February 6, 2025 • 34 mins
In the seventh episode of “Listen, Mental Health Matters,” Brian Giebink, HDR’s behavioral and mental health practice lead, speaks with Nick Juliano, president and CEO of RADIUS, a nonprofit organization providing trauma-informed education, social and behavioral health services for youth in Omaha, Nebraska. The conversation explores how RADIUS has evolved over the past five years, why it’s important for youth and families to receive local support without disruptions in education and family dynamics, and the critical relationship between RADIUS and the broader community.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
You're listening to Speaking of Design,
bringing you the stories of the engineers and
architects
who are transforming
the world one project at a time. Today,
we bring you another episode of a special
podcast series on behavioral and mental health called
Listen, Mental Health Matters.
As part of this series, Brian Giebenk, behavioral
(00:24):
and mental health practice leader at HDR,
visits some of the world's leading health care
providers for candid conversations
about the challenges they face and the opportunities
to transform the patient and caregiver experience.
I'm Brian Geebing, and I hope that by
listening, the series helps us consider new perspectives
in our quest to create transformational mental health
(00:47):
facilities that improve the quality of life for
individuals and families and promote a shared sense
of community. And now Brian's conversation with Nick
Giuliano,
president and CEO of Radius, a nonprofit
serving youth and families in Omaha, Nebraska.
(01:11):
So, Nick, thank you for being here today
in Omaha, Nebraska, and it's a beautiful sunny
day here in December. Really appreciate your time,
Nick, joining us today for the podcast. We
are fortunate to work with you on the
design of the new radius of the residential
treatment center. Wanna hear a lot about that,
but first thing, I would love to hear
a little bit about you, about Nick Giuliano.
So if you don't mind sharing a little
(01:32):
bit about your background and your career path
and how you got to where you are.
Well, Brian, thanks for this opportunity. It's great
to talk with you, and we're very pleased.
I was telling you before we started how
this facility has worked exactly how we intended
it and how it was designed. So a
little bit about me, I was really lucky
before coming to Radius. I spent twenty three
years at Boys Town,
(01:54):
and that afforded me a great opportunity
to
receive world class training in
working
administratively
and with youth and families as well as
seeing firsthand how to develop new programs and
implement effective programs
across the continuum, and that includes education and
residential care and in home services and clinical
(02:15):
services. And so,
as I arrive here
today with Radius, I've been fortunate to have
all that experience
and a great team of people who have
very similar experience
driving the mission of Radius.
You mentioned twenty three years of Boys Town.
Yes. Was was that kinda where you started
your career? It was. And I started six
months after graduating college. And so
(02:38):
this month marks my thirtieth year in the
field. Okay. All in the nonprofit space and
all working
with youth and families involved in the child
welfare and juvenile justice system. And so it's
really all I've known, and I've definitely benefited
from a lot of that experience. Learned a
lot along the way as well. Absolutely.
What drew you into this? You mentioned six
months out of school when you jumped into
(03:00):
the Boys Town network and now you're here.
What brought you into this? What was behind
Nick wanting to join Boys Town or be
a part of this nonprofit organization?
Well, growing up in Omaha, I was very
familiar with Boys Town. Okay. And it's a
world known organization.
And I think like a lot of people
at that time, I had graduated. I had
(03:20):
an undergrad degree in psychology. Wasn't sure what
I wanted to do. Thought I might wanna
work with young people. And so when you're
in Omaha and you're wondering if you might
wanna work with young people,
Boys Town's the place to go. So, honestly,
it was a try it out. Let me
see if I like it. And what I
was told by people was go get a
job working with youth. You'll know immediately if
(03:42):
it's for you or not. And so right
out of the gate, I really enjoyed it.
It was challenging and rewarding, and I just
kinda stuck with it. And eventually, it became
a career. That's how I got started. So
twenty three years at Boys Town. Now you've
been at Radius for the last seven years?
It will be six in June. Six years.
Six years here at Radius. Yeah. Can you
(04:03):
give a little bit of an overview of
what Radius is and who you serve and
what the mission is of the program? Absolutely.
So the mission of Radius is to empower
youth and families to reach their full potential
through community engagement and trauma informed education,
social, and behavioral
health services. So the way we do that
(04:23):
is by providing four core services. So that's
residential care. We have 24 beds for young
people to live with us here.
Education.
So they're working towards a high school diploma,
and we've had four young men actually receive
their high school diploma here. In home family
services, which is really important to work with
the families of the young people while they're
(04:45):
here.
And a very unique partnership with Charles Drew
Health Center, which in Omaha is a federally
qualified health centers. And so the youth who
live here go right next door and receive
physical and behavioral health services. And
that's really unique and powerful because it's also
a freestanding
community facing location.
(05:05):
So anyone from the community can access that.
When the youth leave Radius,
they can return. They can keep their same
doctor, their same therapist.
They're doing family work. And so that continuity
of care is really, really important because once
you develop that relationship,
we want that to continue
when they go home. So as far as
the youth that we serve, historically,
(05:26):
youth by the way, all of the youth
here are involved in our local juvenile justice
system. So they are on juvenile probation.
They've been evaluated
and court ordered here by a juvenile court
judge for rehabilitation.
And that's really important to know
because the complexity of their needs include
some legal involvement,
certainly physical health care needs,
(05:47):
potentially mental health and substance use needs,
certainly a need to continue their education,
learn new skills,
and their families are in very difficult situations.
There's a lot of instability and challenges with
their family. And so,
historically,
the young men at Radius have had to
go very far away from Omaha to places
like Utah and Arizona and Ohio.
(06:09):
In fact, if we were not here today,
our young men would be there. And so
our goal is to keep
our Omaha youth here locally, get the help
that they need because nobody should have to
go away. And really, long term success and
healing
needs to occur
in the community you're gonna live in
with your family
so we can work together on that. That
(06:30):
can't be done from a distance. And so
that's really the unique
need that we meet here locally. We're seeing
that across the board in our work on
the design side. We're seeing that that it's
so important that we have places for kids
where they're at because a big part of
behavioral mental health care is that the connection
with family, the connection with the community. Yeah.
So when you leave, if you're removed from
(06:51):
that, you might receive outstanding care, you might
be receiving
the world's best care. Right? But you're kind
of receiving that care in a a palace.
Right? For lack of a better word. Right?
And then you're sent elsewhere once you've recovered
or you're to a point where you no
longer need the services. You're sent back home
where you're completely disconnected from it all. Yep.
It's amazing that the radius
is bringing that care right where it's needed,
(07:12):
that model, that treatment model right where it's
needed. We're grateful to be a part of
it, and you summed that up perfectly. And
what we see from our the young people
who've been here and been successful
is that their families stay connected from day
one, and that's both with visits here to
radius,
frequent structured home visits to work on their
(07:33):
skills in the environment they're gonna live in,
plus thousands of hours now in nineteen months
of community events where our young people are
out in the community,
interacting with the community, doing community service,
experience in our community, but having an opportunity
to practice, so to speak, and work on
the skills that we hope they'll have for
long term success. And we also happen to
(07:54):
be located
in the community where the bulk of our
youth are from. And so even within the
Omaha community, this specific location is intentional,
so we're nearby as well as we recruit
the bulk of our staff from this community.
