryland, and you facilitate empowerment through joy, excellence, a spirit of service while building character, emphasizing personal growth, and creating transformative mentorship experiences. Like, I'm getting inspired just hearing what you guys are doing. Since YLS started, they've served over 4,000 students, and this is this is a bragger right here.
Speaker 3:97% of those students have graduated high school. That's insane. Yeah. That's that's insane. So in in 2009 and 2017, they were named one of DC's best small charities by the catalog for philanthropy.
Speaker 3:Janae is a native. She grew up there, born and raised. She started as a volunteer 15 years ago. So she was serving this organization, and now she's leading it. She's a powerhouse.
Speaker 3:She's also the organization's first black or female leader. So, I mean, you're killing it, Janae. And, I've even just seen videos where you're you're sharing your vision for the organization. You're already having an impact personally since you jumped on in 2018. And so thanks for joining our podcast and investing in youth mentoring leaders and mentors across the country.
Speaker 3:Excited to learn from you.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much for this, Steven. I'm I'm blushing if you can't tell. I'm just, you know I mean, it's been just such a pleasure growing up at YLF, and and I'm excited to be able to, you know, talk what we both love, which is is mentorship. Well,
Speaker 3:something that the other host and I have been talking about is transitioning into leading a mentoring organization. I recently became the executive director, so I have a lot to learn from you. But also, I mean, anybody who is considering jumping into mentoring or has a heart to maybe even start their own nonprofit to invest in kids from hard places, I would love for them to just lean in on this episode and learn from you because you've done it, and and you're you're successful. And I think I think there is something to learn from you. Could you could you just, in your own words, talk about what Youth Leadership Foundation is to you?
Speaker 3:I know I just took a minute to brag about some of your stats, but maybe you could paint a picture of of what a day in the life of Youth Leadership Foundation looks like.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Absolutely. So what is Youth Leadership Foundation to me? I mean, it's really just about connection, you know, leaning into community through connection. And I think what that what that looks like is conversations, you know.
Speaker 4:So, you know, at a high level, YLF, we serve in summer after school and then some special programs called Mentor Plus, which are just sort of enrichment programs that are, you know, based in, like, outdoor recreation sites. And so we have maybe about 12 different sites during the school year and 2 main sites in summer. And the students engage in, you know, what you consider as usual activities, homework help, sports activities, those kinds of things. But that's not really what makes it special. Right?
Speaker 4:You know, there are a lot of different youth organizations that do just the same thing. But what you'll see when you actually are at a YLA program are just intentional conversations between mentors and mentees. You know, taking the time to kind of help the students to process the things that are going on in their life in a really safe way. And I think that that experience is what's always been just salient to me from the time that I was with the students myself, you know, just around a lunch table, you know, talking about all gamut of things. It might start with something that is pretty accessible to everything like a football game.
Speaker 4:But before you know it, you're getting down into some deep topics about loss, about, triumph, about fear. You know? And in those conversations, what you're able to do, how you're able to turn those towards growth and productivity, towards resilience, those are the things that that stand out to me, about the organization and and what make me really love it. You know?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well, the the the willingness to start somewhere and not just go deep immediately, but realize what are the bids that I can pick up on that'll allow me access where the kid is actually inviting me into talking about something something that they're struggling with or have been thinking about. I I like, I remember in our program, we had a a conversation about things that we had lost, and it was mostly like, I lost my keys. I lost my wallet. I lost my dog, like, things like that.
Speaker 3:And all of a sudden, we opened a door to start talking about grief and, like, how you deal with pain and loss of family members and friends. And and it's like, you you never would have thought we would get there, but just like talking about something at a at a more basic level, like what you said, connection. When you connect, then you can go so much deeper with a student. So I love that. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I I I wonder, like, as a, a mentor, what what was kind of your approach? Did they have training? Were they teaching you how to connect in those moments, like, to start a conversation? What did that look like?
Speaker 4:Yeah. Absolutely. So oh my goodness. This is taking me back. So it's 2,006, and we had gender separated programs.
Speaker 4:So I'm in a group of about 13 other women, and we did these role play exercises. The the mentors at YLF are sort of like mentor teachers. So part of the role is you'll teach a little class, maybe a 10 to 15 minute character class where you'll talk about a virtue of the month. And then the rest of your mentoring time is 1 on 1. You can kind of take the kids aside, you know, the class can be a jumping off point for what you talk about, or it could just be, you know, about the UNO game that we're playing right now.
