CEOs You Should Know- The Children's Guild

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Episode Transcript

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iHeartMedia presents CEOs you should Know.Hi. I'm John Dinkel, former president
publisher of the Baltimore Business Journal andnow founder and CEO of Dinkel Business Development.
This is iHeartRadio's CEOs you should Knowand I'm here today with Jenny Lavelli,
CEO of the Children's Guild. WelcomeJenny, thanks for being here.
Thank you for having me. SoI thought we'd begin by getting to know

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you in the organization a little bitmore. For those who may not be
familiar, could you tell us moreabout the Children's Guild. Of course,
the Children's Guild is a nonprofit organization. We serve children and families throughout Maryland,
Virginia, and DC. We've beendoing this since nineteen fifty three,
so this year we're celebrating our seventiethanniversary Congress. Yes, thank you.

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Our headquarters is currently located in Washington, DC. Excellent, and talk about
your mission. Sure. Our missionthat the Children's Guild is to provide individualized,
transformational experiences to ensure that our children, families and community needs to thrive.
And how you define thrive is differentfor everyone. So I'd just like
to explain that that is a journeythat we create with the children and families

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that we serve. So we makesure that we meet families and children where
they are and then we planned planthat journey together as we move forward.
Well that's great, thank you,and could you talk a little bit more
about the you know, the programming, some of the services that you provide
to your constituents and who your constituentsare more specifically of course, So we

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serve children and families throughout Maryland,DC, and Virginia. Currently, the
Children has four charter schools, arethree Monarch Academies which are located in Annaarnto
County, Maryland. And then wealso have a charter school in Washington,
DC, which is the Children's GuildWashington d C. Public Charter School.
So these are students that we're servingthat are typically in public school education and

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these schools offer that to the studentsthat we serve so much like you go
through a public school experiences. Thoseare our four schools that offer that opportunity
for our children and families. Wealso have special education schools. Those schools
specialize in services that the public schoolsystem cannot offer. We have two special
education schools that are located in Baltimore, and then we have one that's located

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in Prince George's County. Additionally,we have a preschool that is located in
College Park, Maryland that is theMonarch Preschool. And we are also offering
behavioral health services which include outpatient mentalhealth services. And then we also have
clinicians that are school based throughout publicschools in the state of Maryland. And

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then lastly, yes, it goeson, it continues. And then lastly
we have a treatment foster care programin the Baltimore area. That's great.
So many how many kids are youlike serving in the school year or serve
around the year for roughly four thousandstudents. It's great. And now do

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families pay for to go to thecharter schools or are they free? They
do not, They're free. Soour public charter schools are free to parents
and children and families. You cango to our website www dot Children's Guild
dot org for more information. Additionally, our special education schools, likewise are

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funded by the state and local schoolsystems, So if your child is in
need of special education services, weprovide a free and appropriate public education and
we partner with our school systems tomake sure that the students needs are being
met in each of those schools.That's great, And you mentioned the website.
I was looking through that reading aboutthe Children's got a little bit and

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so what is what would you sayis transformation education and you know yours and
the nonprofits philosophy on meeting the wholeperson. Sure, I think I mentioned
it earlier, So we'll go backto the comment that I made about meeting
children and families where they are.You know, as a parent, I
want to be able to drop mychild off at a school that I feel
confident that my child matters, thatthere's not just a number in a seat

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in a program. And I thinkthat's very important and I've brought that philosophy
to the Children's filled with me.I'll share a little story with you.
So I worked at a school inBaltimore City for the Children's Guild and in
my experience, we had a studentthat came to school that did not have
shoes that fit, so he hadblisters on his feet, he was walking

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on the back of his shoes andultimately, you know, we've saw that
as a cry for an opportunity andhelp, right, like, let's make
sure the student has the shoes thatthey need, and so went in store,
bought of her shoes, sent themhome with a child, and the
mother showed up the next day withthe shoes in her hand and said,
listen, I've you know, thisis not your place to do this.

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I'm doing the best that I canfor my child. And in that moment,
I realized, like, it can'tbe a prescribed in methodology around how
we serve children, the partner withparents. So we saw the value really
in that relationship at that time.So for us, transformation education is really
let's make sure that we partner withfamilies to make sure that we're on a

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path that they see for their childand that we're making sure that we're providing
the services, you know, toenhance making sure that their child lands where
they want them to be. Yeah, that's great, that's a great story.
Thanks for sharing that. And Iknow you mentioned that the community care
programs and mental health services and thethe foster care program from the Mental Health

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Services UM it's always an interest ofmine just because or especially since the pandemic,
there's obviously a lot of kids andtheir families suffering from a lot of
mental health issues because of you know, schooling at home, to you know,
parents working from home, to allkinds of different things. What are