So our staff are also
aware of the community our kids are from,
aware of their situation. So that relational piece
(08:15):
drives the other programs and services. And you
mentioned a thousand hours of community service. That's
fantastic that the kids are involved in community
service and involved in the community while they're
within your program. I imagine that's also raising
awareness within the community. People are seeing this
engagement, this involvement in the community, and it's
probably, hopefully, kind of destigmatizing
maybe the whole issue of behavioral health care,
(08:36):
but just raising awareness in general about what
you do and the amazing service that you
provide for the community. That's a great point.
It really does get to that stigma.
And those thousand hours aren't just community service.
It's routine activities in the community. We'll go
to local events. We have a very
unique, powerful family dinner night once a month
(08:56):
where we go to a community location with
the Radius youth. Their families and friends are
invited. We also invite in community partners because
the specific work Radius does that I described
is provided directly by us, but there's another,
their trusted relationships in the community. And so
we invite those partners in to get to
know our families, to provide other resources.
(09:17):
And so as we go about that, absolutely
not only reduces the stigma of getting help,
particularly mental health, which is strong. But there
is a lingering stigma about justice involved youth
that for many, they see their law violations
first
and sort of contemplate whether they deserve
(09:38):
the kind of care that they need. We
have inverted that philosophically.
They are children first and they have complex
needs. We will help them and their families.
And, yes, they also happen to be justice
involved. So there is accountability.
They have probation officers. They have a court.
Community safety is top of mind to make
(09:58):
sure that while we're working with them and
they return home, they're safe in the community
and our community is safe. But we have
to start with the person, the child and
the family, and
that further helps to reduce that stigma.
If you spent time here and talk to
our guys, you would leave that interaction having
talked to young people,
not having walked out the door saying, oh,
(10:20):
I just talked to a bunch of guys
on probation. It's very powerful. But the community
needs to see that. Right? And if that's
the point of us being out there. It
might be a good segue into the next
question here about having key moments or a
series of moments that define who you become
and what you do. Is there a particular
moment that you can you can point to
or look at that really shaped the idea
of Radius and shaped it into what it
is today?
(10:42):
Yes. Several key moments.
The first of which
was the vision of local philanthropists who investing
in our community for decades in education
and after school program and mentoring and mental
health continued to look at who was not
being served or who was not being served
here. And so that vision, that's a community
(11:03):
changing moment because the leaders stepped up and
said, this is the next group that we're
going to help. The next moment was development
of our local advisory group, which did include
those philanthropists,
health care experts,
law enforcement, including a deputy chief from Omaha
police, juvenile court judges, probation officers, maybe most
importantly, a young person
(11:24):
who himself had experienced
our local system and had to go far
away, and the parent of two now grown
boys who had experienced our juvenile justice system
and they had gone away. So that was
sort of the next moment that momentum carried
for eighteen months before there ever was a
radius
critical mass.
(11:45):
And then finally, obviously, with the concrete vision
and planning,
those same philosophers with unbelievable
generosity
stepped up and funded the entire project. So,
Radius operates today
owning our building
and our land with no debt, and that's
solely thanks to the generosity of Omaha's philanthropic
(12:07):
community. Community.
And just driving around town, you noticed the
philanthropic community is really strong here. And I
I think Radius has experienced that. And so
there's I think Omaha has really great opportunities
for philanthropic
initiatives that are serving very, very important
and meaningful
opportunities in many different ways. And a lot
(12:27):
of them seem to be very focused on
community and and finding the gaps and filling
those gaps. I know that you've talked a
little bit about what you do and what
you're doing and as far as what you're
striving to provide. Is
Is there anything specific that you wanna address
about? What are you striving to provide in
the community for Radius that you haven't already
mentioned? What we're striving to provide is
helping youth and families get to that point
(12:50):
in their life so they reach their potential.
Right? And
for young people age 12 to 18,
top of mind is we wanna continue your
education. We'd like you to graduate high school
whether it's a radius or when you return
to the community.
We want you to have the skills to
be employed. And as you move into adulthood,
we want you employed.
We want you
(13:10):
safe, of course,
no longer having law violations because that's now
part of
your past, not your not your future.
And in that then, helping the families strengthen
themselves and also connect to others in the
community. So that's the long game in that
we have productive citizens because communities get stronger
(13:33):
Mhmm. When people are safe and at home
and employed
and are able to reach their own goals.
So that's everything we do is is tailored
to that even though for a period of
that time,
they're going to live with us, and that's
to keep them safe and sort of accelerate
that process. You're doing such amazing work, and
I'm sure it doesn't come easy. I'm sure
there are challenges.
(13:54):
What are some of your biggest roadblocks that
you face? And I think a lot of
our listeners would really learn a lot from
this question because
of everybody in the mental health space and
the behavioral health space is trying to solve
this
epidemic. Right? Yeah. Especially around children and youth
mental health. What are some of the challenges
you face? Are you able how have you
been able to pivot and move some of
those initiatives forward? So we address one of
(14:15):
the big ones which we all face, which
is that stigma
about mental health and mental health services and
then the broader stigma for our justice involved,
youth and families.
We have to tackle that with continued education
and advocacy. Mhmm. And sometimes
when we have
parts of our community or parts of the
policy world that are really kind of antagonistic
(14:37):
to what we're doing, we just have to
refocus on the mission
and keep the task at hand. So that's
the first one. The second one is
workforce is obviously a challenge for all of
us.
Because with the innovative programs we have and
we utilize three different
evidence based practices,
we ask a lot out of our staff.
(14:58):
You know, you have to have a personal
commitment
and a draw, but then we ask a
lot out of their technical skills through our
high quality training to be able to deliver
services that are not only relational.
Relationships are very important, and they're the foundation
of everything, but the actual practices that have
been shown to be effective. And I think
anyone doing this work, we
been shown to be effective. And I think
anyone doing this work,
(15:20):
we struggle with workforce because we need more
dedicated people that are willing to learn and
grow. And our youth are a challenging
population to work with.
The other thing in programs like ours is,
you know, we talked about that long term
goal.
Often, we don't get to see the realization
of that long term goal. Right? They're with
(15:40):
us for a period of time. We actually
do family work. You know, one of the
things that makes us unique is we start
family work day one and we work intensively
with the family,
the entirety of the youth stay.
And then when they return home, we continue
to work with them. You know? So if
the youth is here
twelve months, that could mean we're working with
the family for fifteen months. And you can
(16:02):
have a lot of positive
change and effect on people in fifteen months.
However, the long term goal, we don't always
see firsthand. And
so I think anyone in this field, we
have to take those moments.
I had one the other day when a
young man came up to me and was
very proud here to earn three high school
credits, and he was progressing toward a high
(16:23):
school diploma. He had been in detention for
two years and while he had access to
education,
was not as motivated in that setting because
he couldn't
see himself in the community.
So we take those moments.
When
this weekend, we had nine families here having
family visits. And that's parents and siblings, an
(16:43):
aunt and uncle.
We've had three generation visits here
where,
again, if they have been detained or they've
been in their location, they haven't seen their
family
for months and years.
And they have that moment,
and they are talking, and they're sharing a
meal, and they're communicating,
and there's joy. We have to take those
(17:04):
moments. Right? Because the work we're all doing
to accomplish those long term goals is very
difficult.