Speaker 4:We are engaged in the most fun kind of role play exercises where, you know, the leaders of this seminar, they're just throwing out all these different scenarios of actual events that happen in the classroom, you know. Students that may be trying to derail your lesson, you know, or students that are a little bit more quiet and, you know, you kind of kind of draw them out. So a lot of the training came from that, those role playing exercises, which were a lot of fun. We kind of, we flexed our acting muscles, for each other to help each other out. But then, you know, to be honest, a lot of it, has come from my upbringing.
Speaker 4:You know, my mom is, an educator. She's taught since, you know, for as long as I can remember growing up. And I was always around teachers. I heard about the issues that they were dealing with, and I heard about how a lot of their work was about connecting with the family, you know, and having hard conversations with mom and dad and being a partner with mom and dad, you know, mom or dad or grandma, you know, to help raise their their students. So I think I learned a lot of it by osmosis, you know.
Speaker 4:And and I think, you know, we kind of make it sort of like a mystery, how to make connections with kids. But really, it's just about being open and vulnerable. You know, a lot of times with with youth, you expect for them to be responsive right away. Why would that be the case? I mean, adults, you know, when you get to know them, you're not expecting them to to connect with you right away.
Speaker 4:You you you build a relationship. You take the time. So I think respecting young people enough to and being humble enough to to wait for that relationship to develop over time is a great way for them to, establish trust in a stable way. You know? They shouldn't be just playing themselves in anymore.
Speaker 4:You have to put in the work. You have to to put in the care. You have to have the patience to let the the relationship blossom.
Speaker 3:That is so good. Man. Yeah. All of the assumptions we make about, like, well, if I just show up, like, I'm gonna be instantly loved, listened to, but it's actually the mentor's job is to connect, and that is a process. It's it's not just you show up and you've earned trust just by being there, but it might be showing up multiple times and showing, okay, you're you really want to be with me and maybe I am important in, like, the, the willingness to build the relationship, not just expect it.
Speaker 3:That's really good. And I I love what you said about respecting children because the the idea I I think most, like, corporate mentorship relationships, it's like the mentor is like the one that needs to be respected.
Speaker 4:Right. Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's like, you are coming to me. I'm the one I
Speaker 4:am the guru.
Speaker 3:And, man, if we have if we did that at 4 Runner, that that would not work. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Being a mentor with kids is essentially just being an open door and staying an open door. You know? So many of these kids, they've had experiences where constantly they're getting sort of saying, well, you're kicked out of this program or you're, you know, you're not allowed to be here. You're in trouble at school, and it's, you know, a lot of limits.
Speaker 4:But mentorship is being that open door, being always a way, a pathway out of certain circumstances to to, you know, just a wide landscape of opportunity. You know?
Speaker 3:Wow. Wow. That's really good. So so tell me give me some DC distinctives, like either either things that are are different about DC, the kids that you're serving, because I I'm sure you think you're different because you grew up in DC. And maybe you see yourself in in the kids that you're serving.
Speaker 3:And then and maybe you can just share, like, things that you're especially proud of that your organization is addressing about those distinctives, about those things that are are addressing the needs of DC kids.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah. You know, that's a super hard question different about DC? I'm used to kind of deep dealing with folks that are, like, in the DMV, but we're in a new era. Right?
Speaker 4:Let's see. I think one thing that was distinctive coming up was always knowing that there was a little bit of a difference between DC and Washington. You know. So I I grew up. I went to, you know, 1st Catholic, but then public schools here.
Speaker 4:And then when I went to college, my university is sort of, like, in an area downtown, called Foggy Bottom. And it's just at the mouth of Georgetown, very different environment. And when you grow up, you basically stay in your neighborhood. You know? And so DC is sort of like this experience of being just right smash up against all these opportunities that I think for some folks, they don't know how to make the jump.
Speaker 4:You know? And that jump seems like such a big jump. And so I think that the contrast can be more frustrating for folks that live here, you know, that, you know, there's this, you know, this this gap from where I am to where, you know, I can be and sort of subsist and survive and and do well by my family, you know, serve them well. So I think that's the unique quality of DC. I think too that DC is such a melting pot.
Speaker 4:You will really find all sorts of people who live here, you know. There's little pockets, you know. There's, you know, Ethiopian community, Vietnamese community, and just, like, all these different cultures and languages, kind of just smooshed up together, you know. And so that's an interesting quality. I, my my middle school experience, I was I went to school with a bunch of diplomats kids, you know.
Speaker 4:It's a public school, but I met kids from Mongolia, you know, from from Ukraine, some folks who I still talk to on the Internet, you know. So it's it's it's a pretty rich experience, you know, getting to know folks in the city, but also this sense that, you know, that there's there are echelons that I can't reach sometimes if you come from, you know, certain neighborhoods. It's really hard to level up. You know?
