Candace Albritton is a deeply spiritual person with a big singing voice steeped in traditional gospel. As a residential counselor at the Youth Villages Deer Valley Campus in Linden, Tennessee, she makes singing part of her everyday work with the boys in her program, fusing fun and therapy.

Candace moved to Tennessee in October 2014 from her home state of Florida specifically to work with young people at Deer Valley and to pursue her licensure as a mental health counselor, which staff can pursue at Youth Villages for free while working their regular jobs.

However, she says adjusting to her new surroundings took time. From the start, she immersed herself in working with the boys, building trusting relationships with them, helping them change their perspectives on their lives and doing anything she can to help them succeed. Most of the boys Candace works with are between the ages of 13 and 17. Many of them have histories of trauma along with emotional and behavioral issues. Candace naturally enjoys connecting older children with community resources for when they leave the campus and helps others get ready to join Job Corps or other programs once they leave home.

When she finds it hard to connect to a youth, she employs her “work buddy” Tucker the Turtle, a snuggly stuffed-toy version of a turtle, to help her get boys out of their shells and open up about their feelings. Candace has a host of “work buddies” to help her relate to the boys and build trust. More than anything, Candace enjoys being a safe person to the boys who helps build them up and gives them the security they need to talk about those things they may have never shared with anyone before.

Candace also mentors a youth who has left Deer Valley but continues to write and call Candace for her nurturing support.

A talented singer who grew up singing in her dad’s church, Candace truly found a new home in Tennessee when she auditioned and was selected for the renowned Tennessee Mass Choir. The choir has sung with Al Green and recently shared a stage with Foreigner, among others. Candace spends three Saturdays a month in Memphis for rehearsals and goes on the road with the choir for concerts.

Candace shares her passion for music with the boys she works with, breaking into song or rap whenever they have the chance.

“We’ll sing anything,” Candace says. “From ‘Mary had a little lamb’ to rap songs. The kids all love Eminem, so we sing some of his songs.”

Candace, who listens to gospel and Jill Scott at home, had to seek out Eminem songs to become familiar with the singer and his repertoire.

“I’d go home and look up his songs, and I discovered they’re good and I like them,” she says. “He’s good at story telling and talks about overcoming struggles, so that’s something our boys relate to.”

Through songs, the boys also relate to Candace and one another.

“We sing every day we’re together,” she says. “Before or after group, during free time – any time.”

Most of the boys on campus name music as a favorite coping skill. When they’re upset or sad, they turn to music to help calm their emotions, lighten their mood or reflect on their feelings.

Candace says her goal is to help all the Deer Valley youth she works with to become “a bright ray of sunshine or color and a unique someone” by the time they leave campus.

For many of the boys, Candace is the ray of light that helps them find hope and allows them to shine again.

“My dad has been a social worker for as long as I can remember,” Brittney said. “I’ve been in and around his work for a long time, which made me passionate about entering the field.”

Brittney pursued a bachelor’s degree in social work from Harding University and her MSW from the University of Memphis.

“Growing up in Memphis, I heard a lot about Youth Villages,” Brittney said.

“When I graduated with my master’s degree, I knew it would be a good fit for me.”

In 2014, Brittney became a family intervention specialist with Youth Villages’ Anaya Partnership, where Youth Villages collaborates with community agencies to provide services to families in need.

She remembers one family who was struggling due to the grandmother’s deteriorating health and age. Youth Villages partnered with a local organization to provide the family with long-term stability.

“Witnessing families work hard and succeed is a truly rewarding experience,” Brittney said. “My time as a family intervention specialist has meant a lot to me.”

Last summer, Brittney stepped into the role of clinical supervisor. She provides clinical and administrative support to fellow counselors.

“I’m thankful to be a member of the Youth Villages family,” Brittney said. “I hope to help our family intervention specialists have as positive of an experience as I did.”

There are boys on the waiting list for male mentors now at the Youth Villages-Inner Harbour Campus in Douglasville, Ga. For information, contact Katrina Word (left), Youth Villages volunteer and mentor coordinator: 770-852-6328 or email.

It didn’t take long for Katrina Word to realize the children at the Youth Villages-Inner Harbour Campus needed to see how much those in the community cared about them.

“They were thirsty for outside attention,” she said. “They behaved so well with outside people and individual attention.”

Not long before that, Katrina was a manager at a local bank and decided to change careers.

“You don’t walk away from finance, but I realized I didn’t want to do it any more,” she said. “I wanted to help children and saw an opportunity to pursue my dream.”