Probably
the other roadblock we face I mean, funding
is always an issue in this work and
probably for all of the listeners
because very few funders will
pay the entire cost for quality programs. And
so, again, we rely on generous donors,
(17:27):
and we'd have that support. But also in
in the policy realm, you know, community safety
is an important topic, and it's also a
polarized topic. And so when you're working with
young people who've been involved in the community
with law violations, they've been involved
very frankly in creating some safety issues in
our community. Again, being able to get everyone
(17:49):
to refocus on
that happened and there is accountability and the
path forward
is not to dwell on that, but to
dwell on the healing and the treatment
and the complexity of those needs. That is
a challenge everywhere. It's certainly challenge here in
Nebraska because, you know, I have an 81
year old mother
and she watches the news. And if she
feels unsafe, that's a challenge. And so that's
(18:11):
a barrier for us because, you know, at
times, it slows our progress because the young
people we have
are all deeply involved in the justice system.
So, again, we have to educate, we have
to advocate.
And as
we have a little more experience, so we've
been operational for nineteen months, we'll have some
success stories to share.
Right now, with a small number of youth,
(18:32):
we don't have the kind of stories that
can change hearts and minds and really see
these kids at different light. So that's that's
something we grapple with and I'm sure everybody
else does. I think those are really good
examples of some roadblocks. And I think you've
done a tremendous job pivoting. And I think
you've mentioned that you've been in operation for,
is it eighteen months? This is our, I
think, our nineteenth month. Nineteen months in operation
(18:54):
Yeah. And so you've seen a lot of
success during that time. Yeah. And you'd mentioned
previously you've been part of Radius for six
years which is
I think really important to think about all
of the upfront work that you did to
get to the point of even
building a space and then and then creating
the space for the residential treatment program.
We talked a lot about community engagement with
(19:16):
the with the kids out in the community,
but I'm sure a lot of community engagement
and a lot of raising awareness within the
community and a lot of upfront work went
into
where you're at today. Can you talk a
little bit about your approach and the importance
of the community engagement and getting everybody behind
it whether it was philanthropy or
really critical, particularly
(19:36):
our location. We are in an urban core.
In fact, we are in a neighborhood. So
adjacent properties are private homes.
And so you can imagine
when the announcement was made that there would
be, we weren't called Radius then, that there
would be a program like the one we're
operating
literally right in somebody's backyard.
There's legitimate concern. And so
(19:57):
we took a very open approach and a
slow thoughtful approach
in the very early days.
Even before we had all the details, that's
a little risky because you get asked a
lot of detailed questions. And if you don't
have answers, it tends to make people uneasy.
But we took that risk because everybody felt
our advisory board, eventually, the the board of
(20:17):
Radius and myself,
that people needed time to process and needed
time to talk. And
whatever emotions were attached
with our future presence
was valid.
And
I've learned along the way, giving people an
opportunity to speak even if they're not things
you wanna hear is really important then to
get down to the details and how will
(20:38):
this work and how we work together. So
we had a series of community meetings right
here on this property next door. As you
can imagine, there was a lot of energy
in the room.
We listened very intently.
We shared
what we knew, and we were also honest
about what we didn't knew because because we
had not even started building design at that
point in time. But we continued that relationship,
(20:59):
and what we found over time was
we moved into the neighborhood association, which is
more representative of
the actual individuals who were in this area.
And while they had concerns,
they routinely comment at this point, we're a
year into a conversation.
And they would have meetings and myself and
one of my colleagues would show up. And
every time we came to meeting, they would
(21:21):
say, I can't believe you keep coming to
our meeting. Why would you do that? We
always yell at you. We're always mad at
you. And I said, we're gonna work together.
We're gonna be neighbors. I'm committed.
So like any relationship. Right? You need time
Mhmm. In a space together. And then as
we worked along with support from the local
city council member and a local faith community
(21:43):
who's involved in neighbor association, we really got
down to what are your key concerns? There
were 10 items. We were able to address
eight of them. They want an additional street
light down the street, and the city of
Omaha disagreed.
And there was one other item, but we
were able to deliver on eight of the
10 concerns.
We took another step forward. And then every
step of the way, we would share with
(22:04):
them design documents.
They got to tour this facility at various
points ahead of the public and ahead of
media and elected officials
little by little by little. The last time
we had a neighbor association meeting here, the
two most vocal residents
who I'm now friends with
asked if they could work here here or
volunteer
(22:24):
and were brought to tears as we were
sharing
some of the successes of the young people
that we're working with. And so we have
to earn that every day like every relationship.
But
we took
a very thoughtful
approach, and there was no hurry to it.
And had we run into significant barriers, which
thankfully we didn't, we likely would have paused
(22:45):
the project. Mhmm. That's how important it was.
And so I think when you're doing this
kind of work, particularly in
uncomfortable
moments. Mhmm. It makes you second guess a
little bit, but we stayed the course and
it's it's paid
great dividends. When we had the neighbors in
the first time tour the facility, one of
their concerns
(23:06):
was
how the facility looked from their backyard. And
also, we have a fence around our perimeter
to identify our property.
And
all along, they were concerned about the fence.
The fence will have razor wire.
It will not.
It will be ugly. And first time we
had the neighbors and we walked out back
and I said, what do you think about
(23:28):
the fence? And again, the one most vocal
neighbors looking 50 yards away said, said, I
can't even see the fence.
Is there a fence there? And the other
neighbor laughed and said, yeah. That was the
point. Remember, they talked about how the fence
would look nice. Yes. It defines the property,
but it blends in the neighborhood. So that's
a small example of the physical space, but
(23:48):
it speaks
have been
Would have been nice if they knew what
it looked like before. But when you were
in these early conversations, I don't even think
you had a conceptual design at that point.
(24:09):
Did not. So it was all when you
say fence and you say secure. Right? Secure
and fence Yeah. Immediately got a razor wire
and Yeah. Ugly. Right? But there are very
very elegant solutions that
basically disappear
with the fencing and I think the same
goes the building in general when you're driving
down the street here it fits in with
the neighborhood. It's at the right scale. It's
elegantly understated. I imagine that's very appreciated too
(24:32):
by the by the community.
It is appreciated.
And credit to HDR for the design and
Turner Construction for the construction,
Blair Freeman who's our project manager because we
were all very concerned and intentional about
this blending in. One of the designers used
to say, if we do this right, the
building will just sit softly on the property.
(24:53):
And when he said that, I thought,
yes. So one of the biggest compliments we
get is somebody drives by
and they don't know what we do here.
And when they ask around, it's usually,
is there a new school
over there? Now we've got Brandy and they
can see the signs and they can see
Charles Drew, but it fits. And we're next
(25:14):
door to a church and it fits
the property. And just to be clear based
on our last conversation, we're not a locked
facility, and we're not a correctional facility. Right.
And so as those conversations
evolved as we were talking about the young
people we're gonna serve, here come the assumptions
and the stigmas of, oh, well, that means,
no. We're actually going to do a different
(25:35):
way.
It'll be a treatment facility, be rehabilitative
treatment facility. It is not locked. It's not
detention. It's healing. So the neighbors have again,
that was several years in the making that
they've they've embraced that idea. They're very proud
that that is right here in this neighborhood.