Speaker 3:Is that so do you think that's, like, a felt experience that, like, being in DC, there's kind of a feeling of, like, this is this is, like, an emblem of opportunity, but I I still feel like even though I can see it, I don't think I could ever achieve it. Or it's like, the little kid in the elementary school that says he wants to be the president one day. Living in DC, that's a little different than, like, living in Dallas. But but are you saying that there there's still kind of a feeling like, I can see it, but I don't I don't think I could achieve it. Or
Speaker 4:I think for some folks that that exists, you know. I don't think that was my experience coming up. I had parents that really just sort of said, you're gonna get a full scholarship when you go to college. And and just that encouragement was definitely there. But in conversations with the peers from when I was little and also with parents now, you know, sometimes there's that feeling of stuckness, you know.
Speaker 4:I think that's the role of the mentor. It's just sort of, you know, you like I said, that open door is broadening your mind of opportunities. It's it's giving you this sense of personal agency, you know, that, you know, to the extent that it's possible, I'm responsible for for myself, for what I do, for how I act, my attitude in the world. And those are the things that lead me to moving forward, you know. A lot of things that aren't in my control, but I'm in control of my own behavior and my own attitude.
Speaker 4:And that is, like, 80% of the difference, you know, of where I am now to where I can meet. You know?
Speaker 3:So good. I I I I love the it's like mentorship as intervention to really believe you have a future story that you can get out of a rut of belief in yourself that you can fulfill your potential and calling that out in in kids, in everyday conversations, and, drawing a picture for them that that could that could be them. It's not it's not unachievable. I mean, obviously, we're talking a lot about mentorship. This podcast is all about mentorship.
Speaker 3:So tell tell me some of the, like, the programs over the last few years of as you've been leading this thing that that you're especially proud of that are creating opportunities for that exchange to happen.
Speaker 4:Absolutely. So, you know, I mentioned before a little bit, we've got these flagship programs, which are, you know, summer experiences. And so our, you know, so I know 4 Runner. You guys are great. You have sort of full year commitments.
Speaker 4:A lot of our partnerships are with schools, and so we do sort of like a school year commitment, where a mentor will come in, in the after school time to work with their students. And during that time, you know, there's a lot of opportunities for discussion around different topics. You know, we call them like virtue talks. So we may bring in, you know, a conversation about a key figure, figure of the moment, you know, or a historical figure like an MLK, to talk about their stories, and then have kids and mentors discuss those things. And and those are are programs that I'm very, very proud of.
Speaker 4:But I'm really excited about some of the new ones that we've launched. So we recently started taking kids to, to to bouldering, doing bouldering and rock climbing.
Speaker 3:Bouldering. Woah. Yeah. It's
Speaker 4:it's pretty awesome. So, you know, in the summertime, we'll take them out to, like, Great Falls, which is sort of like a, you know, nature preserve that's not too far from the area. And kids will do rock climbing, you know, and then we'll come off the the rock, and just, like, debrief, and talk about, okay, what did you experience?
Speaker 3:This is in the this is in the wild. This is, like, there's an actual boulder out there. Like, those don't those don't exist here. So you're saying you're going out into the wild finding a large rock, and you're climbing. Okay.
Speaker 3:Wow. That's so cool.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And then so there's some of the kids were doing, like, bare facing, and it's, like, really, you know, kind of smaller boulders for that kind of thing. And then and then, you know, we've done indoor climbing facilities too. But, yeah, you have such rich conversations, you know, when, you know, so you're you're you're up on the wall, you're trying to climb, and you slip down, like, oh, that frustration. That mentor is then able to kind of talk about that immediately.
Speaker 4:You're you're sharing this experience together, you know, as opposed to sort of talking about a frustrating circumstance that you had. So that one's one that I'm particularly proud of just because it's it's so new. It's gotten such a great response, you know, from from the kids. They they're getting to see something that they've never seen before. And then another awesome experience for me was when the shutdowns happened initially, and we transitioned to sort of virtual mentorship.
Speaker 4:That can be kind of difficult, you know, because I really do believe that some of these things can only happen when you're actually face to face with a kid, like, you know. But but in that time and in that space, virtual is what we had. And some of the stories that came out were pretty powerful. I had one mom, you know, calling me because, you know, she basically lives in a part of DC that overlooks a a highway. And, you know, it's an apartment complex.
Speaker 4:And, you know, it was around the time where she lives in an apartment complex where there's just doors and doors of people just kind of stuck together. It was a very fearful time. People didn't know what the virus was, what anything was, and they were scared to kind of leave their their places. And so for her, she's a single mom with a son. She's trying to get her her work done, her job responsibilities done.