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you kind of seeing now? Isthat getting better? Is that? Like,
you know, what kind of servicesdoes the Children's guil to offer when
it comes to the mental health services? Sure, so we have behavioral health
services that we offer. Those areoutpatient services that are available to our children
and families. So if it worksbest for families to come in in the
evening and see a clinician, wecertainly have that opportunity. What we've done

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is partner with local school systems andschool programs to have clinicians in school buildings.
And what that allows for is,first of all, immediate needs can
be met, So if there's anythingthat comes up during the course of a
school day, there's a clinician therethat's available for treatment purposes to see that
child. Additionally, you know,we all have busy lives, so children

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and families are busy in the evenings. I know I am certainly running around
and trying to get everything done.So this allows us to be able to
deliver our mental health services in theschool program during the school day. Again,
wrapping those services, making sure we'retalking with families and that we're meeting
the needs of each child. Yeah, that's great. I appreciate you going
over that. So talk to usa little bit about how the Children's Guild

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is funded. Sure, So we'refunded based on state and local resources and
then we obviously as a nonprofit organization, are committed to seeking grants that are
appropriate to fund those special programs andthose unique offerings that we have for our
children and families. Also, ourdonors are valuable to us. They provide

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those critical services again that are notfunded through our standing streams of funding that
are available through state and local resources. We're really looking for that unique opportunity
and in order to be able tooffer that and stand out as a provider
among our other nonprofits is to makesure that we have the resources that we
need in Our donors are a criticalpart of that. Yeah, okay.

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And as far as the business communityor corporate communities sarn, how can they
get involved and how can they supportthe Children's Guild. Well, there are
a couple ways that I can thinkof that businesses to support the Children's Guild.
One is financial support. So oneof the most direct and impactful ways
to support the Children's Guild is throughfinancial contributions and this can be in the

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form of monetary donations, sponsorships,or grants. Again, advocacy and awareness
is really important as well, socontinuing just to share that there are resources
available for families that are in need, and I think those two things are
really critical to our success. Yeah, what about volunteer opportunities does the Children's

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Guild offer volunteer We knew we havereading buddy programs, We have back campaigns
at the beginning of the year tomake sure all of our children have you
know, the necessary items that theyneed to start school. Not all families
have the resources to be able toprovide that for their children. So in
cases like that, the children Suildsteps in and we offer opportunities to volunteer

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for many things. So, ifyou again want any additional information, children
Field dot org is a great wayto find out about our volunteer opportunities.
That's great, thank you. Well, tell us a little bit about yourself
and your personal background and how yougot to this point in your career.
Sure, so, I'm a teacherat heart. So I started as a
teacher in my college education special education, specifically working with step and hard of

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hearing students. I've later stepped intothe world of finance. I was overwhelmed
by my student teaching experience and neededa moment to step back work for Merrill
Lynch for a year and then continuedon my journey of leadership and educational program.
So I've spent my career sort offinding these unique opportunities and ways to

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serve our children and families. That'sgreat. I appreciate you sharing that scares
a little bit. I love talkingabout leadership on the show. How would
you describe your leadership style? Oh, that's a great question. I think
ultimately to create sort of a safeenvironment for employees to communicate transparently, to

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listen effectively, and to share leadershipacross all levels. It's very important for
me. I can tell you alittle bit about my special education background obviously,
and individualized education planning meetings that we'retaking place for students that we were
serving. We had you know,speech therapist, physical therapists, teachers,
clinicians at the table, and ultimatelywe were looking for how do we best

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serve this child? And I've takenthat model and transition that from a leadership
perspective to our employees, which iswe're all here to serve children and families.
Who has the best idea as longas we land on it, right,
Yeah, I agree, and Ilike the one word that pops out
for me is transparency. I thinkI think that that's that just builds so

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much trust and engagement with your employers, If your employees, if you're just
transparent with them about what's going on, what's happening, the decisions you make,
why you make them, we needyour help in making them, you
know, that kind of stuff.I think that that goes a long long
way. And I think a lotof UM leaders don't do enough transparency or
don't go far enough, it seemsto me. But I like what you

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had to say about that, Thankyou. I think it's a balance,
right. So we're continuously figuring outwhat is discretion and what is transparency,
talking about the duality of each ofthose, and we can hold both of
those at the same time. Sowe've we've spent a good bit of time
sharing as much information in a timelymanner as we can and then using discretion

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you know, to be for thebenefit of our employees around confidentiality and some
of those things. So it isa delicate balance. I think it's humility
to come to the table and bewilling to really listen sometimes, you know,
it is just just making sure thatwe're listening and having active listening skills.
Yes as well. Agreed, Yeah, agreed, thank you m Yeah.
And with the general threat of thepandemic behind us, um gosh,