We talked a lot about community and it
means that's an integral theme to this whole
thing. It's all about community. Is there anything
(25:57):
else you wanna wanna add as far as
how communities is so integral to how Radius
operates? Yeah. I would just add as we
know, community is how you define it. So
we've just talked about community being the local
community, those that live
right here. And there's a wider net for
the North Omaha community. Omaha on there is
the community in general. And so we've had
(26:17):
to do work in all of those spaces
because you need all of the supports
from the neighbors, from the citizens of this
part town, and from the city of Omaha,
which gives us great opportunities to educate because
the average Omaha is not aware of what
we're doing. It may not be in this
neighborhood. And so that work continues.
It doesn't stop, but the ring keeps getting
bigger so that we're educating and advocating to
(26:40):
the entire community. I mentioned that's one of
the things you do really well is advocating
and growing that ring. What else does Radius
do really well? And what do you think
you're doing differently than your peers? And how
can you act as a model in other
communities
really around the country? There's several unique things
that we do well that I know are
unique not only this community but the country.
The the family work that we do, what
(27:00):
we call in home services,
the fact that that starts the very day
of admission
evidence based program from Boystown. It's got research
behind it. And the key is that
we need that entire
time to build a relationship with the family.
Most residential programs, if a young person is
gonna
(27:21):
with the family.
Most residential programs,
if a young person is gonna stay nine
or twelve months,
the first
six to seven months, you really just focus
on the youth that's living there.
And then you start the family work. The
needs of our youth and families are too
complex. We have to start that right away.
So we're very unique in that. The second
thing is the
(27:42):
partnership with Charles Drew Health Center on this
campus.
I'm not aware of another one in the
country with
a treatment facility like ours with a freestanding
federally qualified health center. And as a federally
qualified health center,
Charles Drew is not only a trusted health
care partner, but they have expertise in social
determinants of health and chronic health conditions of
which every
(28:03):
which every youth here and their families have.
We've integrated our programs while we are separate
organizations,
separately funded, separately licensed and accredited.
But also,
last week, we saw two of our former
youth and their families coming back here for
therapy, and they're coming back here for vaccinations.
They left three months ago. And so the
(28:24):
proof of concept of that continuity of care,
which is so important in the research,
we see happening.
The third thing is this state of the
art facility.
We've had interest in visits from people
around the country and international interests.
We've heard about the facility. What did you
do from a design perspective? Right? The programs
(28:45):
we're using, the evidence based practice, we did
not create. Others are using those practices, but
we put them together in a unique way
in a facility that's built
from that trauma informed lens.
Open spaces,
natural light, freedom of movement, as you know,
highly safe,
durable,
all of those things combined. What's happening nationally
(29:08):
with populations like ours is the trend is
really to keep them in a correctional based
facility and then try to soften it up,
bring in clinicians and bring in mental health
and bring in evidence based practices, which is
a good step in the right direction. We've
taken the opposite approach to
say, we will design and build a non
correctional facility, non detention facility with kids who
(29:30):
literally
come from detention and then implement all those
programs, but the facility makes it work. If
you haven't visited here, when you walk through
our facility, there are large windows in every
single space. And when we built this facility
and we're talking about the population we were
gonna serve,
many community members and professional colleagues said we
love this place, but with all those windows,
(29:51):
you have a budget to replace all because
they're gonna get broken by the kinds of
kids that you have. None have been broken.
In eighteen months? In eighteen months.
And
that relates to how we staff and how
we program and the relationships and the environment
doing what we believed it would do, which
is support mental health
and healing.
Yes. And give space to handle very difficult
(30:13):
behavioral situations.
I have not seen another facility like this
in the country,
and we learn from others. So the team
learn from different experiences and starts with
being in facilities that but we don't want
to look like that, and we shouldn't do
that. And let's take a little bit here
and a little bit there. So I I
think there's a lot of very unique things
going on here we do well that that
(30:35):
our family work will drive those long term
outcomes. If we are successful,
I believe it will rest on what we're
doing to strengthen the families. Amazing to hear
about the windows, and I'm sure there are
other elements too that are really working well.
And I just love the comment about the
windows because we all know the natural daylight
is so important, and we know that creating
a therapeutic environment actually helps reduce stress, which
(30:57):
can reduce anxiety, which can reduce aggression and
violence,
and
natural daylight and open spaces and softer materials
help to reduce stress, right, which ultimately reduces
negative incidents, right? It is happening. Amazing to
hear that it's working. One other feature, and
it's within that design, but I wanna call
it out a specific feature. We have a
(31:18):
mindfulness room. We have a dedicated space in
this facility, which, of course, has windows and
natural light. And we have a mindfulness curriculum
from an expert
that we do with our youth and we
do with our staff. Could be yoga, could
be meditation, could be relaxation
exercises. So that space that we design and
is dedicated for that use and nothing else.
(31:40):
Else. Some wondered if we would get the
young people raised to engage in those kind
of progressive types of activities,
and they love it. And it's part of
all the things that we talked about, emotional
regulation,
learning skills taken the community.
That space itself is very unique. I haven't
seen many other facilities that have dedicated a
space for that. So we're very proud of
(32:01):
that. We think that's gonna really provide some
good outcomes. Do you keep that space sort
of sacred to what it is? It is
a meditation space, and we're not gonna go
in there and use it for dining or
use it for anything else. Correct. It is
solely dedicated. So we've got sound for sound
therapy, and we've got natural light. We've got
artificial light. There's mats on the floor. You
go there for one reason. It's for mindfulness
(32:24):
and wellness classes. So it's pretty special. And,
Nick, I heard there's a story about one
of your residents that you'd shared. And do
you mind sharing that with the audience? Yeah.
I I'd be glad to share it. And
this is one of those moments where we
know we're making progress. And so as I
was out in the community area the other
day, I had a young man approached me.
He's very excited. First of all, he wanted
to tell me that he had earned two
high school credits, and he had a certificate,
(32:46):
and he's working very hard to graduate high
school. And as he said things like,
I'm working on my diploma.
I'm gonna go home soon. I'm gonna get
a job. And I said,
what else do you need from us? How
can we help you? And he said,
my mom really needs help because my younger
brother's at home and she is struggling.
(33:07):
And she doesn't want them to have the
same experience that I've had, so I need
you to keep helping my mom because I've
been away. And when I was home,
I was almost like the other parent. So
keep working with us. Help us. Help my
younger brothers. Help my mom because she really
needs it. And so that's really powerful.
One, that's the family work we're doing.
(33:27):
Two, that really counters that stigma about our
young people.
Right? That they don't care. They don't have
empathy. They're not concerned about others.
He's probably more concerned about his younger brothers
than he is about himself, and it's genuine
because I see them at family visits. And
so, yeah, that's a powerful example of
the innovative work that we're doing and also
(33:50):
really changing the script
for
how our young men and families are perceived
given the situation there. Is there anything else
you wanna share with our listeners? Well, we
would love to spread the word. So we'd
invite all the listeners to go to our
website
at radiusomaha.org.
Learn more about what we're doing. There's beautiful
pictures there.
(34:10):
We also have a mission video on our
YouTube channel.
And, obviously,
we invite anyone to provide
support. We are five zero one c three,
nonprofit.
So you can also donate and support us
on our website so we can continue this
mission for many years to to come. Nick,
thank you. The work you're doing is tremendous
for this community and for many others that
(34:30):
are going to be inspired by you and
the work that you're doing. So truly, thank
you for what you do and really are
making a big impact. Thanks, Brian. This is
a great opportunity, and I just appreciate having
a chance to talk to you.