She returned to school and earned a second degree, then went to Youth Villages-Inner Harbour as an AmeriCorps volunteer. That was when she saw the need for a mentoring program. Katrina has grown the program from a few mentors and mentees to more than 40 children with mentors. In addition to the mentoring program, she hosts corporate visits to the campus as well as helping with development and community outreach.

But through mentoring, Katrina sees the biggest effect on the children.

“One child at Youth Villages-Inner Harbour was from another state,” she said. “He didn’t have family and friends visiting regularly, and like most teens, wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life. One of the teacher-counselors at Youth Villages-Inner Harbour agreed to become his mentor. They talked a lot and worked out together at the mentor’s gym. The mentor asked the boy to strive for more, and now this young man is attending college near his home. He needed a male role model, and thanks to our mentor, this young man found avenues to success he would’ve never thought of on his own or in a group setting. It took that one-on-one time with a mentor for him to begin to realize his potential.”

Mentors go through a background and reference check and are then matched with a child with complementary needs or interests. They meet at least one hour each week with their mentees.

“We’re not asking for a mentor to be a preacher or a parental figure,” Katrina said. “The children just need someone to be there and spend time with them. It is amazing to see how the kids transform through mentoring.”

One mentor went through training and became a foster parent for his mentee, eventually adopting him. The mentee mentioned earlier is pursuing a degree to become a youth counselor or social worker.

“Our mentors are incredible, and every one of them brings their own magic,” Katrina said. “The children do better in school, but most importantly, the kids are happier.”

Karen Tejada, family intervention specialist, Woburn, Mass.

Sitting with the family in the kitchen, the youth’s 2-year-old sister managed to pull a one-inch smooth screw out of the kitchen table. Unbeknownst to the family, the toddler lodged the screw in her mouth and began choking.

In the midst of the crisis, Karen took quick action to help the child, as she was trained in live-saving techniques. She calmly told the family what she was going to do and performed the proper abdominal thrusts to help a toddler in that situation. Thankfully, the screw popped right up. The child’s mother reported that Karen remained calm throughout the ordeal while the parents were “beyond hysterical.”

When asked about taking the life-saving measures, Karen brushes off the praise and says she’s just doing her job.

Hats off to Karen for her quick thinking and utilizing her training!

Youth Villages, a national leader in children’s mental and behavioral health services, has begun helping children and families in Indiana, opening its first office in Madison on Dec. 16.

The private nonprofit organization is partnering with the Indiana Department of Child Services to provide intensive help to troubled children and their families in their own homes.

Youth Villages’ goal is to stabilize and strengthen families. This prevents at-risk children from entering foster care or institutions and helps successfully reunify children with their families if out-of-home placement has been needed.

Youth Villages uses the Evidentiary Family Restoration approach, which focuses on providing intensive help to both the child and family in the home and offering measurable positive outcomes and accountability to both families and funders.

“Youth Villages is an organization that is all about family,” said Heather Owsley, regional manager of the Youth Villages intensive in-home services program in Indiana. “At Youth Villages, we believe children are best raised by their families or a viable family member. Our staff works hard to strengthen families and provide them with the tools and skills they need to effectively parent children with emotional, behavioral and mental health issues and to prevent or reduce the time a child spends out of the home for treatment.”

The Youth Villages Madison office employs five staff members, the majority of whom are family intervention specialists working with families of troubled children in their own homes an average of three times a week. Youth Villages’ staff is available 24/7 to the children and families they help, working around families’ schedules, meeting them before work or in the evening, when the whole family is together.

Youth Villages will be helping children and families in Decatur, Ripley, Dearborn, Jefferson, Switzerland and Ohio counties from its Madison office.

“We plan to open at least two additional offices in Indiana in the coming months,” Owsley said. “Our services are highly effective at strengthening families for the long-term, and we hope to help more and more children and families in Indiana every year. Because our service is so effective in the long-term, it is also highly cost-effective, which is an additional benefit to Indiana taxpayers.”

Youth Villages’ mission is to help emotionally and behaviorally troubled children and their families live successfully. This year, Youth Villages will help more than 18,000 children and families in 11 states and Washington, D.C., through a wide array of programs, including intensive in-home services, residential treatment, foster care and adoption, transitional living services, mentoring and crisis services.

Youth Villages’ focus on strengthening families consistently produces an 80 percent success rate of children living successfully at home even two years after completing a Youth Villages program.

Named one of the Top 50 Nonprofits to Work For by Nonprofit Times and Best Companies Group in 2010 and 2011, Youth Villages has been recognized by Harvard Business School and U.S. News & World Report, and was identified by The White House as one of the nation’s most promising results-oriented nonprofit organizations. For more information about Youth Villages, visit www.youthvillages.org.