Speaker 4:She's trying to navigate virtual school, and there's no space for her son, her active, you know, 11 year old son to go out, run, play, be be fully himself. You know? And when she opens her window, there's dust from the highway coming in. And so she's she's in, like, a a shoe stamp of a place. You know?
Speaker 4:And I'm, like, kind of, you know, emotional kind of thinking about it because she's just sort of at her wits end. But to have someone to come in and and speak with her son every day, be like a lifeline. You know? You know? And support her as a mom.
Speaker 4:She's by herself. It just meant the world to her. It meant the world to her son. And and just really saw them through a difficult time for their family. You know?
Speaker 4:So it's those kinds of stories, you know, that make me really proud. You know? Because that wasn't a relationship that just cropped up when the pandemic started. That was the it had the foundation of years years since this kid has been with us. Yeah.
Speaker 4:And then there was a trust that was already established there. I was able to see them through a really difficult time for their family. And I think some of our parents, over the pandemic, they got insight into what we do even more so than they they normally would, because they're actually, like, kinda overhearing some of those conversations. And it it really did strengthen our relationship with our families. It was a very kind of unexpected outcome of that of that time.
Speaker 4:You know? So so those are, yeah, those are the couple of things that I'm I'm super proud of, you know, over my time of of leading YLS.
Speaker 3:Man, I love it. And Janae, like, I I see a correlation between those 2. Not saying bouldering and COVID have anything in common, but facing a difficulty together, I think I think most people, maybe if they're they're mentoring a kid from a hard place, some some of that is like reframing Trump traumatic experiences, difficulties that they faced in their upbringing or in their past. But as a mentor, you have the opportunity to address issues and overcome together what's right in front of you. And those experiences connect you, bond you together.
Speaker 3:And so, whether a kid's falling off a boulder or he's walking through trying to do remote schooling and his his mom's wondering if if, anybody's gonna be there for her or for her son. Those are the moments that a mentor coming in, building relationship that kind of create that lasting bond that really addresses so many of those relational needs and deeper seated kind of identity questions that everybody has that keeps them from fulfilling their potential and holds them back. And so I I love and I don't even think I've I've actually thought about it in that way of how are we addressing things that happened in the past through actually addressing current needs and reframing those past struggles through how we're training, discipling, and forming people in their current difficulties.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 3:Like, that's that's huge.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Like, that question of discipleship is so crucial because it is. It's you know, there's an active element to problem solving. One of the things we do, we use kind of like a sodas method for helping kids to kind of understand, you know, problems. So they'll go through, like, the strengths and the opportunities that are available to them.
Speaker 4:They come to a decision and in a solution for it. Like, how do you sort of, like, you know, how do how do I frame my problem well? Because some of it is, like, I I really don't know how to solve a problem. I've never had anyone walk through how to sit down and analyze the problem that I'm facing, you know? And example that I like, oh, this one also came out of like virtual mentorship.
Speaker 4:But, you know, a mentor, asked asked the kid, yeah, how's it going? How's your week? It's, you know, it's the pits. You know, my grandmother's, she's just been on my case, you know, just fussing at me. I just, I need to get out of this house.
Speaker 3:It's always it's always grandma.
Speaker 4:Right. It's always grandma. And it turns out, you know, in, you know, the mentor is very astutely just listening, asking questions. What's going on with grandma? Like, what's she facing?
Speaker 4:It's coming out that grandma's pretty stressed about, you know, financial situation. And grandma's also stressed about, you know, how the house looks. Everyone's home, and it's always a mess. You know? And then then we're kind of thinking through a little bit more about, you know, this mentee decides of his own kind of accord that, well, I'm gonna start washing dishes every night, you know, for bed.
Speaker 4:And that was the goal that they set with their mentor that, you know, every night before bed, they're gonna wash dishes. And before you know it, grandma's chewed into this change that this kid's just decided privately on their own. And that's changed their family dynamic, just by, you know, and this is like an 8 year old kid, you know, deciding to wash dishes and help out his family. And it's it's showing the lesson that, you know, no matter your circumstances, you have something to bring. You have something to bring to your community, and that what you bring actually changes your community in a really strong and immediate way, you know.
Speaker 4:And they got to experience that firsthand, completely from problem statement to sort of, like, deciding this small step, this small goal that I'm gonna make to make my family different. It's pretty powerful. It seems like a small thing, but if anybody's lived with anybody else, somebody washing the dishes. Man. You know, it changes, you know.
Speaker 4:That's
Speaker 3:yes. Anybody does my dishes, that changes my day. So our our phrase, how how we say that is there's always a reason why. And, usually, that's framed that's framed around kids. Why they act the way they act, there's a reason why they're doing that.