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with the education system all what happened. I'm sure that was an interesting time
for you at the Children's Guild.What did you learn about managing and looking
people through that? Wow? Ithink I'm still learning, are all right?
Yes, we're defining our new youknow. I think holding onto some

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of the things that we learned throughoutthis experience. Number one for me is
really being flexible. I learned tostay connected with our teams, engaged in
active listening. I felt like therewas new information every day. Right.
So again, going back to thattransparency and communication piece, I think the
critical components of that are are weable to continually change but stay connected during

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that time, And I think inour organization we did a great job of
doing that. Now, we hadour bumps just like everyone else did,
but we made sure that our employeeswere heard during that time. You know,
people were looking for consistency, butwith the ability to make change,
you want information and you want itfact based. That you also wanted to
be in a timely manner. Andso I think as long as we can

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acknowledge those things and sit with allof those together doing our very best,
and that doesn't mean we make don'tmake mistakes, right and all of that,
but certainly we learned some things thatwe would hold on to for efficiency
sake. We were driving hours tocome together in a room to have a
meeting. We're not sorry anymore so, right, you know, And I
think for our employees, really wewanted to make sure that self care was

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evident and that we were encouraging thatand it was important not just for our
employees but also for the children thatwe are serving. Yeah, that's great,
Thank you appreciate that's great, greatadvice. So I want to talk
a little bit about the like hiringand labor. What's are you finding it
difficult to find people right now?What was it like coming out of the

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you know, the pandemic, becauseI'm sure there was a lot of turmoil
at that time with finding good employeesand so to talk about talk about your
challenges there, I guess, andmaybe even some are there some bright spots
you know, in the whole wholelabor perspective, So talk about that a
little bit. I think we're allexperiencing challenges right from our afrintment perspective.

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We've spent a lot of time focusingon our retention efforts and really meeting with
our employees to see what their goalswere, planning around professional development all critical
parts of listening right to our workforce. One of our core values that the
children feel is to our people matter, and we needed to make sure that
was seen and heard, and soyou know, we communicate that for our

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perspective employees, and then we alsomake sure that we hold true to that
for our current employees. And itisn't enough anymore to talk to talk,
right, these are expecting action,and I think to your point, a
number of our employees found a newcalling and it was a time to reevaluate
their lives and what they were doingwith their careers. We know, for

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the Children's Guild and at state levelwe have thousands of social workers that didn't
renew their licensure. Yeah, well, just for perspectives, you know,
something to think about people are reevaluatingand I think that's okay, And how
do we make sure we focus onour retention efforts and from a recruitment perspective
that we're really trying to be anemployer of choice. And I think some

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of the things I mentioned before aboutthe Children's Guild and some of our efforts
around our people matter have been criticalto that. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Well, thank you for sharing that. Appreciate it. So what gets
you excited about the future of theChildren's Guild our children and families seeing the
impact that we have. We haveour one of our charter schools in Anterno

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County, in glen Burnie, theMonarch Glen Bernie program, does an end
of view event that's really exciting.It's called Passages to The students that have
been in the program in the middleschool years have really focused on their core
values and what really matters in termsof their lives and the impact that they
have as they get ready to stepinto high school, and they tell stories

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that are just incredible about the impactthat they've had. They're working on those
character traits that are really important asthey step into high school, but also
to have a moment of reflection andteaching students that there is this opportunity to
say, Okay, well what impacthave I had as a student within the
school and what impact has the schoolhad on me as a child? And

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so are those are very rewarding tohere. So definitely excited about the impact
that we have. Yeah. Cool. And so conversely, what keeps up
at night? I think mostly ourworkforce challenges? Maybe they our employees.
You know, as I said before, it is a core value that means
a lot to me, which isour people matter and making sure that we're

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communicating that, and then we havethe supports that are in place to make
sure that our employees feel like theirvalues. Yeah, it's funny. I
asked that question to every time whenI do one of these, and that
is a very common response. Isthat the laborer piece, and it's a
it's a challenge for everybody. Well, the wrap things up? Is there
anything else you like our listeners shouldknow about you and the Children's Guild just

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that we're here to serve I mean, we're really focusing on our impact and
making sure that students receive a stronginstructional program, but everything else in their
lives matter too, And so,as I said before, this is a
journey that we're committed to and makingsure that we're in partnership with our families
that we serve. That's great,and lastly, tell us again how to
get more information. Sure so youcan go to www dot Children's Guild dot

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org. We are also located onsocial media. And then we just set
out our most recent annual report,so that's also located on our website and
you can take a look at theimpact that we've had over the past year.
Awesome, Well, thank you somuch, Jenny. It was great
getting to know you a little bitmore and definitely a lot more about the
Children's Guild. Thanks for all thatyou do and I really appreciate you taking

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the time today. Thank you forthis opportunity. This has been iheartmedias CEOs
you should know