Andrea Davis' experience as a counselor has helped when speaking with family members when she’s locating supports for youth who’ve been in state custody.

Some of them are easy. Maybe a simple online search or connecting through Facebook brings out family members of a child who has been in state custody for some time.

But many of them aren’t easy, and involve exhaustive investigation, countless phone calls and interviews with family acquaintances.

Andrea Davis makes calls and investigates – an uncle out-of-state, interviews with former foster families, searching online databases – to complete a puzzle for each young person, to find forgotten family. Many of the youth have spent years in state custody. Through terminated parental rights, stays at numerous foster and group homes and changing names, many young people in Youth Villages’ programs for extended periods of time don’t know if they have any family. They can’t tell you where any of their family members are. In many cases, the youth have simply fallen victim to a system that protected them.

Andrea takes on these cases and finds family for these youth. She has a knack for getting information, acting on even the most remote clues to identify aunts, cousins and other family members, many of whom are more than willing to take in or be a support for the young people. It’s not a job for someone who quits easily.

“Andrea’s very passionate about helping young people find permanency,” said Avery Duncan, Youth Villages regional supervisor. “She never gives up. Even faced with barriers, she perseveres and stays positive. When Andrea’s given a goal, she does whatever it takes to achieve that goal.”

A few months ago, Andrea took on a young person’s case that first involved a search through a national database that listed the youth’s mother as deceased since 2007.

The mother’s last known address was in Iowa. She found a partial obituary that reported the mother was killed along with her fiancee in an auto accident in Wisconsin. Andrea then searched national databases and was able to contact the fiancé’s extended family to find out what funeral home was used. Then a phone call to the funeral home revealed the names of the mother’s family members. Those relatives have been contacted and some are taking steps to take in the youth permanently. And while the youth was in custody in West Tennessee, none of the family contacted is from Tennessee.

“Because many of our youth are from out of state, there’s a huge need for someone to locate supports and family members,” Andrea said. “It’s rewarding at the end of it when a young person in one of our programs has family members and supports they can count on.”

The program was piloted in Nashville, but has since spread statewide. Youth Villages’ intensive family finder program is modeled after the St. Louis Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition’s Extreme Recruitment, which seeks out the foster children who are the hardest to find homes for and matches them with permanent adoptive families in a fraction of the time it usually takes. The program began in Memphis in January.

In another case, Andrea located a lost mother through Facebook. She was living out-of-state at the time, and the mother came to Memphis and picked up her daughter, who had aged out of state custody and was living in a homeless shelter.

“When I was younger, I actually wanted to go to the FBI and be a detective,” Andrea said.

She has binders full of information on her cases. Right now, she’s got five active cases. She starts with a genogram for each case, which constructs not only family relationships, but also identifies behavior, relationships and medical issues. She tries to fill them out as completely as possible.

“In many cases, it’s an ice-breaker when I first contact a family member,” Andrea said. “For the most part, families are very open and candid with me, even with more sensitive topics.”

Being a therapist, she’s able to assess quickly and ask the right questions. “Sometimes in speaking with a family member, I kick into counselor mode,” she said.
“But it can change the questions I’m asking and change the way I talk to them and get information.”

Because children are involved Davis’ call for help brings out the best in people.

“Maybe it’s a cultural thing, but I’ve been surprised how many people go above and beyond to help,” she said.

Plans are under way to expand the recruiting initiative throughout many Youth Villages locations.

“Every child deserves to have a family, and this is another example of Youth Villages being innovative and creative when working with youth,” Avery said. “With anything new, it takes time to figure out the best way to do things. But Andrea has been very successful at quickly locating relatives willing to build connections with our youth.”

Youth Villages MYPAC Therapist Joy Whitmore speaks with Madeline, left, during an individual counseling session. Whitmore worked with Madeline and Madeline’s daughter, Barbara. Whitmore is passionate about her work, and describes it as something with “a real sense of purpose.”

Joy Whitmore enjoys helping others.

This morning she’s meeting with Madeline in Vicksburg to talk about Madeline’s daughter, Barbara. It’s one of three families she’ll meet with today.

“Money is tight with this family, so we work on budgeting issues some and also work on solutions for Barbara’s behavior,” she said. “Recently, I came over here to help Madeline with a yard sale and we’re trying to find other ways to supplement the family’s income.”

Joy’s welcomed as if she were an old friend or member of the family. She’s also spoken to like one.