Speaker 3:And it's not because they're a bad kid because nobody's a bad kid. They may have a difficult circumstance or a belief that's been ingrained that's that's wrong or an environment that they're within, but there's always a reason why they're acting the way they are. You can Yeah. You can put that on an adult just as much as a kid. We are all an amalgamation of things that are happening in our lives, and we're acting the way we are because of some reason.
Speaker 3:So helping a kid recognize problems that adults are facing and say, I wonder why they're acting that way. Yeah. And maybe it's not because they don't love you, don't like you. Maybe it's just the house is dirty. Right.
Speaker 3:Maybe it's not, you know, anything that's that you've done necessarily. You know?
Speaker 4:Yeah. It's yeah. It's it's it slows you down. Right? It slows you down actually kind of thinking process.
Speaker 4:Because, you know, some of these circumstances, you'll see these kids, and it's and even ourselves. Right? Like, we're I think that's one of the the tenets of YLF, is that we're all kind of on this journey together. You know, we're all becoming better. And, you know, the authenticity that you can show sometimes I go from from thought to feeling to action right away.
Speaker 4:You know, like a, you know, swift kind of kind of pattern, but just to slow yourself down just a little bit to to think of what these situations what are my options? Like, what are the advantages and disadvantages of acting those ways? It it really does make a difference. You know? I, another thing we we we like to do with the kids is play strategy games.
Speaker 4:So, like, chess or risk. You know? And I think that helps too. It just kinda you don't need to decide right away. Slow down.
Speaker 4:Think about what your next move is. I think that it's a helpful way to to sort of teach that skill of of, with like you said, like, understanding the why, you know, working backwards, like, and then working forwards. You know?
Speaker 3:Yes. Our high school coordinator, he loves chess, and Awesome. He does use it as an object lesson. He's like, I don't want you to just think about what your next move is. I want you to think about your next 3 moves.
Speaker 3:Like, where are you gonna be in 5 5 moves? And that I mean, game games like that can help you apply that to your normal life of of recognizing that, yeah, thoughts, actions, decisions, they're affecting your future. And are you being intentional in recognizing those things? Which which I'll even say, we talked about past trauma, how we address that, And then there's there's present activities and opportunities to overcome difficulties and reframe, hey. Get back up on the rock, address those things.
Speaker 3:But you you mentioned at first, you mentioned role playing. And and in a way, it's like you're kinda practicing for future things you're going to face. Like, those three aspects, I think, are are a great way to think about mentoring is, okay, how am I loving someone to, address past fears, past failures, past pain?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:How am I finding opportunities in my present moment to engage them in the difficulties that they're facing today? And then how am I preparing them with role playing and strategy and, like, to address tomorrow's problems? Like, Janaa, Youth Leadership Foundation, sign me up. Sign me up.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I gotta get down to Dallas. I'm loving what you all are doing down there, and it's it's really cool to see sort of those overlaps, you know. That a lot of this work is, like, it does. It's emergent.
Speaker 4:Right? Like you the needs of the student relationship would come right there in your face, you know, to kind of address them. You know, you kind of and and also it's a comfort to know that, you know, for folks that are interested in mentorship, like, they're equipped, you know, in as much as they're living a life, you know, that they they we all sort of engage in this process, and it's really just sort of stewarding that process, loving on someone, and giving them that process, you know, handing it over to them, you know, and helping them practice it, you know?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. That, that dynamic of practicing, I think that's gonna change, a part of forerunner thinking about how are we helping kids rehearse circumstances that they're going to face one day and giving them a prompt. Like, hey, you are like, say a mentor is like, hey, you are a bully, and you're about to come at me and be upset about this. Okay.
Speaker 3:You are the kid I'm bullying. How are you gonna respond? And, like, play that out. Like, I'm very interested in the the role playing aspect. That's that's that's a takeaway for me.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Our our character has the the girls the girls that particularly love skits. I always hear that, can we do more skits? They really like that element of things. And it's and then the mentorship piece, you know, so when they are mentoring 1 on 1, no matter where the conversation goes, like, we always end every session with a goal for next week.
Speaker 4:Like, what's our goal this week? You know? And it can be it can be anything. It can be a social goal. I wanna introduce myself to 2 new people.
Speaker 4:You know? If they what they talked about is loneliness or or friendship or those kinds of things. Like, or or orderliness. I'm gonna make my bed every week. You know?
Speaker 4:And just those because those disciplines, those tiny goals mean something. And it's it's setting this kind of a framework that, yeah, I set goals for myself. That's part of, like, my personality or, like, my my, not personality, but, my makeup and my constitution. I'm a goal oriented individual. You know?
Speaker 4:It's it's great to have that as, like, a cornerstone of your, you know, self-concept, you know, because it it builds on itself. It's kind of fun. You know?