For more information on our Listen Mental Health
Matters series,
please visit hdrinc.com/listen.
(34:52):
There, you'll find more on HDR's approach to
behavioral and mental health design, meet our team,
and see samples of our work.
If you like what you heard, be sure
to rate us or leave a comment on
Apple Podcasts,
Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
You're listening to Speaking of Design,
bringing you the stories of the engineers and
architects
who are transforming
the world one project at a time. Today,
we bring you another episode of a special
podcast series on behavioral and mental health called
Listen, Mental Health Matters.
As part of this series, Brian Giebenk, behavioral
(00:24):
and mental health practice leader at HDR,
visits some of the world's leading health care
providers for candid conversations
about the challenges they face and the opportunities
to transform the patient and caregiver experience.
I'm Brian Geebing, and I hope that by
listening, the series helps us consider new perspectives
in our quest to create transformational mental health
(00:47):
facilities that improve the quality of life for
individuals and families and promote a shared sense
of community. And now Brian's conversation with Nick
Giuliano,
president and CEO of Radius, a nonprofit
serving youth and families in Omaha, Nebraska.
(01:11):
So, Nick, thank you for being here today
in Omaha, Nebraska, and it's a beautiful sunny
day here in December. Really appreciate your time,
Nick, joining us today for the podcast. We
are fortunate to work with you on the
design of the new radius of the residential
treatment center. Wanna hear a lot about that,
but first thing, I would love to hear
a little bit about you, about Nick Giuliano.
So if you don't mind sharing a little
(01:32):
bit about your background and your career path
and how you got to where you are.
Well, Brian, thanks for this opportunity. It's great
to talk with you, and we're very pleased.
I was telling you before we started how
this facility has worked exactly how we intended
it and how it was designed. So a
little bit about me, I was really lucky
before coming to Radius. I spent twenty three
years at Boys Town,
(01:54):
and that afforded me a great opportunity
to
receive world class training in
working
administratively
and with youth and families as well as
seeing firsthand how to develop new programs and
implement effective programs
across the continuum, and that includes education and
residential care and in home services and clinical
(02:15):
services. And so,
as I arrive here
today with Radius, I've been fortunate to have
all that experience
and a great team of people who have
very similar experience
driving the mission of Radius.
You mentioned twenty three years of Boys Town.
Yes. Was was that kinda where you started
your career? It was. And I started six
months after graduating college. And so
(02:38):
this month marks my thirtieth year in the
field. Okay. All in the nonprofit space and
all working
with youth and families involved in the child
welfare and juvenile justice system. And so it's
really all I've known, and I've definitely benefited
from a lot of that experience. Learned a
lot along the way as well. Absolutely.
What drew you into this? You mentioned six
months out of school when you jumped into
(03:00):
the Boys Town network and now you're here.
What brought you into this? What was behind
Nick wanting to join Boys Town or be
a part of this nonprofit organization?
Well, growing up in Omaha, I was very
familiar with Boys Town. Okay. And it's a
world known organization.
And I think like a lot of people
at that time, I had graduated. I had
(03:20):
an undergrad degree in psychology. Wasn't sure what
I wanted to do. Thought I might wanna
work with young people. And so when you're
in Omaha and you're wondering if you might
wanna work with young people,
Boys Town's the place to go. So, honestly,
it was a try it out. Let me
see if I like it. And what I
was told by people was go get a
job working with youth. You'll know immediately if
(03:42):
it's for you or not. And so right
out of the gate, I really enjoyed it.
It was challenging and rewarding, and I just
kinda stuck with it. And eventually, it became
a career. That's how I got started. So
twenty three years at Boys Town. Now you've
been at Radius for the last seven years?
It will be six in June. Six years.
Six years here at Radius. Yeah. Can you
(04:03):
give a little bit of an overview of
what Radius is and who you serve and
what the mission is of the program? Absolutely.
So the mission of Radius is to empower
youth and families to reach their full potential
through community engagement and trauma informed education,
social, and behavioral
health services. So the way we do that
(04:23):
is by providing four core services. So that's
residential care. We have 24 beds for young
people to live with us here.
Education.
So they're working towards a high school diploma,
and we've had four young men actually receive
their high school diploma here. In home family
services, which is really important to work with
the families of the young people while they're
(04:45):
here.
And a very unique partnership with Charles Drew
Health Center, which in Omaha is a federally
qualified health centers. And so the youth who
live here go right next door and receive
physical and behavioral health services. And
that's really unique and powerful because it's also
a freestanding
community facing location.
(05:05):
So anyone from the community can access that.
When the youth leave Radius,
they can return. They can keep their same
doctor, their same therapist.
They're doing family work. And so that continuity
of care is really, really important because once
you develop that relationship,
we want that to continue
when they go home. So as far as
the youth that we serve, historically,
(05:26):
youth by the way, all of the youth
here are involved in our local juvenile justice
system. So they are on juvenile probation.
They've been evaluated
and court ordered here by a juvenile court
judge for rehabilitation.
And that's really important to know
because the complexity of their needs include
some legal involvement,
certainly physical health care needs,
(05:47):
potentially mental health and substance use needs,
certainly a need to continue their education,
learn new skills,
and their families are in very difficult situations.
There's a lot of instability and challenges with
their family. And so,
historically,
the young men at Radius have had to
go very far away from Omaha to places
like Utah and Arizona and Ohio.
(06:09):
In fact, if we were not here today,
our young men would be there. And so
our goal is to keep
our Omaha youth here locally, get the help
that they need because nobody should have to
go away. And really, long term success and
healing
needs to occur
in the community you're gonna live in
with your family
so we can work together on that. That
(06:30):
can't be done from a distance. And so
that's really the unique
need that we meet here locally. We're seeing
that across the board in our work on
the design side. We're seeing that that it's
so important that we have places for kids
where they're at because a big part of
behavioral mental health care is that the connection
with family, the connection with the community. Yeah.
So when you leave, if you're removed from
(06:51):
that, you might receive outstanding care, you might
be receiving
the world's best care. Right? But you're kind
of receiving that care in a a palace.
Right? For lack of a better word. Right?
And then you're sent elsewhere once you've recovered
or you're to a point where you no
longer need the services. You're sent back home
where you're completely disconnected from it all. Yep.
It's amazing that the radius
is bringing that care right where it's needed,
(07:12):
that model, that treatment model right where it's
needed. We're grateful to be a part of
it, and you summed that up perfectly. And
what we see from our the young people
who've been here and been successful
is that their families stay connected from day
one, and that's both with visits here to
radius,
frequent structured home visits to work on their
(07:33):
skills in the environment they're gonna live in,
plus thousands of hours now in nineteen months
of community events where our young people are
out in the community,
interacting with the community, doing community service,
experience in our community, but having an opportunity
to practice, so to speak, and work on
the skills that we hope they'll have for
long term success. And we also happen to
(07:54):
be located
in the community where the bulk of our
youth are from. And so even within the
Omaha community, this specific location is intentional,
so we're nearby as well as we recruit
the bulk of our staff from this community.
So our staff are also
aware of the community our kids are from,
aware of their situation. So that relational piece
(08:15):
drives the other programs and services. And you
mentioned a thousand hours of community service. That's
fantastic that the kids are involved in community
service and involved in the community while they're
within your program. I imagine that's also raising
awareness within the community. People are seeing this
engagement, this involvement in the community, and it's
probably, hopefully, kind of destigmatizing
maybe the whole issue of behavioral health care,
(08:36):
but just raising awareness in general about what
you do and the amazing service that you
provide for the community. That's a great point.