“I wanted to be in a job where I really help people and interact directly with them,” she said. “I think people who do this respond to a different calling. There’s a real sense of purpose to this work, and we do whatever needs to be done to help.” – Joy Whitmore

The visit is longer than most – Barbara is at school, and Joy has an opportunity to further discuss the family’s progress. Madeline discusses her concerns and fears for the future of her 14-year-old daughter and restoring a relationship.

“I’m not sure what I can do,” Madeline said. “People want peace in their home.”

They discuss options and scenarios to better address behaviors in the home. Joy leaves after more than an hour at the home. She challenges Madeline with assignments to help transition the family to a more stable, peaceful home.

Joy sees eight families once or twice a week, depending upon what the families feel they need. Having entered the foster care system herself at 16 after her grandmother passed away, she has a special perspective on family needs. She lived in foster and group homes all over East Tennessee. But her social worker stayed involved and challenged her to do more. In many ways, experiencing that support during her difficult times frames how Joy deals with her families as a therapist. Her social worker attended her college graduations and still checks in at least monthly.

“You’re a surrogate parent, coach, cheerleader and friend to your families,” Joy said. “Sometimes you have to tell them what they don’t want to hear. You have to be aggressive sometimes, but it has to be from a good place in your heart.”

Garrett McDill works to find previously unidentified or lost family members who are willing to provide permanent adoptive homes for foster children who have been in the system for a long time.

Youth Villages in Middle Tennessee is finding family for many children who believed they had none.

How important is family? At Youth Villages, we know it’s everything.

Roots, a sense of who you are and where you came from, are important as children mature into young adults and strive for independence. In addition, family ideally brings a sense of trust, a person or group of people who can be counted on.

Children who have been in foster care or at a group home for some time need that crucial support. Many times, children are ready to live at home after finishing their Youth Villages program, but they have no identified family – and no means of support or security.

For such children, Garrett McDill can be an angel. She is part counselor, investigator and genealogist and full-time locator of family members and supports for many of Middle Tennessee’s youth. She’s been with Youth Villages for more than three years, and leads an effort to solve these unique cases.

Youth Villages’ family finders program is modeled after the St. Louis Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition’s Extreme Recruitment, which seeks out the foster children who are the hardest to find homes for and matches them with permanent adoptive families in a fraction of the time it usually takes. The group hosted Charmaine Kromer, Youth Villages’ Middle Tennessee director of programs, and she believed the program could possibly help many of the Nashville area’s young people.

“Finding a permanent home for these youth requires more resources and more investigation,” Kromer said. “It’s critical to their identity to find family members. Even if the family member isn’t able to adopt, visitation and communication with a family member help that youth make a connection with family they didn’t know they had.”

In about four months, McDill has been able to find family placements for six youth. Each story is unique, but all of them likely wouldn’t have happened without someone like McDill devoting full attention to the case.

McDill’s first successful case involved a girl who had been in and out of foster care and group homes for five years. She’d managed the turmoil of her uncertain future well, and had previous behavior issues under control. But she had nowhere to go.

“She had no interest in being adopted and no one had looked at her case for some time,” McDill said. “Then, I got involved and met with her and identified family members she knew of.”

With the assistance of private investigators, McDill identified many extended family members interested in helping the girl. After interviewing everyone, McDill identified an aunt who had been previously overlooked as a placement option. That aunt is going through the process to adopt the girl.

In another case, McDill located a barber in Shelbyville who was identified as a possible father for a youth whose mother had recently been released from jail but wasn’t able to take care of the child. After many phone attempts to reach him failed, McDill drove to Shelbyville and found his business.

“I walked in and said who I was,” she said. “I spoke with him for a while and found out he’d never been contacted before. He told me he wanted to be a father to his son.

A paternity test confirmed it and now, the 13-year-old spends weekends visiting a father he didn’t know he had, which is awesome.”

Finding families involves a lot of trial and error right now because there’s no set model that works every time.

“I use what’s effective,” McDill said. “Each case is unique. We never set out looking for a placement option; we start out looking for supports for the youth. They need to feel a connection to relatives and family members, especially if there’s a past there.”

After being successful with six children, the program recently added another staff member.

“The program is really taking off for us so far,” Kromer said. “With the addition of another staff member, we’ll be able to look into more cases and help more young people.”

It also exemplifies one of Youth Villages’ values: children are raised best by their families.

“Before we go to work on a case, these children are known only by their names,” McDill said. “But when we find family help for them, they become someone’s cousin or someone’s nephew. They become someone a family member cares about. It makes a huge difference.”