Speaker 3:Well, I I guess, I I wonder how many adults struggle with that, like, New Year's resolutions, goal setting, habits, all those things. Like, when does that start? Like, when do you take that on as an identity that I'm somebody that sets a goal, is held accountable to achieve it? And you helping kids identify those things, who do you wanna be? What do you wanna be like?
Speaker 3:1 of our mentors, he actually challenged me on something because we we had this question that was like, what do you wanna be when you grow up? And all the kids' answers were like like, vocations, which that's great. Like, you you wanna hear, like, oh, wow. You wanna be an architect? That's awesome.
Speaker 3:How do we help you get there? Or you wanna be an astronaut? Oh, that's awesome. How do we help you get there? My this mentor, he was like, I wonder what it's gonna take for us to get to when we ask that question, a kid says, who do you wanna be when you grow up?
Speaker 3:Like, they say, kind.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 3:Generous.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 3:I wanna be a friend. Like, I wanna be a father. And, and like that, that kind of hit me at a deep level of like, when we say, what kind of man do you want to be? What kind of woman do you want to be? Are we casting a vision for how you're building your character, how you're, you're built, like your virtue talks Are are we casting a vision?
Speaker 3:This is an answer we're looking for you to to grow and then develop.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. No. Absolutely.
Speaker 4:I love that. Just just, you know, I think that's one of the things that is unique with DC is, you know, you and people have told me this, that when you first introduce yourself, everyone asks you, so what do you do? You know, and that if you're coming from a different the different state, at first it takes you aback. You're like, what what is what is this question about what I do? And so just just reframing the self around around character.
Speaker 4:I think the reclamation of culture, in our culture of Doctor. King's statement, like, the content of your character, you know, like, with all the things that we can do and be, or what we're told we can do and be, What's your character look like? And just having that be the foundation of our culture is is is a population of really, you know, well formed people that that, have the habits that build to virtue, that build to, like, a lasting character. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Come on. That's so good. I somebody asked me, how do you measure character? And so they were like, well, it's easy for for us to measure whether a student went on a field trip or not. And how do you measure someone's growth and responsibility?
Speaker 3:Or I don't I don't know if you face that or have any thoughts about how you measure that, but, I mean, it's gotta be having those experiences, having these conversations. And are there any kids that you've seen developing character that you're like, I I know our program works because I'm seeing seeing this child transformed. I don't I don't know if if if you have any stories to share.
Speaker 4:Oh, goodness. This is such a great question, Steven. You know, I mean, there's always the metrics. Right? You know, my my background is in, program evaluation data.
Speaker 4:You know, what are the numbers? But to me, it's those those intangibles that really tell the story. And I'll share with you, just for you, Stephen, one of my favorite stories. And it's of a mentee that I had when I first started in 2,006. And this young lady, she just she just reminded me of myself so much.
Speaker 4:I was always a shy kid. I was the one that got picked on a little bit for being a bit darker skinned and and those kinds of things. So I saw her, and I saw myself. And and we just we developed a really good bond. You know, we talked a lot about self assurance, how true self confidence is born of of mastery, both of yourself and, you know, developing your skills that you're good at.
Speaker 4:We talked about how more than you realize everyone is sort of self conscious. But if you can be that person more about, you know, the other person when you first meet them, you can kind of jump that hurdle. We thought we had really great conversations, you know, she and I. And this young lady, she went on to go to college, and it she blossomed so much. You know, she she actually started her own mentorship program when she was at that college.
Speaker 4:You know, she became a sophomore, junior, started mentoring the freshmen that were coming in, you know, helping those young young people. And then she came back to YLS and worked, for a summer as our dean of students with the girls. And I tell you, like, there were so many moments where I just got choked up watching her, like, in the full version of herself. And now she, you know, she's got a job in public health, and she's she's always doing these kind of speaking opportunities at events, you know, telling people about, you know, you know, whatever point of advocacy is of the day. And I'm just I'm just so proud of what she's been able to do and the self assurance and the confidence and that she developed.
Speaker 4:And that's what, you know, those stories of of a person paying it forward, you know, a person, you know, helping others alone. Like though, that's what sort of, to me, shows the arc of that growth in character, where there's a shift from self conscious, almost self focusedness to outward. How do I serve? You know, how do I help other people? That's the real battle, you know, that that kids face.
Speaker 4:It's like, how do I take my circumstances and then and then learn to give, you know, give to the people around me. So
Speaker 3:That's so good. Janae, who who are the people that imparted that to you, the self assurance, the confidence? I know you mentioned your mom, but I I wonder if you could give color to who are who are the people that shaped you and, made you into the black female leader of, an organization that's serving 100 upon 100 upon 100 of kids. And, like, you being the inspiration, you being the person that is leading the team and creating avenues for more, more children to to walk in self assurance, confidence, and in character that equips them to be the next mentors and the next advocates, the next, I mean, leaders in our in our country.