It really does get to that stigma.
And those thousand hours aren't just community service.
It's routine activities in the community. We'll go
to local events. We have a very
unique, powerful family dinner night once a month
(08:56):
where we go to a community location with
the Radius youth. Their families and friends are
invited. We also invite in community partners because
the specific work Radius does that I described
is provided directly by us, but there's another,
their trusted relationships in the community. And so
we invite those partners in to get to
know our families, to provide other resources.
(09:17):
And so as we go about that, absolutely
not only reduces the stigma of getting help,
particularly mental health, which is strong. But there
is a lingering stigma about justice involved youth
that for many, they see their law violations
first
and sort of contemplate whether they deserve
(09:38):
the kind of care that they need. We
have inverted that philosophically.
They are children first and they have complex
needs. We will help them and their families.
And, yes, they also happen to be justice
involved. So there is accountability.
They have probation officers. They have a court.
Community safety is top of mind to make
(09:58):
sure that while we're working with them and
they return home, they're safe in the community
and our community is safe. But we have
to start with the person, the child and
the family, and
that further helps to reduce that stigma.
If you spent time here and talk to
our guys, you would leave that interaction having
talked to young people,
not having walked out the door saying, oh,
(10:20):
I just talked to a bunch of guys
on probation. It's very powerful. But the community
needs to see that. Right? And if that's
the point of us being out there. It
might be a good segue into the next
question here about having key moments or a
series of moments that define who you become
and what you do. Is there a particular
moment that you can you can point to
or look at that really shaped the idea
of Radius and shaped it into what it
is today?
(10:42):
Yes. Several key moments.
The first of which
was the vision of local philanthropists who investing
in our community for decades in education
and after school program and mentoring and mental
health continued to look at who was not
being served or who was not being served
here. And so that vision, that's a community
(11:03):
changing moment because the leaders stepped up and
said, this is the next group that we're
going to help. The next moment was development
of our local advisory group, which did include
those philanthropists,
health care experts,
law enforcement, including a deputy chief from Omaha
police, juvenile court judges, probation officers, maybe most
importantly, a young person
(11:24):
who himself had experienced
our local system and had to go far
away, and the parent of two now grown
boys who had experienced our juvenile justice system
and they had gone away. So that was
sort of the next moment that momentum carried
for eighteen months before there ever was a
radius
critical mass.
(11:45):
And then finally, obviously, with the concrete vision
and planning,
those same philosophers with unbelievable
generosity
stepped up and funded the entire project. So,
Radius operates today
owning our building
and our land with no debt, and that's
solely thanks to the generosity of Omaha's philanthropic
(12:07):
community. Community.
And just driving around town, you noticed the
philanthropic community is really strong here. And I
I think Radius has experienced that. And so
there's I think Omaha has really great opportunities
for philanthropic
initiatives that are serving very, very important
and meaningful
opportunities in many different ways. And a lot
(12:27):
of them seem to be very focused on
community and and finding the gaps and filling
those gaps. I know that you've talked a
little bit about what you do and what
you're doing and as far as what you're
striving to provide. Is
Is there anything specific that you wanna address
about? What are you striving to provide in
the community for Radius that you haven't already
mentioned? What we're striving to provide is
helping youth and families get to that point
(12:50):
in their life so they reach their potential.
Right? And
for young people age 12 to 18,
top of mind is we wanna continue your
education. We'd like you to graduate high school
whether it's a radius or when you return
to the community.
We want you to have the skills to
be employed. And as you move into adulthood,
we want you employed.
We want you
(13:10):
safe, of course,
no longer having law violations because that's now
part of
your past, not your not your future.
And in that then, helping the families strengthen
themselves and also connect to others in the
community. So that's the long game in that
we have productive citizens because communities get stronger
(13:33):
Mhmm. When people are safe and at home
and employed
and are able to reach their own goals.
So that's everything we do is is tailored
to that even though for a period of
that time,
they're going to live with us, and that's
to keep them safe and sort of accelerate
that process. You're doing such amazing work, and
I'm sure it doesn't come easy. I'm sure
there are challenges.
(13:54):
What are some of your biggest roadblocks that
you face? And I think a lot of
our listeners would really learn a lot from
this question because
of everybody in the mental health space and
the behavioral health space is trying to solve
this
epidemic. Right? Yeah. Especially around children and youth
mental health. What are some of the challenges
you face? Are you able how have you
been able to pivot and move some of
those initiatives forward? So we address one of
(14:15):
the big ones which we all face, which
is that stigma
about mental health and mental health services and
then the broader stigma for our justice involved,
youth and families.
We have to tackle that with continued education
and advocacy. Mhmm. And sometimes
when we have
parts of our community or parts of the
policy world that are really kind of antagonistic
(14:37):
to what we're doing, we just have to
refocus on the mission
and keep the task at hand. So that's
the first one. The second one is
workforce is obviously a challenge for all of
us.
Because with the innovative programs we have and
we utilize three different
evidence based practices,
we ask a lot out of our staff.
(14:58):
You know, you have to have a personal
commitment
and a draw, but then we ask a
lot out of their technical skills through our
high quality training to be able to deliver
services that are not only relational.
Relationships are very important, and they're the foundation
of everything, but the actual practices that have
been shown to be effective. And I think
anyone doing this work, we
been shown to be effective. And I think
anyone doing this work,
(15:20):
we struggle with workforce because we need more
dedicated people that are willing to learn and
grow. And our youth are a challenging
population to work with.
The other thing in programs like ours is,
you know, we talked about that long term
goal.
Often, we don't get to see the realization
of that long term goal. Right? They're with
(15:40):
us for a period of time. We actually
do family work. You know, one of the
things that makes us unique is we start
family work day one and we work intensively
with the family,
the entirety of the youth stay.
And then when they return home, we continue
to work with them. You know? So if
the youth is here
twelve months, that could mean we're working with
the family for fifteen months. And you can
(16:02):
have a lot of positive
change and effect on people in fifteen months.
However, the long term goal, we don't always
see firsthand. And
so I think anyone in this field, we
have to take those moments.
I had one the other day when a
young man came up to me and was
very proud here to earn three high school
credits, and he was progressing toward a high
(16:23):
school diploma. He had been in detention for
two years and while he had access to
education,
was not as motivated in that setting because
he couldn't
see himself in the community.
So we take those moments.
When
this weekend, we had nine families here having
family visits. And that's parents and siblings, an
(16:43):
aunt and uncle.
We've had three generation visits here
where,
again, if they have been detained or they've
been in their location, they haven't seen their
family
for months and years.
And they have that moment,
and they are talking, and they're sharing a
meal, and they're communicating,
and there's joy. We have to take those
(17:04):
moments. Right? Because the work we're all doing
to accomplish those long term goals is very
difficult.