Speaker 4:Oh, my goodness. I have been so blessed and fortunate to to be surrounded. You know, when they say the great cloud of witnesses, I've been encouraged so much in my life. There have been so many, mentors for me. A lot of them were my teachers.
Speaker 4:I remember my 6th grade teacher, Mr. King, he gave us this assignment where we had to do a 6th grade thesis project. You know, we had to write about a topic. We had to get the thesis panel. And I just remember his encouragement after I spoke.
Speaker 4:There's this one phrase he said. He said, you know, because I was I was very defensive when all of the panelists, they would ask me questions about what I was doing. I would just try to pounce and give them a guanstimate. I said, later on, you know, he says, listen so that you can hear. I don't know why that phrase stuck with me so much, but that's it's always kind of turned in my head, listen so that you can hear.
Speaker 4:It's about sort of being open to hearing what people have to give you. And that advice has actually sort of been made me be able to make a mentor of all the people around me. You know? Everyone from, you know, future teachers who I encounter to future bosses to, you know, somebody who just happened to be very good at it. Good at a talent or a skill is gleaning this information from folks.
Speaker 4:And then there along along with that, just sort of being able to to draw from from everyone around me. There've been some people who've really just been amazingly caring in my life. I'm starting with my parents, you know, and my 2 older sisters. But then, there's one in particular, her name is, Reyes. She actually was the person who interviewed me to be a PALS mentor when I first started.
Speaker 4:And she just, I don't know, just the encouragement. She would always just kind of take me out for lunch, and we would just kind of talk about what was going on with my life. And at the time, I didn't recognize that as mentorship till many years later, you know, when I was just reflecting on my journey and how often she been there at critical moments, you know, critical moments of faith, critical moments of, you know, marriage and family. She's she's just been an amazing mentor. And I think her best feature is she's always been just just, you know, direct and honest with me about everything.
Speaker 4:She never sort of tried to to protect me from the truth. And I think that that's the most important thing a mentor can be, is completely 100% loving, but completely 100% honest. And that merger of of truth and love, you know, that's how people grow. You know? And and that's what she's been to me, just sort of like a a true north.
Speaker 4:You know?
Speaker 3:Now you said you said that she interviewed you. So she was like is this when you were becoming a mentor, a volunteer in in the program you now lead?
Speaker 4:Yes. Exactly.
Speaker 3:And so what would she regularly follow-up with you and and check-in how things were going as a volunteer during during your time as a volunteer?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So, you know, from her, it sort of transitioned to whoever the program director was. She was actually a board volunteer. So she was on the board with the director, but she was helping out with some interviews for the summer, just to kind of help, you know, help the onboarding process that went summer. And then she and I built kind of like a special connection.
Speaker 4:I mean, she volunteered with other projects too during the time that I've been at YLF. She was really kind of central to us developing a new curriculum for particularly for the young girls. I mean, it talks a lot about femininity, like, what what that means, you know, because there's a lot of, you know, there can be a level of confusion about what that means, and just how special a gift femininity is. And so it was really just sort of about, like, a curriculum that was, like, rejoicing about femininity and what that means. Like, how that means also strength and all these other things.
Speaker 4:So so we worked together again on that project. But, yeah, she was just a board volunteer, and we just built a bond. It's been great.
Speaker 3:Well, I I just love like, we we just had an assessment of our mentoring program, like, all of our processes for bringing non volunteers. And one of their primary encouragements was, do you see that as staff, you are setting forward a vision for what mentoring looks like in any meeting you're having? Whether it's a donor, whether it's a volunteer, you're training them in what your expectations are anytime you're meeting with them. Right. So, the the way you're relational, the way you ask questions, the way you listen, the way you remember things that they shared, the way you celebrate them, the way you give them feedback, you're giving them vision for it.
Speaker 3:And I don't know if we completely realized that, but I love hearing stories, like, of your experience of realizing, oh, wow. I'm not just interviewing for this position. Like, this is somebody that wants to invest in me and make me better and and be an encouragement. So Yeah. It's a it's a great testimony.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I think that is a special part of why I went out there. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Come on.
Speaker 4:I'm sorry.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's good. Well, you're the leader now. So I I wonder if my last question is kinda selfish because I just wanna learn from you. It's like, what I mean, obviously, if you started in 2018, I think you faced some significant challenges as as a leader. Are there any that stand out to you besides the obvious, but also what relationships and resources have been helpful to you in leading, Youth Leadership Foundation?
Speaker 3:And, I mean, is it is it a book? Is it a resource? Is it a relationship? Yeah. What's what's been helpful to you?
Speaker 4:Oh, that's such a great question. I think the most helpful thing is just sort of recognizing what you don't know and and figuring out who is driven through passion to meet that need, that gap in your own strength, and being kind of, you know, humble about that. You know? So, you know, for me, I had to seek out a lot of support in terms of, like, the financial side, you know, figuring out I need to know this, you know. I gotta figure this out.
Speaker 4:And so going and and seeking out opera professional development opportunities, but then also being very transparent with the board level folks and asking them to help and fill in those gaps and asking questions and being open to, like, a little bit of that vulnerability. You know? I think that the the fun part was being able to lead with passion. You know, I knew the program from, like, bottom to the top, you know, because of how long I've been here, the relationships I've built with families, and with other mentors, the operation side. Like, all those things were were strengths of mine, but, like, knowing where the gaps were and and knowing how to ask for help.
Speaker 4:I think in terms of particular help, you know, and I could kind of call out particular board members. I don't know if that's like a thing, but but there was so the finance committee on our board was like pivotal. Our board president was was just such a mentor. We I sat in his office every week, you know, at the beginning of my time, just sort of, you know, week to week situating myself. He was he was so gracious always just sharing his time with me.
Speaker 4:Another mentor might not consider as as our board president. My spouse, my my husband, you know, he he leads a firm in his own right and just I spend countless hours of our time in the evening just kinda so what do you think of this? And, like, asking asking for help. You know? So
Speaker 3:I do I do that with my wife, and it drives her insane. She's like, can you just go talk to a board member or something? So
Speaker 4:Picking your brain. You know? So yeah. So there's that, for sure. And and it it was never like a, like, oh, this go to book necessarily.
Speaker 4:Although, you know, books are very helpful. It was usually just the people that were kind of closest to me, that were my my most vivid resources, You know, the ones that, like, you know, kinda trust that I trust to tell me the truth, but also I know who have my back. You know?
Speaker 3:Wow. So leaders have to have people that they can trust to tell them the truth. That's a that's a good word. Well, I'm sure I'm sure as a leader within all all of the I mean, I didn't I knew what a spreadsheet was. I didn't I didn't know all of these kind of projections, and, I mean, I'm I'm not saying like I'm going to get audited by the IRS and end up in prison, but if I don't pull people in, like that's definitely going to happen.
Speaker 3:And, and so I've got, I've gone through all that stuff, but even just personally, maybe you could just share, maybe there's a mentoring leader out there. Who's feeling discouraged. Who's feeling overwhelmed. I wonder if you'd have an encouragement for them to, to persevere and yeah. What you would say, what would you say to them?
Speaker 3:The, the, the mentoring leader, the executive director out there who's thinking about giving up.
Speaker 4:Yeah. No. I just say, you know, you know, first, it's just like, hold on, because your work is valuable and and your original passion was not wrong, you know. It's been placed in your heart for a reason. You are the person that is that was chosen for that role.
Speaker 4:And part of the process of really becoming it is having the the trust in the vision and take all your debts. Nothing really ornate, you know, nothing sort of huge sweep, you know, that's going to kind of change you overnight, but just going through that process. It's the same thing that we tell our kids. Right? It's just those small steps.
Speaker 4:Start small, and it grows to something bigger. But be faithful. Be faithful, and it'll, and it'll come. That's my encouragement.
Speaker 3:Come on, Janae. Hey. If you're if you're discouraged out there, if you're overwhelmed, you heard it you heard it here. You were chosen. You've been raised up for such a time as this.
Speaker 3:Whether to mentor that kid, whether to lead that organization, you have what it takes. And I I really believe God has resources, relationships for you to help you succeed. So Janaea, Youth Leadership Foundation, the executive director herself on the podcast, thank you so much for joining us and sharing sharing your knowledge and wisdom. I'd love to connect more and stay in touch. Is there any way people can connect with YLF after this, if they listen to it and are just impressed and and wanna wanna find out more?
Speaker 4:Absolutely. And thank you again just for for sharing your time and sharing about 4 Runner, and giving us this platform to share about what we love. You can find us online at www.helpingkids.ort. Then you can find us on Instagram and Twitter at ylf_dc.
Speaker 3:Awesome. Well, we'll put the those in the show notes for for all our listeners, and hope you enjoyed today's podcast. Follow go follow ylf. Send them an email telling them what you learned from today. Check out their website.
Speaker 3:The videos that they have on their their page are amazing to sharing their story, and I hope hope this episode encouraged you. If you learned anything today, let it be this. You can mentor.