Probably
the other roadblock we face I mean, funding
is always an issue in this work and
probably for all of the listeners
because very few funders will
pay the entire cost for quality programs. And
so, again, we rely on generous donors,
(17:27):
and we'd have that support. But also in
in the policy realm, you know, community safety
is an important topic, and it's also a
polarized topic. And so when you're working with
young people who've been involved in the community
with law violations, they've been involved
very frankly in creating some safety issues in
our community. Again, being able to get everyone
(17:49):
to refocus on
that happened and there is accountability and the
path forward
is not to dwell on that, but to
dwell on the healing and the treatment
and the complexity of those needs. That is
a challenge everywhere. It's certainly challenge here in
Nebraska because, you know, I have an 81
year old mother
and she watches the news. And if she
feels unsafe, that's a challenge. And so that's
(18:11):
a barrier for us because, you know, at
times, it slows our progress because the young
people we have
are all deeply involved in the justice system.
So, again, we have to educate, we have
to advocate.
And as
we have a little more experience, so we've
been operational for nineteen months, we'll have some
success stories to share.
Right now, with a small number of youth,
(18:32):
we don't have the kind of stories that
can change hearts and minds and really see
these kids at different light. So that's that's
something we grapple with and I'm sure everybody
else does. I think those are really good
examples of some roadblocks. And I think you've
done a tremendous job pivoting. And I think
you've mentioned that you've been in operation for,
is it eighteen months? This is our, I
think, our nineteenth month. Nineteen months in operation
(18:54):
Yeah. And so you've seen a lot of
success during that time. Yeah. And you'd mentioned
previously you've been part of Radius for six
years which is
I think really important to think about all
of the upfront work that you did to
get to the point of even
building a space and then and then creating
the space for the residential treatment program.
We talked a lot about community engagement with
(19:16):
the with the kids out in the community,
but I'm sure a lot of community engagement
and a lot of raising awareness within the
community and a lot of upfront work went
into
where you're at today. Can you talk a
little bit about your approach and the importance
of the community engagement and getting everybody behind
it whether it was philanthropy or
really critical, particularly
(19:36):
our location. We are in an urban core.
In fact, we are in a neighborhood. So
adjacent properties are private homes.
And so you can imagine
when the announcement was made that there would
be, we weren't called Radius then, that there
would be a program like the one we're
operating
literally right in somebody's backyard.
There's legitimate concern. And so
(19:57):
we took a very open approach and a
slow thoughtful approach
in the very early days.
Even before we had all the details, that's
a little risky because you get asked a
lot of detailed questions. And if you don't
have answers, it tends to make people uneasy.
But we took that risk because everybody felt
our advisory board, eventually, the the board of
(20:17):
Radius and myself,
that people needed time to process and needed
time to talk. And
whatever emotions were attached
with our future presence
was valid.
And
I've learned along the way, giving people an
opportunity to speak even if they're not things
you wanna hear is really important then to
get down to the details and how will
(20:38):
this work and how we work together. So
we had a series of community meetings right
here on this property next door. As you
can imagine, there was a lot of energy
in the room.
We listened very intently.
We shared
what we knew, and we were also honest
about what we didn't knew because because we
had not even started building design at that
point in time. But we continued that relationship,
(20:59):
and what we found over time was
we moved into the neighborhood association, which is
more representative of
the actual individuals who were in this area.
And while they had concerns,
they routinely comment at this point, we're a
year into a conversation.
And they would have meetings and myself and
one of my colleagues would show up. And
every time we came to meeting, they would
(21:21):
say, I can't believe you keep coming to
our meeting. Why would you do that? We
always yell at you. We're always mad at
you. And I said, we're gonna work together.
We're gonna be neighbors. I'm committed.
So like any relationship. Right? You need time
Mhmm. In a space together. And then as
we worked along with support from the local
city council member and a local faith community
(21:43):
who's involved in neighbor association, we really got
down to what are your key concerns? There
were 10 items. We were able to address
eight of them. They want an additional street
light down the street, and the city of
Omaha disagreed.
And there was one other item, but we
were able to deliver on eight of the
10 concerns.
We took another step forward. And then every
step of the way, we would share with
(22:04):
them design documents.
They got to tour this facility at various
points ahead of the public and ahead of
media and elected officials
little by little by little. The last time
we had a neighbor association meeting here, the
two most vocal residents
who I'm now friends with
asked if they could work here here or
volunteer
(22:24):
and were brought to tears as we were
sharing
some of the successes of the young people
that we're working with. And so we have
to earn that every day like every relationship.
But
we took
a very thoughtful
approach, and there was no hurry to it.
And had we run into significant barriers, which
thankfully we didn't, we likely would have paused
(22:45):
the project. Mhmm. That's how important it was.
And so I think when you're doing this
kind of work, particularly in
uncomfortable
moments. Mhmm. It makes you second guess a
little bit, but we stayed the course and
it's it's paid
great dividends. When we had the neighbors in
the first time tour the facility, one of
their concerns
(23:06):
was
how the facility looked from their backyard. And
also, we have a fence around our perimeter
to identify our property.
And
all along, they were concerned about the fence.
The fence will have razor wire.
It will not.
It will be ugly. And first time we
had the neighbors and we walked out back
and I said, what do you think about
(23:28):
the fence? And again, the one most vocal
neighbors looking 50 yards away said, said, I
can't even see the fence.
Is there a fence there? And the other
neighbor laughed and said, yeah. That was the
point. Remember, they talked about how the fence
would look nice. Yes. It defines the property,
but it blends in the neighborhood. So that's
a small example of the physical space, but
(23:48):
it speaks
have been
Would have been nice if they knew what
it looked like before. But when you were
in these early conversations, I don't even think
you had a conceptual design at that point.
(24:09):
Did not. So it was all when you
say fence and you say secure. Right? Secure
and fence Yeah. Immediately got a razor wire
and Yeah. Ugly. Right? But there are very
very elegant solutions that
basically disappear
with the fencing and I think the same
goes the building in general when you're driving
down the street here it fits in with
the neighborhood. It's at the right scale. It's
elegantly understated. I imagine that's very appreciated too
(24:32):
by the by the community.
It is appreciated.
And credit to HDR for the design and
Turner Construction for the construction,
Blair Freeman who's our project manager because we
were all very concerned and intentional about
this blending in. One of the designers used
to say, if we do this right, the
building will just sit softly on the property.
(24:53):
And when he said that, I thought,
yes. So one of the biggest compliments we
get is somebody drives by
and they don't know what we do here.
And when they ask around, it's usually,
is there a new school
over there? Now we've got Brandy and they
can see the signs and they can see
Charles Drew, but it fits. And we're next
(25:14):
door to a church and it fits
the property. And just to be clear based
on our last conversation, we're not a locked
facility, and we're not a correctional facility. Right.
And so as those conversations
evolved as we were talking about the young
people we're gonna serve, here come the assumptions
and the stigmas of, oh, well, that means,
no. We're actually going to do a different
(25:35):
way.
It'll be a treatment facility, be rehabilitative
treatment facility. It is not locked. It's not
detention. It's healing. So the neighbors have again,
that was several years in the making that
they've they've embraced that idea. They're very proud
that that is right here in this neighborhood.
We talked a lot about community and it
means that's an integral theme to this whole
thing. It's all about community. Is there anything
(25:57):
else you wanna wanna add as far as
how communities is so integral to how Radius
operates? Yeah. I would just add as we
know, community is how you define it. So
we've just talked about community being the local
community, those that live
right here. And there's a wider net for
the North Omaha community. Omaha on there is
the community in general. And so we've had
(26:17):
to do work in all of those spaces
because you need all of the supports
from the neighbors, from the citizens of this
part town, and from the city of Omaha,
which gives us great opportunities to educate because
the average Omaha is not aware of what
we're doing. It may not be in this
neighborhood. And so that work continues.
It doesn't stop, but the ring keeps getting
bigger so that we're educating and advocating to
(26:40):
the entire community. I mentioned that's one of
the things you do really well is advocating
and growing that ring. What else does Radius
do really well? And what do you think
you're doing differently than your peers? And how
can you act as a model in other
communities
really around the country? There's several unique things
that we do well that I know are
unique not only this community but the country.
The the family work that we do, what
(27:00):
we call in home services,
the fact that that starts the very day
of admission
evidence based program from Boystown. It's got research
behind it. And the key is that
we need that entire
time to build a relationship with the family.
Most residential programs, if a young person is
gonna
(27:21):
with the family.
Most residential programs,
if a young person is gonna stay nine
or twelve months,
the first
six to seven months, you really just focus
on the youth that's living there.
And then you start the family work. The
needs of our youth and families are too
complex. We have to start that right away.
So we're very unique in that. The second
thing is the
(27:42):
partnership with Charles Drew Health Center on this
campus.
I'm not aware of another one in the
country with
a treatment facility like ours with a freestanding
federally qualified health center. And as a federally
qualified health center,
Charles Drew is not only a trusted health
care partner, but they have expertise in social
determinants of health and chronic health conditions of
which every
(28:03):
which every youth here and their families have.
We've integrated our programs while we are separate
organizations,
separately funded, separately licensed and accredited.
But also,
last week, we saw two of our former
youth and their families coming back here for
therapy, and they're coming back here for vaccinations.
They left three months ago. And so the
(28:24):
proof of concept of that continuity of care,
which is so important in the research,
we see happening.
The third thing is this state of the
art facility.
We've had interest in visits from people
around the country and international interests.
We've heard about the facility. What did you
do from a design perspective? Right? The programs
(28:45):
we're using, the evidence based practice, we did
not create. Others are using those practices, but
we put them together in a unique way
in a facility that's built
from that trauma informed lens.
Open spaces,
natural light, freedom of movement, as you know,
highly safe,
durable,
all of those things combined. What's happening nationally
(29:08):
with populations like ours is the trend is
really to keep them in a correctional based
facility and then try to soften it up,
bring in clinicians and bring in mental health
and bring in evidence based practices, which is
a good step in the right direction. We've
taken the opposite approach to
say, we will design and build a non
correctional facility, non detention facility with kids who
(29:30):
literally
come from detention and then implement all those
programs, but the facility makes it work. If
you haven't visited here, when you walk through
our facility, there are large windows in every
single space. And when we built this facility
and we're talking about the population we were
gonna serve,
many community members and professional colleagues said we
love this place, but with all those windows,
(29:51):
you have a budget to replace all because
they're gonna get broken by the kinds of
kids that you have. None have been broken.
In eighteen months? In eighteen months.
And
that relates to how we staff and how
we program and the relationships and the environment
doing what we believed it would do, which
is support mental health
and healing.
Yes. And give space to handle very difficult
(30:13):
behavioral situations.
I have not seen another facility like this
in the country,
and we learn from others. So the team
learn from different experiences and starts with
being in facilities that but we don't want
to look like that, and we shouldn't do
that. And let's take a little bit here
and a little bit there. So I I
think there's a lot of very unique things
going on here we do well that that
(30:35):
our family work will drive those long term
outcomes. If we are successful,
I believe it will rest on what we're
doing to strengthen the families. Amazing to hear
about the windows, and I'm sure there are
other elements too that are really working well.
And I just love the comment about the
windows because we all know the natural daylight
is so important, and we know that creating
a therapeutic environment actually helps reduce stress, which
(30:57):
can reduce anxiety, which can reduce aggression and
violence,
and
natural daylight and open spaces and softer materials
help to reduce stress, right, which ultimately reduces
negative incidents, right? It is happening. Amazing to
hear that it's working. One other feature, and
it's within that design, but I wanna call
it out a specific feature. We have a
(31:18):
mindfulness room. We have a dedicated space in
this facility, which, of course, has windows and
natural light. And we have a mindfulness curriculum
from an expert
that we do with our youth and we
do with our staff. Could be yoga, could
be meditation, could be relaxation
exercises. So that space that we design and
is dedicated for that use and nothing else.
(31:40):
Else. Some wondered if we would get the
young people raised to engage in those kind
of progressive types of activities,
and they love it. And it's part of
all the things that we talked about, emotional
regulation,
learning skills taken the community.
That space itself is very unique. I haven't
seen many other facilities that have dedicated a
space for that. So we're very proud of
(32:01):
that. We think that's gonna really provide some
good outcomes. Do you keep that space sort
of sacred to what it is? It is
a meditation space, and we're not gonna go
in there and use it for dining or
use it for anything else. Correct. It is
solely dedicated. So we've got sound for sound
therapy, and we've got natural light. We've got
artificial light. There's mats on the floor. You
go there for one reason. It's for mindfulness
(32:24):
and wellness classes. So it's pretty special. And,
Nick, I heard there's a story about one
of your residents that you'd shared. And do
you mind sharing that with the audience? Yeah.
I I'd be glad to share it. And
this is one of those moments where we
know we're making progress. And so as I
was out in the community area the other
day, I had a young man approached me.
He's very excited. First of all, he wanted
to tell me that he had earned two
high school credits, and he had a certificate,
(32:46):
and he's working very hard to graduate high
school. And as he said things like,
I'm working on my diploma.
I'm gonna go home soon. I'm gonna get
a job. And I said,
what else do you need from us? How
can we help you? And he said,
my mom really needs help because my younger
brother's at home and she is struggling.
(33:07):
And she doesn't want them to have the
same experience that I've had, so I need
you to keep helping my mom because I've
been away. And when I was home,
I was almost like the other parent. So
keep working with us. Help us. Help my
younger brothers. Help my mom because she really
needs it. And so that's really powerful.
One, that's the family work we're doing.
(33:27):
Two, that really counters that stigma about our
young people.
Right? That they don't care. They don't have
empathy. They're not concerned about others.
He's probably more concerned about his younger brothers
than he is about himself, and it's genuine
because I see them at family visits. And
so, yeah, that's a powerful example of
the innovative work that we're doing and also
(33:50):
really changing the script
for
how our young men and families are perceived
given the situation there. Is there anything else
you wanna share with our listeners? Well, we
would love to spread the word. So we'd
invite all the listeners to go to our
website
at radiusomaha.org.
Learn more about what we're doing. There's beautiful
pictures there.
(34:10):
We also have a mission video on our
YouTube channel.
And, obviously,
we invite anyone to provide
support. We are five zero one c three,
nonprofit.
So you can also donate and support us
on our website so we can continue this
mission for many years to to come. Nick,
thank you. The work you're doing is tremendous
for this community and for many others that
(34:30):
are going to be inspired by you and
the work that you're doing. So truly, thank
you for what you do and really are
making a big impact. Thanks, Brian. This is
a great opportunity, and I just appreciate having
a chance to talk to you.
For more information on our Listen Mental Health
Matters series,
please visit hdrinc.com/listen.
(34:52):
There, you'll find more on HDR's approach to
behavioral and mental health design, meet our team,
and see samples of our work.
If you like what you heard, be sure
to rate us or leave a comment on
Apple Podcasts,
Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!